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Comment by nabla9 | Hacker News Reader

Rockefeller and other billionaires are class of people who collect cultural artifacts and value give them absurdly high valuations without making money out of them. They signal their peers that money does not matter to them using art.

99% of what gives art it's value is that it's collectible and can't be owned by others. Today you can take a good photo of the painting, or replicate statue so well that you need expert to find out it's not the original. Being a good replication will not decrease aesthetic value of art, it just decreases the collectible value and social prestige from owning it (masses can't own originals).

Valuing 'original' is capitalistic invention.

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That’s not fair. Much of what gives art its value is its usefulness in money laundering..... arbitrarily high-priced items with no inherent value are staples for legitimizing cash transfers.

That's part of value but not what big money billionaires do.

They actually spend money to fund institutions that eat hundreds of millions and what they get is galas and places to mingle. Really really rich are not laundering money. They are burning it to show they are cultured elite and not just rich.

Nonsense, look at the myth of King Arthur and the search for the Holy Grail. Why go to such lengths if this specific Grail didn't have some sentimental meaning beyond its basic beauty and function as an inanimate object? Isn't that the whole point of valuing 'original'? The essence of the user or creator is thought to be instilled in the original and that fact alone has value.

You have no idea. Take a look at how the super rich use modern art as a store of value and a tax deduction.

Or full tax-evasion.

A lot of high priced pieces of art are only sold/bought in the basis of moving money discreetly.

Bingo. And they are stored in airport storage facilities to claim international tax-free status... Storing visual art in warehouses never to be seen is a move so brazen that it should have been cracked down on long ago

I wonder what percent of money coming in to fund art in general comes from the 0.X%.

Obviously there is a tax angle here, at which point the tax authorities should care about your chicanery, but I wonder because, even if it isn't realistic to make "mistreatment of art" a civil or criminal liability, you could make it into a social liability.

If you destroy art, or squirrel away an undue amount never to be seen again, or what-have-you, and in return, a number of prestigious artists and art institutes could decline to have anything to do with you. You could no longer serve on the board of the Met, and your donations would be refused. Artists would refuse to sell to you or accept commissions. I suppose it would be counterproductive to stop accepting loans of art to exhibit in the museums, but perhaps they would only be accepted to exhibit anonymously -- no "on loan from Big Wig collection" next to the painting.

This probably wouldn't work if too much of the money that flows to artists and art institutes comes directly from the pockets of billionaires; I'd be surprised if, on aggregate, even principled people would be willing to cut out more than 5 or 10% of their income as a matter of said principles.

Well this kinda happened a few months back to some very wealthy US family (I think they got very rich thanks to selling legal opioids, during the opioid crisis) but somehow and by donating loads of cash, they ended up with their names on Museums, Universities, etc...

Can't remember their name though

The Sacklers. Although they had their names on lots of things before their connection to the opioids crisis came out.

> Valuing 'original' is capitalistic invention.

I think "valuing originality" is a human trait. Putting a monetary value on it is a capitalist invention.

I think originality is a relatively new concept in human thought. The Sanskrit book I’m reading at the moment ha a startlingly new interpretation of an ancient school of philosophy but the author takes pains to note that he is not saying anything new but merely recovering the “true meaning” which was lost a long time ago. Or think of all the medieval forgeries which were attributed to Aristotle or some other ancient author.

Valuing innovation over continuity is one of the distinguishing features of modernity versus traditional cultures.

It might be because it was difficult to capture the value created by an invention in the time before common law, capitalism, and intellectual property rights.

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