Jet Bussemaker is satisfied. For the next few years, there will be little whining about the subsidies under her regime. She states this in her letter this weekend. After all, the basis of the system is fixed: there are great museums, symphony orchestras, opera and theatre clubs whose subsidies are cast in concrete. Or rather carved from classical marble, because money gets you based on past performance, not for your visionary future plans. Those who nurture vision can apply to funds and lower authorities. Something needs to be done about talent development there too. What exactly, we will know in just over a year and a half.
Finally getting rid of the quadrennial whining?
Yes, Bussemaker has succeeded. What her predecessors, including Halbe Zijlstra, invariably ran up against was the little war that broke out in arts country every four years when the government subsidies had to be divided up. Because every four years, there was the suggestion that everything could and should be different. Big, old companies feared (often rightly) for their survival, while young and small clubs loudly demanded a place in the premier league.
The previous PvdA member in charge of culture, Rick van der Ploeg (state secretary from 1998-2002), thought he could get rid of the nagging by admitting a few dozen young and up-and-coming makers to that premier league under the motto: you guys take care of it yourselves who makes room for whom. Which did not happen, because once inside the structural subsidy, nobody wants to risk their mortgage and health insurance. The number of makers who generously made way for a new generation due to artistic exhaustion can be counted on the finger of one leper's hand.
After some years of muddling through, they came up with a basic infrastructure that would bring peace of mind. That is the system of which Bussemaker is now so proud: conceived in 2008, introduced in 2009, but stripped to the bone in 2012. The basic infrastructure, with room for old and mature, young and innovative, and very young and learning. Neatly distributed across various pots. Everyone was happy with it. For the first time in 2012, a new distribution of money would take place without lawsuits, demonstrations, lobby fights and other subsidy woes.
Until Halbe Zijlstra came along and decided the cut could be made. The consequences are known.
Is the vision of the future really as unimportant as Bussemaker says?
It's mark Rutte's big pink elephant: vision. He hates that word. And now it has also been elevated to cultural policy. After all, according to Jet Bussemaker, grand plans for the future are death in the pot. Every grant application in the past decades was full of them, and it is true: afterwards, no one asked what actually came of those plans. That was because, after those four years, there was usually a completely different State Secretary than the one after whose vision model those creators had been written. So the cultural sector wrote itself from vision to vision. From 'youth' to 'diversity', to 'education'.
So now it is no longer about vision, but about 'past performance'. In reckoning with hindsight, quite useful. Only: what do we consider important achievements?
Surely public outreach cannot be a reason to get subsidy?
Subsidies are given because the government considers something important, but at the same time it is known that it can never be paid from the market. For years, that was the logic behind subsidies for healthcare, education, science and culture. That logic has now changed to: everything should in principle be paid from the market, but as long as it is yet can't, a little money can go a long way. Understandable in itself, but this liberal dogma sounds more realistic than it is. After all, we are still stuck with a centuries-long tradition of high tax burdens, and thus a trust among citizens that the government of that 60% of your income takes care of the needy, and of education, healthcare and culture. Now the government still claims 60% of the highest incomes, but also no longer puts a leg up on the needy, education, healthcare and culture. So some rightly wonder what happens to all that money now.
So the problems are not out of the world?
The basic infrastructure system stripped down by Halbe Zijlstra is a conservative system that offers no guarantee for the future now. After all: what is good now, and can also be judged on the recent past, may be out tomorrow. Research and Development, the core values of any good economy, are not embedded in the system. Indeed, they were taken out by Bussemaker's predecessor, and only in 2015 will she know if anything can start to be arranged for them.
Chances are we will be left with an ageing and rigid system full of old and early museums, artists and companies that have no reason to deviate from already proven successes. Newcomers may someday be able to develop their talents, but will of course have to conform to the system running on proven successes if they are ever to be able to afford a mortgage or health insurance.
So, in eight years at the latest, the whole system will go down the drain. With a lot of shouting and misery.
Bussemaker's letter can be found here.
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