Household expenditure on recreation and culture as a % of GDP;
Seems the good ol' Anglo Saxons spend the most and thus live it up the most spending 6% or more on life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Then there was another chart;
Government expenditure on recreation and culture.
Good lord, if a freaking barometer for socialism didn't exist, it exists now!
Nothing better than the government TELLING you what you're going to have fun with and enjoy.
Then again, at least some money is spent on recreation and culture, albeit inefficiently by the government.
I'd be curious to see similar charts for Arab countries.
3 comments:
More detailed chart on student math performance from oecd can be found at this site.
http://www.pisa.oecd.org/dataoecd/58/41/33917867.pdf
Compared to CIA world fact site, I wonder which one is more accurate.
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/docs/rankorderguide.html
Well, yes and no. I mean, I am a jazz fanatic, and, let's face it, that music ain't mainstream anymore. Sadly, Bill Frisell probably makes in a year what Britney does in a day, and so on. Opera, ballet --- look, there's lots of good art that needs subsidy. And as a poor urban resident I have loved going to, say, an outdoor symphony performance.
The real difference isn't in government versus individual spending, it's government subsidy vs. private subsidy. In the US often an opera company or what-have-you will line up a lot of corporate sponsors to fund the thing; in Europe the money comes from the government (actually my ec major roomate in college wrote his thesis on this).
Now, the spending is in some sense more rational --- the company is gonna underwrite stuff that's good pr. And, hell, it; nice that this stuff isn't coming out of my taxes! But I'm not clear that it makes people have more "fun" than the government funding, since I guess you fund stuff that has some prestige associated with it, not necessarily stuff all the hip teens are into (thank God). And I'm not even clear it's less wasteful.
The point: don't know that those two charts compare what you want to compare. And what you want to compare --- private versus public subsidy of art --- it will take a smarter person than me to make a real cultural statement out of.
I was also thinking how museums would fall into this catergory, whereas it is not uncommon for a private museum to exist, but almost an abomination in Europe.
Was also thinking about PBS and the BBC.
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