There's nothing wrong with valuing productivity and unvaluing unproductivity, but capitalism fetishizes it to the extreme, kills people who don't have it, and defines the One True Productivity that you have to meet to not be killed. A lot of artists suffer from this last point where they are being productive but not in ways that capitalism values.

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everdrive 2 hours ago | parent [-]

>A lot of artists suffer from this last point where they are being productive but not in ways that capitalism values.

I'm just not convinced. If there's not a market for your art, yes you will not be able to sell it and make a living. But, in other systems:

- Your art disagrees with the soviet government, so you are sent to a torture / labor camp to work until you die.

- The soviet government does not care about your art, but you're still in the soviet union and everyone is poor so no one can pay for your art anyhow.

- It's the 1600s Europe, and you're only sort-of in a capitalist society given modern definitions, but the Church doesn't like your writing so you've been locked up.

- Your are a subsistence farmer, and have absolutely no chance of creating art whatsoever given how busy and poor you are.

- You're a subsistence farmer, and somehow you manage to make art, but the only people you have access to are the ~2,000 people in your immediate vicinity, and none of them have any money to pay for your art to support you, and they are not willing to trade a chicken for a song.

vs.

- You have the most niche art you can imagine, (eg: Dark Souls analysis, or Harry Potter fanfiction where Snape gets pregnant and is constantly embarrassed by it) but due to (lousy, imperfect) platforms such as Patreon and the internet you can get enough patronage to support yourself, even if it's just barely.

I'm just not convinced that artists are doing worse now (in terms of per-capita artists) than other times in history, or under other systems.

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inigyou 2 hours ago | parent [-]

oh my god can we stop acting like the only possibilities are american "capitalism" or soviet "communism", it's exhausting

	▲	everdrive 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		>oh my god can we stop acting like the only possibilities are american "capitalism" or soviet "communism", it's exhausting No way -- I threw in 1600s Europe as well as subsistence farming in there. I think the Patreon point is really interesting. I really don't like Patreon or anything like that, but is a bit miraculous. There's some really, really, niche art up there. That sort of art would have NEVER found an audience, even as recently as the 90s. If it had to be on TV, or in a book, no publisher or producer would have touched it. And even if they had, said publisher or producer would have never managed to find the 0.001% of the population who was interested in it. The kind of niche art that's available now was simply never possible in any other time in history. A potential counter-argument could be something like: yes, in the past artists could not have just produced just what they wanted, but perhaps more artists were previously employable (even if they had to just make paintings or Jesus or some other popular thing they didn't really care for.) What do you think about that?