> Hi Ray,
>
> At 12:38 09/04/01 -0400, you wrote:
> >HP has an orchestra for their employees. Anyone with any sense at all
> >knows you can't "downsize" the flute player and still have an ultimate
> >product. That is also the reason my computer and scanner is HP. I've
had
> >almost no need to call their tech support and when my scanner developed a
> >slight problem they simply replaced it rather than taking both our time
and
> >money. REH
>
> Sadly, though, this is what it's coming to.
>
> Three days ago my better-half was singing in Bach's St Matthews' Passion
in
> Bath Abbey. It was a suberb performance and the Abbey was full -- and all
> seats were at sky-high prices. The Bath Bach Choir is probably one of the
> best half-dozen in England, and three of the soloists were of
international
> standard. Yet the "Friends" of the Choir had to subsidise the soloists and
> the Musicians Union had to subsidise the cost of the Wessex Chamber
> Orchestra. And it just about broke even.
>
> Orchestras are being remorselessly ground out of existence. All four major
> orchestras in London are massively subsidised, just as the opera houses
> are. In our case, they're all subsidised by the State and there are
> indications that all these will be reduced substantially in coming years.
>
> In the field of choral music, which interests me particularly, I've
> detected the beginning of what may be a new trend. This is the rise of
> "sing-alongs" whereby singers gather for ad hoc,
> all-in-one-rehearsal-and-performance events for which they, not the
> audiences, pay. These seem to be economically viable whereas the average
> choral concert loses money, even though the singers have to pressurise all
> their friends and relatives to buy tickets.
>
> I think that "serious" music is dropping back to being enjoyed by
> performers for its own sake (or as background music for church ceremonies)
> as in the formative era of western music 300 to 500 years ago. We've now
> gone past the romantic period of prima donnas (performers, conductors,
> composers) of a century ago when vast concert halls were built and where
> audiences went to concerts as much to be seen by the other notables of the
> city as to enjoy the music.
>
> Keith Hudson
Welcome to the world of "neo-liberal" economics. Economist William
Baumol first documented the productivity lag issue in 1966. It even has
a name in economic circles. It is called Baumol's disease and it is much
worse than mad cow or hoof and mouth. There is no cure and the whole
culture dies.
Unless there is an answer outside the private enterprise zone. For example
we could return to Aristocracy where only the landed folks vote and they pay
for the performances as in times past. Or we could do as the American
military, CIA and later the CIA through the Ford Foundation did in Europe,
including England, which is to fund artistic ventures in order to defeat the
Communist claim that Capitalism is incapable of sustaining real complex High
Art. (They also supported and funded civil rights in the US for the same
reason.)
Your observations certainly seems to bear out the Communist claim since the
demise of the Soviets has removed any reason for serious arts funding by the
intelligence community. So military socialism defeated communist
socialism in European Art but the free market is incapable of solving the
Baumol disease dilemma. Baumol has also traced it into the other public
sectors like health, education, religion etc. In other words, anything
with an intellectual capital public goods side to it is trapped in
Capitalism and dies a slow death as the public abandons it due to its costs.
Taylorist "science" made the "dumb worker" the ideal while small ensembles
playing basic harmonies over and over with complicated texts that are cheap
to hire and that technology makes it run for the simple cost of the
electricity are the ideal productivity for commercial music. These are
the issues as I have said ad infinitum on this list and others. That it
costs as much today to pay an orchestra as it did in 1900. Everyone
else's wages have gone down and the product has limited seating and the
orchestra still costs 4 to 8 dollars a second. A rock band is five
musicians and kills your ears so you don't care. The loudest noise in 19th
century Europe was distant cannons. There is some hope in that the
electronic media's cost, like TV and the movies, has gone up faster then the
live music recently but that is probably a fluke. I would suggest that
you take another look at state support for public goods industries that have
values outside of simple profit and loss. Read Justin Lewis Art Culture &
Enterprise (in the UK) Routledge. The day of big government and big
private enterprise will return and the little guy will not be tied to
private enterprise. Democratic government supported by an informed
population is the only answer. The process of art is
Perception>Virtuosity>Intuition = Art. Its complexity is relative to the
sophistication of the composer and his audience. So just like IBM, Art
must have consumers with a willingness to learn its abstractions. People
who participate in the artistic process carry that "built" intuitive process
creatively into other professions. That is why the best Doctor is called
an "artist" at healing and often plays a musical instrument.
How long did the followers of Ptolemy tinker before they just gave up the
system? They did eventually give it up not because it failed but because
it took too much to make it work and then it didn't make common sense.
Modern neo-liberal economics has eliminated so many of the reasons that we
consider life to have meaning that it is amazing that it is still here.
People like Friedman and Weber are praised for their genius but the world
they inhabit is barren. Why would a genius want to live in such a world?
Either he's emotionally ill or he is not a genius, just clever like a
savant.
And welcome to the world that Harry Pollard and I have been arguing about
for several years except he is wrong. Like the internet music freaks,
he thinks its just choice. The only way it gets out to the public is if
the musicians are amateur or have another job and pay for it themselves.
We call that Vanity Press in the real world. So where is the Future of
Work folks? What are those 40% with no jobs going to be doing? Lying
around at home, making babies and demanding "there fair share." How about
paying them to grow and make art? Develop the quality of life for the
WHOLE society. But the issue is now and has always been the impracticality
of Utilitarian theories and their inability to deal with all of the elements
that make a society human. Value is not use. It is much more than that.
Ray Evans Harrell
>
> >----- Original Message -----
> >From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >Sent: Monday, April 09, 2001 11:54 AM
> >Subject: Another way
> >
> >
> >>
> >> THE "HP WAY": AGILENT CHOOSES SALARY CUTS OVER LAY-OFFS
> >> Rather than lay off workers during the current economic slump,
> >> Hewlett-Packard spin-off Agilent Technologies will temporarily cut the
> >> salaries of all 48,000 workers, including management, by 10%. The
decision
> >> is consistent with the famous "HP Way" developed by company founders
Bill
> >> Hewlett and Dave Packard, who stressed the importance of showing
respect
> >> for individuals. (San Jose Mercury News 5 Apr 2001)
> >> http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/news/svtop/agilen040601.htm
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> ___________________________________________________________________
>
> Keith Hudson, General Editor, Calus <http://www.calus.org>
> 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England
> Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727;
> mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> ________________________________________________________________________
