I just saw a clip of NDP leader Jack Layton's campaign stop in Quebec today, where he promised increased funding for the arts. He said that Conservative cuts to arts funding are preventing artists from making a living. But it was interesting to me that he said he considers artists entrepreneurs.
My concept of entrepreneur must be different than Layton's. A quick search for definitions of entrepreneur backs me up. Here's a representative definition:
Entrepreneur: [an] individual who starts an enterprise with its associated risks and responsibilities.If no one finds an entrepreneur's product or business venture useful or worthy of investment, it fails. If someone values it enough, it will be profitable.
It is the entrepreneur who runs the risk that his product or business venture will not be profitable. It is not the business of the government to bail out private products and ventures that are not profitable on their own.
I agree that artists should be like entrepreneurs - let the free market support or reject them. I think the demand for good art will always be there. I'll privately support such art as I like. But if artists can't survive without government funding - my taxes - propping them up, maybe that says something about the demand for their art.
Mr. Layton, if artists really are entrepreneurs, then the Conservatives are the ones who have this one right.
