‘The Subsidised Muse’: The Case for State Funding of the Arts

Politicians and taxpayers understandably want to know how their money is being spent and whether to good effect or not. This applies across the whole public sector, including expenditure on the arts. One might argue that the ‘output’ of the arts sector is very difficult to measure, and this is probably true, but so also is the output of the police service or the educational system or the health service. The arts sector is no different.