The assault on culture and the crisis of American capitalism (Detroit Symphony strike)

[Hannah Bell]

The strike by members of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO), which began Monday, is a politically and socially significant event. The players walked out in the face of management demands that would mean a severe decline in living standards -— a 33 percent cut in base pay and reduction in the pay for new-hires of 42 percent, along with sharply reduced health coverage and a freeze in pensions...The crisis at the DSO is part of a national phenomenon. Budgets for arts groups and arts education are under relentless attack from governments in the US at all levels, while wealthy individuals and corporations are reducing their financial gifts.

American capitalism in decline has neither interest in, nor financial support to offer, artistic creation. In more prosperous times, the corporate elite felt there was a certain prestige value in subsidizing various educational and cultural activities. Now the aristocracy that rules the US views every dollar not accruing to itself to be a waste and even something of an affront. Cultural life in America is in serious danger from the vandals who sit in boardrooms and legislative chambers.

The notion that “the money is no longer there” (Detroit News) to support an orchestra -— or a library or a public school for that matter -— in Detroit, or anywhere else in America, is ludicrous. The financial markets and corporate coffers are awash in trillions. The News argues that “Working harder for less money is not an easy thing to accept. But it’s what the community that supports the DSO has had to do over the past decade.”

Which community? The very wealthy in Michigan (and in the US as a whole) are wealthier than ever. Bloomfield Hills, north of Detroit, ranks number four on the list of highest-income places in America with a population of more than 1,000 -— even as median household income in Michigan has plunged more than 21 percent over the last decade and Detroit’s official poverty rate has reached 36 percent. In 2006, Forbes listed 8 billionaires in Michigan worth $16.5 billion. This year the magazine points to 10 billionaires worth $21 billion (a 22 percent increase).

The pseudo-populist attempt to pit DSO players, and other professionals, against lower-paid workers should be rejected with contempt. The interests of the latter are only championed by the media when it comes to beating down the efforts of slightly better-off sections of the population to defend their gains and rights. The socially decisive differences in income are not between those making $30,000 and those making $130,000, but between this entire class of wage and salary-earners and the super-rich who individually loot the economy to the tune of millions, and in the case of Wall Street hedge fund managers, billions of dollars a year...

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/oct2010/pers-o05.shtml

[Starry Messenger]

1. k & r

I think art always has its back against the wall first in this country. We accepted monstrous cuts in the '90's under the promise that the community federal grants would stay intact. What happened to that?

[madrchsod]

2. once again...but over this?

to bad those who unrec don`t have the balls to post why...

yes the neo-wealthy do`t contribute because of the tax codes. if it was`t for the tax codes in the past our country would`t have the institutions we have now.

hell the university of chicago was a gift.

[Romulox]

3. We have massive childhood poverty in the D, and WSWS is worried about urban farming

and whether the DSO members will have to a take a pay-cut that will STILL leave them making 2 or 3 times the median wage for the area. Couple that with bromides about how a threat to a symphony orchestra is a threat to "culture" (have these people even heard any the music that makes Detroit famous? From Smoky Robinson to J Dilla, with the MC5 et al. in between? ) The DSO isn't really Detroit culture. That's why nobody here really cares.

And why nobody here would dare try to connect DSO symphony members struggles to "survive" on $80 or $90 k in this region with the broader travails of the working class.

That's why I unrecced.