Gorernflo was here
FYI, Sharable’s Neal Gorenflo is on Edgeryders:
http://edgeryders.ppa.coe.int/share-your-ryde/mission_case/interview-sharer
Well done man
Kevin, as an economist-turned-musician-turned-economist-again I concur with your analysis. I am guessing, however, Ela is concerned with pre-market culture: stuff that embodies a lot of work and passion, but is not yet attracting even the modest demand that your books or my music does attract. When confronted with yet another indie band, is your gut reaction “well, let’s give it a go” or “man, you’d better be really good because we’ve heard it all”?
Are you familiar with dual labor supply models? Basically, the idea is that you divide your time not into two (labor and leisure), but in three: non-art labor, art labor and leisure. While I don’t think these models are a particularly good idea, they are reacting to the uneasy feeling that everybody and their horse wants to be an artist: while we can all take turns at being artists and audience (artists do, after all, enjoy other people’s art), this probably means that there is going to be a structural oversupply of art labor. And that seems to resonate with Ela’s question of “just how much culture can we take”.
Once a particular culture creator has made it to the “cult” status, then your analysis holds IMHO. What happens before?