ABSTRACT
Each year a certain amount of taxpayer's money is devoted to subsidising the arts. Theatres, art galleries and opera houses sometimes seem close to depending for their existence on subsidies rather than the paying customer. Traditional Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy has it that art as part of the superstructure is necessarily a function of the technological base. Bell himself is talking exclusively about the visual arts, and therefore his views, even if accepted, might not apply to literature or music. Leo Tolstoy may stand as representative for the kind of view of art that the author wish to contrast with that of Bell, and for which he intend to argue on practical grounds. Art in this sense self-evidently has a value. It has a value in the pleasure it may give, in the greater communication and understanding between people it may promote, and in the content it may effectively disseminate.
