"If you need subsidies in order to live off art, you don't live off art but live off the state".

As part time artist I see many problems with these schemes:

- Decoupled from people's actual appreciation of the art being done: I feel better when I know people voluntarily gave up their hard-earned money for what I do. - Monopoly-style "winner takes all". The people who benefit from this are the ones already in a position to ask for the benefit. - No one bites the hand that feeds then. That will form a body of "artists" subservient to the state.

The human problem is that no artist is willing to acknowledge that the public is not willing to spend money on their product.