Now, some people might object, so I will address objections some may have
- "Collectivization destroys individuality!"
This completely misconstrues what collectivization of art is. Collectivization of art does not mean that all art will look the same/have the same message/etc. Collectivization of art does mean that the people as a collective have the right to use, redistribute, and derive art made by the people.
- "But isn't this stealing?"
Let me ask you something. If I had a "make a bicycle" button that magically creates a bicycle out of thin air, then would it be "stealing" for you to press the "make a bicycle" button and keep the bicycle for yourself? Stealing something involves an intent to deprive someone of something, and what are you depriving me of? Bicycles? It is utterly absurd to say that I am being deprived of bicycles when I can just press the "make a bicycle" button and have as many bicycles as I wish. But, say that I create a "make a bicycle" button and then Mike decides to tell everyone that only he can press the "make a bicycle" button. This action now deprives the people of bicycles, and is thus much closer to stealing than you pressing the "make a bicycle" button.
- "But how will you earn money?"
Do you really think the optimal way to earn money off of the art to produce is to sell it off piecemeal by creating artificial scarcity? A collectivized system of art would require a vastly different system of compensation compared to the current privatized art that exists today. The system of payment for collectivized art requires socialist planning. When an artist publishes a work of art, they will be given a government grant equivalent to the amount of labor that was put in in exchange for the art being able to be used and derived by the public. This is a much more equitable and fair system of production and distribution of art.
- "But what if someone takes credit for your art?"
Collectivization of art does not mean removing credit from the original author. Redistributing art in a collectivized system would still require the redistributor to credit the original creator. The person's art will still be protected by a trademark, not a copyright. This means that the art will always be linked to the original creator, and the original creator will still be able to take action against people who fail to credit them/intentionally take unauthorized credit.
- "But what about freedom? Should I not have the freedom to choose who can distribute my art?"
This idea, although it may seem like human nature to liberals, has only arisen when publishers, the real thieves of art, have created strict copyright laws to protect themselves, not the creators. Before the age of publishers, these ideas did not exist, as there was no material justification for these ideas to arise. Just as these ideas have arrived with privatized art, they will also leave with privatized art. This argument falls in the same category as the "communism goes against human nature" category, as they both use the justifications the current system creates for itself as "evidence" against alternative, and superior, systems.
If you have any counterpoints, please comment them below! ^^
I don't like the grant idea. It can be easily used as a scam. Also who decides what is art and what is worth a grant? You've yet again commodified art.
The ideal way to collectivize art is to remove the incentive for a wage. If people have free time and the means to express themselves then many will be creating art. Then it's up to them or the community to display it.
I feel the Soviet system was the fairest. You make art. You get judged by a local or national commitee of artists, if your art is worth it, you get inducted into the local or national Art Institute. You get paid a wage to be producing art every so often.
"Who decides what is art and deserves a grant?"
Answer: Members of an Artists' Council, who are democratically elected and their positions can be revoked at any time by a majority vote. As for the idea that "this turns art back into a commodity", this is a comparison between apples and oranges. The pricing of a commodity is not agreed upon by a group of democratically-elected people who are coerced by their position being beholden to a vote of the people to have fair pricing. Your argument implies that any production where compensation for labor occurs is commodity production.
For the first part I agree. I alluded to it in the part about the soviet union.
For the second part, I'm talking about art being commodified in the sense that it is turned into a profession for a living. Yes, this is not a commodity in the Marxist sense, but it matters to a degree for artists. I believe artists SHOULD BE ABLE to make a living from their labour put into art. But there's also the idea that artistic expression should be allowed to occur freely and without timetables or provisions etc. Therefore my argument about free time being the ideal state of things, where everyone can be able to create art equally. Otherwise, other systems tend to create conditions where some select few artists are rewarded, while everyone else is not.