This is the first of three interlinked opinion pieces on art, technology, and the world we could build. Read parts two and three for the full argument.

Hot take, hot cakes.

Look, before we get into it: art has never been one thing. What we call "art" has transformed dramatically throughout human existence — hell, it’s changed in the past 72 hours since I started drafting this.

For our earliest ancestors, art wasn’t separate from life; it was integral to it. Cave paintings weren’t created for galleries: they were technologies for understanding and perhaps controlling the natural world. Ancient Greek artisans didn’t distinguish between "fine art" and "craft" — they created functional objects with aesthetic excellence. Medieval artists largely served religious purposes, creating works to glorify God and educate the illiterate about biblical stories and fables.

It wasn’t until the Renaissance that we began to see artists as individual geniuses rather than skilled craftspeople. The Romantic era further cemented the notion of the artist as a special, tormented soul with unique vision (cue radically hot, dishevelled, handsome, and egoistic artist, lol). By the 20th century, art had become increasingly self-referential, often concerned with breaking its own boundaries.

The Calydonian Boar Hunt by Peter Paul Rubens

What’s fascinating is that throughout most of this history, nobody questioned whether art needed to justify its economic value. Art was variously: a magical technology, a religious necessity, a marker of status and power, a vehicle for national identity, a method of recording history. It was the Industrial Revolution and subsequent capitalist frameworks that gradually forced art to justify itself in market terms. Museums began measuring success by visitor numbers rather than cultural impact. Theatres focused on ticket sales over artistic innovation. Schools cut programmes that didn’t lead directly to employment.

We’re now in the peculiar position where art must prove its worth through metrics utterly disconnected from its purpose. Like, wtf. Makes my blood boil (just a tad).

Isn’t that a bit ridiculous? Imagine if we demanded that family relationships demonstrate their GDP contribution before we decided whether they were worth maintaining. “Sorry, Grandma, your quarterly productivity metrics are down 3.2%. We’re going to have to cut your dinner invitations until you show improvement.” Side comment: I’d probs be whacked with a bamboo rice paddle for saying that in my house. ANYWAYSSS…

The very notion that art should be measured by its economic output rather than its human value reveals just how deeply market logic has colonised our thinking. We’ve become so accustomed to viewing everything through the lens of economic utility that we’ve forgotten there might be other ways to assess worth.

When Numbers Don’t Tell the Full Story

The irony is even by pure capitalist logic, the arts sector wins.

The creative industries contributed £145.8 billion to the UK economy in 2024, accounting for 5.5% of UK gross value added — growing at four times the rate of the wider economy between 2023 and 2024 (UK Government / The Creative Industries, 2026). The sector employs 2.4 million people and is 12% bigger than before the pandemic (Creative UK, 2025). In the US, arts and cultural activity accounted for 4.2% of GDP — $1.17 trillion — in 2023 (BEA / NEA, 2025). France’s cultural and creative industries generate €32.1 billion in export revenues, account for around 2% of the French economy, and employ nearly 600,000 people (French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs).

Photo by Muneeb S from Unsplash

The exportation of cultural products has proven particularly transformative for East Asian economies. Look at how South Korea leveraged K-pop, film, and television as engines of both economic and soft power growth: the “Korean Wave” (Hallyu) generated an estimated $12.3 billion impact on the Korean economy in 2019 alone, dramatically increasing tourism and consumer goods exports (Martin Roll, 2021). Similar patterns can be seen with Japan’s anime and J-pop industries and China’s growing C-pop and film sectors. These aren’t just entertainment products; they’re sophisticated cultural diplomacy tools that reshape global perceptions while creating economic opportunities. Yes, there are side effects — like the sometimes excessive idolisation of BTS members or Taylor Swift (a conversation for another day; I tend to digress into many-a-tangents) — but the broader impact on economic resilience and cultural exchange remains undeniable.

By any reasonable capitalist metric, art is a powerhouse. A wealth generator. A job creator. A-duh!

Yet when budgets tighten, arts funding is always first on the chopping block. Public grants disappear. Corporate sponsorships evaporate. Educational institutions slash theatre, music, and fine art programmes faster than you can say “STEM is the future.” Reminds me of startups: marketing’s creative teams are usually the first to go. Bah, oui. C’est la vie quoi.

It’s a paradox that would be funny if it weren’t so tragic: we claim to value what makes money, but then actively defund one of our most productive sectors.

What gives? Why is it that we’ll fund a highway expansion without blinking an eye but require arts organisations to justify their existence through economic impact studies, community engagement metrics, and visitor demographics?

Part of the answer lies in our discomfort with things we can’t easily quantify. You can count how many cars move through an intersection. You can’t count how many minds were expanded by an exhibition or how many souls were moved by a performance — at least not in ways that fit neatly into capitalist spreadsheets.

There’s also something deeply ideological at work. Arts funding often becomes a proxy battleground for larger culture wars. Supporting creative expression means acknowledging that value exists beyond market exchange — a dangerously non-capitalist notion that threatens to spill over into other areas of public policy. If we admit that some things are worth supporting simply because they enrich human experience, what’s next? Universal healthcare? Affordable housing? Madness!

By the way, we have no problem funding propaganda in the guise of artistic expression. The Pentagon has exercised editorial control over more than 2,500 films and television shows, with documented involvement in productions including Top Gun and American Sniper (Responsible Statecraft / Mirrlees, Brown University). Just something to sit with.

What we need is a cultural shift in how we conceptualise these systems: moving from the science fiction fantasy of artificial minds to the practical reality of advanced tools — and applying that same clear-eyed thinking to how we fund, measure, and value the arts.

Is the economic argument for the arts enough — or are we still asking the wrong question entirely? Drop your thoughts below.

Sources & Further Reading

Arts & Economics

Arts & Economic Prosperity 6 (AEP6). Americans for the Arts, 2023. aep6.americansforthearts.org

Arts and Cultural Production Satellite Account, U.S. and States, 2023. Bureau of Economic Analysis & National Endowment for the Arts, 2025. bea.gov

DCMS Economic Estimates: Creative Industries GVA 2024. The Creative Industries, 2026. thecreativeindustries.co.uk

Creative UK. Cultural and Creative Industries Stats Q1 2025–26. wearecreative.uk

"Priority Export Family: Cultural and Creative Industries." Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, France. diplomatie.gouv.fr

Creative Economy Outlook 2022. UNCTAD, 2022. unctad.org

Bille, T., & Schulze, G. G. (2006). “Culture in urban and regional development.” In Handbook of the Economics of Art and Culture, Vol. 1. Elsevier.

Korea / Hallyu

Martin Roll. “Korean Wave (Hallyu): The Rise of Korea’s Cultural Economy & Pop Culture.” martinroll.com

Pentagon / Hollywood

Mirrlees, T. “The Militarization of Movies and Television.” Costs of War project, Brown University. Via Responsible Statecraft. responsiblestatecraft.org

Books

Fischer, E. (1963). The Necessity of Art: A Marxist Approach. Penguin Books.

Florida, R. (2002). The Rise of the Creative Class. Basic Books.

Hesmondhalgh, D. (2018). The Cultural Industries (4th ed.). SAGE Publications.

Standing, G. (2017). Basic Income: And How We Can Make It Happen. Penguin Books.