Changes in artists’ attitudes may or may not influence the course of the economy of the arts. But societal developments affecting the sacredness of art are bound to affect the economy.

three interrelated developments that may contribute to a demystification of the arts and therefore to a less exceptional economy, such as:
a Rationalization: As society becomes more and more rational, the arts will gradually go through a process of demystification.
b Fading borders: Because the high status of art depends on borders and because borders in our postmodern society have lost much of their significance, the status of art is bound to experience some shrinkage.
c Technical developments: The growing importance of technically reproduced artwork, of mass-produced artwork, and of media culture will further contribute to the demystification of art.
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The third direction art may take is the one of the artist-craftsman. Because of the increased importance of self-referential and conceptual art, craftsmanship has lost much of its high value among artists during the second half of the twentieth century. The last few decades however, artists with a keen interest in craftsmanship began to move in front. They began to reinstitute old techniques and developed new, more positive attitudes towards craftsmanship.

Artists who actually do their own work with their own hands and who derive their identity and success partly from their craftsmanship are typical of this new or rather reinvented type of artist. It is because of them that paintings, ballets and musical compositions are again allowed to be admired for their technical virtuosity and can be considered ‘beautiful’ again according to some critics.
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Given the large supply of artworks and artists and their correspondingly low incomes, one would expect a strong tendency in the arts to reduce membership rolls via formal controls. Or, if that’s impossible, one would expect various organized attempts to certify artists and art products to better inform consumers. This is, however, not the case. The formal barriers and signals, found in other professions, are either absent or relatively unimportant in the arts.

Unlike in other professions in the arts, the separation between professionals and amateurs does not necessarily have anything to do with formal education. Although most artists have had some formal training, many don’t have diplomas and, more importantly, they do not need a diploma to work as artists.
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Looking back it’s easy to see that wealthy and powerful institutions, like churches and kingdoms, competed with one another. The history books are filled with tales of domination, war, victories, and defeats through the centuries. People nowadays tend to think that the competition between nations (and regions as well as towns) has largely disappeared and that their world is pacified.

There still is competition but it occurs through trade. This form of competition seems to concern businessmen, not nations (or regions or towns). People tend to consider commercial triumphs and defeats as extremely relative and temporal: one year this company or country wins, next year another.
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poverty is built into the arts and that any extra money for the arts has little effect on income and only leads to increased numbers of artists refers to the long term and to the sum of all subsidies, donations, and spending. It does not necessarily apply to any specific subsidy or donation.

Although it probably applies most strongly to the Dutch subsidy plans discussed in the previous section, it may not apply or hardly apply to certain other subsidies. In order to examine the different short-term effects of changes in specific subsidies and donations on the number of artists, it is useful to distinguish between the direct effects and the indirect signaling effects of subsidization and donation.
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