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Countries benefit massively from art. First-grade art attracts wealthy people who pay local taxes and wealthy tourists who contribute to the economic cycle of the country. For some European countries, the numbers are mind-blowing.

What you're describing then would only be a short term chicken and egg problem.

If, once established, a thriving art scene generates value by attracting tourism, wealthy individuals who want to patronize the arts, etc then the artists would be able to charge enough to fund themselves and potentially do very well for themselves.

In that scenario we'd only need to fully subsidize artists for a short period of time, the subsidy law should have an expiry date.

> we'd only need to fully subsidize artists for a short period of time

That's literally how it works (at least in France). The government sponsors artists early on. Those who make it big don't need the gov sponsoring (and lose eligibility to it). Those who don't continue to receive the sponsoring.

Some artists take a very long time to pan out (some way after their death) so it makes little sense to cut funding to artists on an expiry date basis.

Does it make sense for the government to fund artists indefinitely though, if the argued value is related to tourism, patronage, etc?

it is a short term benefit.

Art is not a free market. The art market is heavily manipulated by investors in art.

The subsidies and tax exemptions artists receive are small so if you are arguing for less state subsidy or its the least of the problems you should look at.

I am not convinced that this particular scheme is a good idea, but the alternative is not a free market.

> then maybe small businesses?

Big business already receives both explicit exemptions and defacto ones. Ireland is part of the mechanism that lets they structure their businesses in ways that avoid tax that are not available to small businesses.

you are citing distortions of a free market to invoke more distortions. This is the spiral I'm talking about.

A spiral we are 1000 years into? This little distortion seems to matter to you in a way that the much larger distortions created by governments don't. I don't understand.

People love to carve out little niches where certain special people can succeed more easily, or the pyramid of people in competition for the prize/money is smaller, so they have a better chance of getting something out of it. The trick is not to be working class and you have a good shot at someone somewhere being someone who has some influence to give you an easier ride.

This argument has a lot of holes in it. Notably,

> Planned economies have historically failed.

Very much false - the US war and post-war economy was very heavily planned, and was perhaps the most successful economy in history (precisely until it was gutted in the 70s/80s).

> best case scenario, create a proportional inflation

You give no reason to expect that this inflation will at best be proportional. It is perfectly possible (in fact likely) that the inflation will be less than proportional, because the price-setters (companies) are being taxed to give money to people on low incomes, who are economically speaking mostly consumers.

> Each of this "tax exemptions" or subsidies eats the profits of someone else. Very rarely it's the richest luxuries that are taken away.

Defeatist argument. It is obvious from history that taxation can be recouped from the rich, we just don't generally try to do that at the moment. We should start.

Companies are the same that both give salaries to consumers and can up prices. More taxes on companies means higher prices, job cuts, less salary increases. It's not necessary to point out that your quote of the post-war economy is cherry-picking. Plus, after a war it's very easy to get a recovery, especially if you win it.

You talk about the US, but look at countries where the state is both heavy on taxes and inefficient. The point is that you delegate decisions on what do do and how to do it to very few people. They can be good, or be bad. Diversifying on an entire market is better.

The only thing that can save middle/low class consumers is the hope that the state won't increase taxes faster than we can save money. A culture of proper saving, of not falling for luxury items presented as necessary by our peers (or companies selling them), is the only way out. Focusing on what matters.

Most of us are instead living in the illusion that we can live a luxury life.

> look at countries where the state is both heavy on taxes and inefficient

And you accuse me of cherry picking! I have to guess, since I don't know what you regard as "inefficient", but about half of the top-ten-GDP countries are high-tax western european economies. Normalising per capita just leaves oil countries and tax havens, so I'm not sure what metric to use.

> The only thing that can save middle/low class consumers is the hope that the state won't increase taxes faster than we can save money

Do you have any evidence from history to back this up? Saving has not done the lower/middle class very much good in the last 100 years. Is there any period you can point to where living standards improved because people were saving money faster than taxes increased? Taxes were very low in the 1800s - did it enable lower class people to save money?

Price inflation isn't the only type of inflation. Monetary inflation was historically the "inflation" people focused on, and given that Ireland runs a deficit in their state budget this would be adding to the debt and inflating the money supply.

> given that Ireland runs a deficit in their state budget

is this true? Last I heard Ireland ran a surplus for the last 5 years or so.

Well I'll be damned, I stand corrected! I had looked that up before posting and must have misread the a chart showing a slight surplus as shoeing a slight deficit instead.

** * libertarian