[gillesjacobs]

You would think policy makers have an obligation to track this, but they don't. There are no studies, KPIs or attempts at tracking effectiveness of subsidy policy.

The burden of proof should be on the policy maker and subsidizer to ensure the purported goals of spending tax many are met.

My wife works in public procurement for research, but there too suggesting such a thing is taboo.

This is of course by design: subsidies are a political tool for passivation of opposition, soft bribery and economic channeling of economic and societal outcomes. The less oversight and transparency the better.

The Flanders region only got a publicly and centralised database of (some) subsidy channels in 2019, after decades of liberal and right-leaning people lobbying for transparency.

There is no such initiative for our federal government.

[Draiken]

Why?

What is the harm in letting people live their lives producing art without a freaking OKR tracking their output?

I always find it fascinating how people assume that if you're not slaving away making someone else richer, it's a problem.

The argument is always something in the lines of "I'm paying for it". Well, we all know that if the only people actually making money out of our society paid their fair share, we'd be able to subsidize programs like these and much more without a problem.

People contribute to society in ways other than working. We simply choose to not value any of it in today's society.

It's not like these people are buying yachts, right? It feels so petty to me when we complain about helping out people with the bare minimum.

[nicbou]

The question is whether or not this money could serve Belgians better if spent elsewhere, even with the exact same goal of supporting artists. We measure outcomes because it ties up a finite resource.

[MichaelZuo]

How do you know they are in fact ‘producing art’ without keeping track via some system?

There are too many subsidy receivers for anyone to ever visit in their life, even if they spend 40 hours a week 50 weeks a year visiting them.

[zozbot234]

You can pay prizes after the fact for especially impressive art. Or even award grants in advance for especially impressive art-proposals. Similar to how we fund most academic research. That's likely to be a lot more effective than generalized subsidies if most art turns out to be just mediocre and forgettable.

[randomdata]

> You would think policy makers have an obligation to track this, but they don't. There are no studies, KPIs or attempts at tracking effectiveness of subsidy policy.

Reminds me of education. Being from the most educated jurisdiction in the most educated country, everyone is sure we need to fund it, but nobody seems to know what we get from it. The usual suspects (stronger economy, more engaged society, more progressive socially, etc.) that everyone loves to attribute to education lag behind much of the rest of the much-less-educated world...

> The burden of proof should be on the policy maker and subsidizer to ensure the purported goals of spending tax many are met.

The burden on policy markers is simply to keep the bosses (i.e. the general public) happy. The burden of proof rests on the public at large to justify their goals to the policy makers, perhaps, but is that really necessary? If the people want something arbitrary because it makes them feel good, why not? The universe doesn't care.

[wpietri]

That strikes me as likely to do more harm than good, and research is a good example. We already have major problems with research quality because publication quantity has risen as important metric. I can't think of a metric for art quality that wouldn't introduce all sorts of terrible incentives and disincentives.

[fragmede]

So the alternative is nothing? If someone's receiving funding to create art, asking them to show that they've done something with that money and that they're not just buying booze/drugs and throwing parties for them and their friends with the money that the government is giving them to create art doesn't seem like asking too much.

[wpietri]

That seems like a false dichotomy to me. Aren't there more ways to run things than a binary "user narrow numeric KPIs" vs "people doing absolutely anything"?

[HappMacDonald]

Given my understanding of the modern state of Art, they would simply pivot to making the parties be the artform.

[fragmede]

Well, as long as I'm invited :)

[fastasucan]

>You would think policy makers have an obligation to track this, but they don't.

Its not for the policy makers to descide what is good art or not.