Appealing To The Creative Class: Why Dayton’s On-Line Community Should Receive Tax Money

I thought this conversation (see below), between Greg Hunter and David Esrati, interesting. It makes me want to know more.  If I stay tuned to Mr. Esrati’s site, I guess I will eventually be enlightened. He and Greg are posting these you-tube conversations on a regular basis.

The conversation is about “Edgefund.” Evidently, in Dayton, “Edgefund” provides free Dayton tax money to corporations who make promises to increase employment in Dayton. I’d like to know more. I wonder if there is a link to a source that explains?

Greg Hunter, in the conversation, suggests that the work and creativity that he and David are bringing together, in making these You-tube videos, should qualify for Edgefund money.  He said it as a joke, I think, but it is an interesting thought that leaders in Dayton should want to encourage a vibrant on-line community.  After all, isn’t there a consensus view now that finding the path to a better future is all about appealing to the Creative Class?

David raises the interesting question of whether this corporate welfare money might be better spent by investing directly in the community. His idea is to use the money to make the community more appealing.

I guess the question is, “Appealing to whom?” Isn’t Dayton seeking to appeal to the Creative Class? Greg Hunter’s suggestion makes sense, because, if it’s all about appealing to the Creative Class, then, it would be a big plus if Dayton would find ways to grow into a community know for its successful bloggers — particularly, bloggers known for their reasoned inquiry and thoughtful discussions, bloggers whose goal is to enlighten and educate.

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5 Responses to Appealing To The Creative Class: Why Dayton’s On-Line Community Should Receive Tax Money

  1. truddick says:

    Anyone want to tell us how much government grant money flowed to the work of, say, Charles Kettering, Eugene Fraze, the Wright Brothers? Or, for that matter, Steve Wozniak, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison?

    OK, it’s another time from even the salad days of the WOZ, and I’d agree that some government grant money for development of the private sector is necessary. But government (like every other entity) is hideously bad at prophesying which incubator will hatch the next great technological advance.

    One of my theatre professors (incidentally, the greatest teacher I ever knew) had this thought about grants and innovation. She thought that innovators in the history of the arts had found a way to make do with limited resources, and so trying to fund innovation may be counterproductive insofar as it removes the resistances that inspire greater innovation. She suggested, therefore, that government grants ought to support only established artists and preservation of the classics.

    I suggest that the same conditions apply in the practical industries. You might refer to Thomas Wolfe’s “The Painted Word”, in which he documents how one stratum of postmodern artists make a living more on the basis of grant-writing skills than on the aesthetics of their artwork; one painter even won grant money for a proposal in which he asserted that if he won the grant, he would not actually physically create the work described–the description, he claimed, was the essence of the creation.

    If you want people to get economic development grants for describing–but not actually creating–something, then let that culture grow.

  2. Robert Vigh says:

    And I disagree with you. I think we should fund aspiring artists. Oh wait, now we are simply debating degrees of theft from the public as opposed to just not taking from them.

  3. truddick says:

    Vigh, even though we disagree, I know you are capable of expressing your views with some clarity. Regrettable that you chose instead to be arrogant.

  4. David Esrati says:

    We posted another ED/GE fund boondoggle the other day- where they are giving away $125K to Raj Soin: http://esrati.com/how-your-tax-dollars-end-up-in-the-rich-mans-pockets/4269/
    Yep- this program needs to go away.

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