So Kaiser envisions a new arts “ecology,” already moving into place, that will see many mergers, bankruptcies, downsizings, and closures among arts enterprises at all levels, but particularly among the midsized offspring of the postwar expansion. Only the best-governed, most aggressively marketed of them will stand a decent chance of surviving in a world of a few powerful hegemons. And while marketing is the responsibility of the managerial staff, governance is that of the board–which returns us to the question I raised about the New York City Opera. Kaiser outlines his vision of an ideal board–the industries that should be represented, the demographic and social groups that should be involved, and the giving levels that should be mandated. He specifies 35 members who can make capital gifts of anywhere from $25,000 to $250,000 (at least 10 of the latter) and annual gifts ranging from $10,000 to $50,000. So we’re already talking about an organization with a substantial budget, whose artistic identity and civic value is well established, and a willing donor pool of some wealth. But for Levy at Lincoln Center, this would be chump change. For him, $250,000 is the basic entrance fee, on top of which you’ll need to make a “leadership pledge” of, oh, $3-$5 million, payable in 3-5 years. During his tenure, he roped in 43 new trustees on these terms, besides tending to a bunch of others averaging $140,000 per annum. We can hardly argue with success.

Lincoln Center is, of course, one of the aforementioned hegemons, and not in itself an artistic entity but, as Lincoln Kirstein observed when explaining his resignation from its board back in the day, “ . . .a real estate development . . . in which art would only receive a more hygienic facility.” I doubt that there is another arts-related undertaking in the U.S. whose social cachet and superrich-networking attraction is comparable in fundraising terms. And when I contemplate that not a penny of its many donated millions go directly to art, but are drawn, like filings to a magnet compounded of high fashion, purportedly glam architecture, and social bling, to an entity whose function is essentially custodial (maintenance and amenities for the campus), and whose power and allure are, at least in some cases, in direct competition with the fundraising efforts of its constituents, who do make art . . . !

Underlying all the challenges outlined by Kaiser is a more fundamental economic reality. He describes it briefly early on, and Levy mentions it in passing. I deal with it at some length in Opera as Opera in relation to my envisioned Dream On Company, and it is detailed in a number of volumes by actual economists, a few of which are listed below. I cite it briefly here because it is so fundamental to an understanding of the arts’ precarity, and still so widely underappreciated among those trying to make a case for the arts, let alone those–not necessarily unsympathetic–who can’t see why the arts shouldn’t sink or swim on a pay-as-you-go basis, like any other enterprise. It’s sometimes called the Earned Income Gap or Productivity Gap, but most commonly named Baumol’s Disease, after its co-discoverer. Here’s the bare-bones version:

In most industries, inflation is offset by gains in productivity. The inevitable (over time) rise in costs is compensated for by increases in output (of the product or service) per man-hour, these increases facilitated by improved technology. This balancing-out allows the price of the product or service to remain at or near the overall rate of inflation, and keeps the industry viable as long as demand holds up. Certain industries, though, cannot avail themselves fully of these technology-driven productivity gains. They are labor-intensive sectors in which the numbers of wage-earning humans cannot be significantly reduced, and the improvements in technology are felt only on the periphery. Baumol and Bowens’ classic simplified example is that of the string quartet: a forty-five-minute composition in that genre takes three man-hours to play today, just as it did 200 years ago–there’s been no gain in productivity at all. Yet costs (of equipment, materials, support services, but above all labor) continue to be set by the economy as a whole, and there is no way such an industry (and for opera, multiply the quartet example many times over) can hold the line on pricing and break even. These industries are called “stagnant industries,” and in addition to the performing arts include health care and education. Since inflation is the law of the capitalist universe, the gap between even the potential for earned income and rising costs will widen in perpetuity, at a faster or slower rate depending on economic growth in general.

That’s why opera and the other live performing arts face an ever-steeper funding climb, even when governance is competent, marketing expert, etc., and why in my view there is no long-term solution short of exponentially increased public funding, not necessarily exclusively governmental, but with strong governmental involvement and leadership. There, I’m afraid, we’re back to politics, just as we are with health care and education. And since in the current climate we cannot see even those as unquestioned public goods, the case of the arts seems pretty hopeless. Not so hopeless, though, as assuming that cocktail parties, meet-the-artist events, naming inducements, fashion shows, and rattling the can up and down the aisles are going to stave off Baumol’s Disease for another hundred years. Even for magi like Kaiser and Levy, there’s finally a limit. (Kaiser’s own wish list includes a Secretary or Minister of Culture at cabinet level–the equivalent of which, as he points out, exists in most developed countries.)