What if we privatised Carnival and left it completely to market forces. There would still be room for state initiatives to protect heritage arts, but in the new plan 100 million plus budgets would no longer flow from the state annually and million dollar prizes for private enterprise events would be no more. The market would decide what it wanted to consume.
The state would be more curator than promoter, more on the fringe than in the belly. This would allow them to focus on quality rather than quantity and it would help the Minister of Finance find some money which private enterprise would likely replace, as they see opportunity.
It would mean giving up some of the powers of political patronage but it was Sparrow who said so well: “You can’t love, without money.”
Ministers of Finance of the future may not have a choice in the matter, so why not do it now when we are in control of the decision?
(Pix courtesy New York Times)
