Some people believe that government funding of the arts is necessary to ensure that the arts can flourish and be available to all people Others believe that government funding of the arts threatens the integrity of the arts

The question of being publicly funded or privately funded has always been part of the ongoing intellectual and economic debate of modern history. Economist John M. Keynes and President Roosevelt where the two main figures that introduce the sphere of influence of the government in the private world of modern capitalism in the US, and the Soviet Union in 1917, this one being more extreme. Being so wide in scope, the question inevitably springs and touches economic fields, social fields and artistic fields. The latter, in particular, is at the center of a recent debate on whether the general market for art should be financed by the government or by private entities.
It is fundamental to define the scope of the concept of art. Anything that is the product of some creative and original process can be defined as artistic expression of someone’s mind. Therefore it is reasonable to ask ourselves whether a sublime product of the human’s brain should be considered universal or should be privately owned. In my opinion, the concept of universality of art should hold and there’s where the government intervenes. Think of some of the most successful museums in the world such as the Louvre or the British Museum or the Museum of Modern Arts. These are all examples of museums owned by the respective national departments of culture. The British Museum is also characteristic as it does not require you to pay for an entry ticket thanks to an efficient form of public financing that keeps its artistic wonders open to the wide public, no matter what.
Furthermore, government intervention is of primary importance when inefficiencies exist. The overall process of artistic production may encounter few disincentives in an environment where no regulation exists and where every step is let to the private entities. Thus, the government can intervene with adequate subsidies and forms of incentives and guarantees of copyright protection.
At the same time, opponents may argue that government funding can be detrimental for art production. There have been numerous examples in history where the government financing required a quid pro quo condition where the artistic production should glorify the nation and respect national regulations. This aspect is especially encountered in developing countries where basic rights of expression are violated and the same was happening under the Soviet Union where architecture, visual and literal arts where intended to be an expression of the Communist party.
On the other hand, subsidies of a government can actually derail from their primary objective of adjusting inefficiencies of the private market and become inefficient themselves. The government may end up diverging funds towards a specific form of art that mostly complies with the national identity that it wants to establish. However, it should be considered that private funding itself can also be diverging and not open to innovation. Impressionism in the 19th century had to wait for 100 years to be finally appreciated in the different groups of intellectuals and private art investors.
In conclusion, I believe in art being open to everyone as it is representative of how the cultural traditions of a specific nation have changed overtime. Architecture, literature, visual arts, sculptures, they are all part of a specific historic context and part of human history. The government should play a fundamental role in financing art protection and art development giving freedom of expression to artistic currents and equal treatment to new forms of expression that may go against the established conventions.