Art is subsidized by the State, and that's why the vast majority of famous or well known artists, as well as artist wannabees are hardcore statists and openly socialists. The State needs to make the public believe that the State is something as necessary for life as air or water is, and one useful way to get the collective to swallow the message is by the use of intellectuals and artists. They're are no more than public relations and propagandists, afterall.
No one needs art, in reality. No one needs to have a painting on the wall, no one needs to listen to a song, no one needs to watch a movie, much less read a novel. Of all possible jobs, the least important jobs are the art related, and pretty much everyone with half a brain knows it. Life goes on and even the most important job on earth would be deemed useless, because life will do its way anyway, but people would have a hard time if, all of a sudden, all farmers disappeared from earth, unlike with painters or musicians.
Instead, it would be certainly more difficult for the state to control the population if one day all of a sudden all artists were gone, vanished. Let's face it, the State needs to sell the population the need for a State. You can't brainwash people by stealing their goods and then provide them back with faulty services that in no way equal the value of the stolen goods. The State needs a Pied Piper of Hamelin, and that's precisely what artists are.
I wonder why there is a lack of libertarian anarchists in arts, and the reason is precisely that. In the "artistic" circles you won't be well received if you go against the machine.
