Review by Harry A. Hillman-Chartrand of the book, Art, Culture and Enterprise: The Politics of Art and the Cultural Industries [London, England and New York, NY: Routledge, 1990].

There are many tribes of Philistines among us: for capitalist realists, dollar democracy should define taste; for egalitarian realists, artistic affirmative action should counter historical stereotyping; for relgious realists, religion should rule art; and, for socialist realists, collectivism should subsume aesthetics. For all such realists, art is a powerful technology for directed social change; it is not an independent, self-directed human activity with goals and standards of its own. And to such realists, those who daily stretch the creative envelope or revivify our collective past - artists - are only soldiers in service to capitalism, egalitarianism, religion, or socialism. This is the central thesis of Art, Culture and Enterprise: The Politics of Art and the Cultural Industries.

In this review, I focus on the premises and principles of Lewis's approach to public arts policy. I also highlight three examples of the unholy alliance of capitalist and socialist prospectives put forward in this book.

There are many tribes of Philistines among us: for capitalist realists, dollar democracy should define taste; for egalitarian realists, artistic affirmative action should counter historical stereotyping; for relgious realists, religion should rule art; and, for socialist realists, collectivism should subsume aesthetics. For all such realists, art is a powerful technology for directed social change; it is not an independent, self-directed human activity with goals and standards of its own. And to such realists, those who daily stretch the creative envelope or revivify our collective past - artists - are only soldiers in service to capitalism, egalitarianism, religion, or socialism. This is the central thesis of Art, Culture and Enterprise: The Politics of Art and the Cultural Industries.