Artistic inheritance does not cause excessive centralized powers, as too often natural resources do...though intellectual inheritance could
Sir, Janan Ganesh discussing the possible effect on Europe of its “intellectual and artistic inheritance” refers to the natural“resource curse” in terms of retarding development, as “The temptation is to coast on the proceeds from the natural assets.” Clive James and Europe’s culture curse” November 29,
Indeed, that could play a role but the by far worst part or the “resource curse”, is the fact that its revenues are way too often way too much centralized in way too few hands.
Take my homeland Venezuela. Had its (geographical) liberator Simon Bolivar not accepted to impose in Venezuela in 1829 Spain’s mining ordinances, which deemed all natural resources under earth to be the property of the King/state, our destiny would have been quite different. As is, as someone from another oil cursed nation mentioned to me years ago, “we do not live in a nation, we live in somebody else’s business”, the redistribution profiteers’.
And this does not apply to the artistic inheritance’s culture curse. The Museum of Louvre might centralize a lot of cultural treasures, but it does not remotely benefit as much from it, as do the citizens of Paris.
Of course, when it comes to an “intellectual culture curse”, which could result from handing over too much influence to too few intellectuals, like to Ph.D.’s and opinion makers, that can contain all the inheritance in a silo, in a mutual admiration club, all bets are off, in Europe and everywhere.
@PerKurowski
Posts
