[badpun]

Regarding culture superiority, I feel like it's just that the big and wealthy countries manage to spread their culture the most, and that's what catches on in the world. If jazz and hip-hop were invented in the Czech Republic instead of the US, there would be much larger chance of it staying just a local phenomenon, and the world would be taken over by some other cultural trend instead.

[luckylion]

Possibly, but I'm not convinced. France and Germany spend lots of money to subsidize their artists, the French have gone so far to order radio stations to play a quota of French music - yet despite their wealth and their size (on the European level at least), they don't dominate culturally.

That's not to say that it couldn't be random that a lot of the recent advancements happened in the US, I just don't find it likely.

[badpun]

The problem with subsidised art (or subsidised anything really) is that the money in large part goes to the people who are well connected and great at weaseling their way into funding. So, there's a constant stream of always-mediocre French, German etc. (state-funded) movies in local artsy cinemas in Poland, which no one wants to watch, because they're mediocre.

In other words, the film makers are not subject to the market forces, they don't need to make something that the audience actually wants. The official stats of the PISF (polish state institute which funds movies) say that only 4 out of hundreds funded movies have recouped the state investment via tickets and other sales. The rests are flops, which is not a problem for anyone involved. That's how you get bad art.

[luckylion]

Yeah, I've been having similar feelings. The state acts like a monopoly on culture and so the focus isn't on the audience but on the grant administrators. At least we're creating a proxy indicator for studying the tastes and likes of the officials that decide what gets subsidized ;)