“Artists in the middle of the twentieth century flourished not because the economy was inherently favorable to them, but as a result of powerful economic winds and the groups that joined in an attempt to harness them. Together, creative class groups wielded the crowbar of politics in an attempt to pry some autonomy out of consumer capitalism. If these standards of living were sharply eroded over the last 50 years, it is partly because the institutions that once upheld them had also fallen away.” – The New Republic
