A cultural payment card for all

The proposal here is straightforward enough. But the reasoning behind the concept is more sophisticated.

I. A cultural payment card would be delivered annually to everyone, including children. It would resemble and work like the telephone cards which were commonplace thirty years ago. That is, it would be a piece of plastic with a value impregnated on it. It would not be attached to the identity of the recipient and could easily and legally be traded, either as barter or for cash. It would expire after one and a half years.

Its purpose is to pay for in-person (“live”) events such as concerts and plays (theatre), or entrance to art exhibitions and museums. It would not be valid for the cinema and similar. It is mainly to ensure that there is money to pay artists, performers and the like where their physical presence is the defining feature. In the case of museums and art exhibitions, the defining feature is the physical presence of the visitor.

Only registered associations / organisations would be able to access (i.e. withdraw) the funds recorded on the cards.

II. The purpose of the cultural payment card is to encourage and subsidise attendance at such events and venues.

Since the invention of recorded music and film, most artists and performers have struggled to generate income. High-paid celebrities are the exception.

The State, state-sponsored media and otherwise wealthy corporations or individuals have stepped into the breach. It is they and their bureaucrats who decide who should be subsidised and who go empty-handed. Needless to say, their judgement and decisions leave much to be desired.

Depending on the annual value assigned to the cultural card, all this intermediate funding could be abolished. This includes various subsidies which are cumbersome to obtain. The revenues obtained by performers etc. would be tax-free.

The result would be devolution of cultural choice to consumers as a whole, as befits a proper market economy.

People who cannot or do not wish to attend the qualifying events and venues would be able to sell their cards at a price to be determined by the market. This would be advantageous to people who attend many concerts or venues.

Growing children would be able to learn to spend their “money” and would experience live culture such as pantomime at first hand.

I have left spectator sport (e.g. football matches) out of the list of qualifying events. This is an area where there is no need for subsidy. Nor does my understanding of culture extend to suchlike.

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The following is an addition which would open up new perspectives. It is based on the principle that Money requires Circulation, but that, where possible, there should be closed circuits for money.

Where does the funding for the cultural card come from? One assumes it must come from the general taxation levied by government.

But a closed circuit is conceivable as follows.

In order to restore freedom of the press and liberate it from corporate & state interests, I have proposed that there be mandatory payments by all citizens to finance mass media (i.e. media which are accessible to all-comers without charge). All substantial media would be eligible for such payments, but with the media financed being chosen by the payees. See https://www.fuzzydemocracy.com/fzyenglish/infowars.html

The level of these mandatory payments could be set at exactly the same level as the funds dedicated to cultural events (i.e. the cultural card).

This way anyone complaining about being forced to pay for mass media which does not interest them (despite the wide choice) has the consolation that they are being provided —— by the back door —— with compensation in the form of the Cultural Card.

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A reminder: The purpose of these proposals is to ensure that a sufficient level of funding is available for both live cultural events and for independent mass media. Otherwise there will be (is) recourse to corporate funding or finance from the super-rich, both of which lead to distortions and to censorship.

Human nature being what it is, those staging live cultural events and genuinely independent journalists struggle to obtain sufficient funds from a broad public with only an average income. The services they provide are not such that they can be invoiced in full realistically.

In a sense the equation proposed here is artificial, but it does provide an anchor. People are free of course to spend much more on in-person culture, or on supporting journalism.

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Ramifications and Refinements

At first glance, the cultural payment card, delivered to all adults and children, might seem to be of benefit only to performers & artists on the one side and, on the other, the likes of concert-goers and visitors to art galleries.

But it has ramifications. Universally, the complaint goes out about the drift to lives lived mostly with screens and remote communications, with corresponding diminishment of personal interaction. Commentators are quick to decry this development, but few have anything constructive to set against it. The cultural payment card for in-person events & venues would be a small step but a significant one.

It would be a “nudge” (not all nudges need be bad! or say it would be a “counter-nudge”) encouraging attendance at such events & venues. It would be self-financing since expenditure would be saved on the bureaucrats who currently administer subsidies to such events & venues.

The value of the payment card could be set the same as the BBC license fee (or equivalent in other jurisdictions). This would send a signal without any need for it to be highlighted. Resale would be at a price to be determined by the market. Some cards might go unused or incompletely used. This would not be a serious deficiency.

Some words on refinements

1. A practicality: The card would be issued annually but with a validity of one & a half years so that there is no immediate cut-off date as soon as the year ends or while the arrival of the new card is awaited.

2. The child’s card might be distinguished from the adult card; this would discourage (but not prevent) poor parents trading away a child’s access to in-person events and events. In the case of children, charges covered might include visits to zoos, pony-rides, pantomime, acrobatic circuses or even music lessons. The card might cover any charges levied for borrowing physical (paper) books from lending libraries. At this stage there is no need to settle all details.

3. Revenue would, ideally, be tax-free. The imposition of tax, whether VAT or income tax, on revenues earned by such small players as addressed here is in any case onerous, disproportionate and inexcusable. But that is another debate.