Michael Hutter

Wertwechselstrom
Texte zu Kunst und Wirtschaft
VOLUME 183

The Interdependency of Economics and Art

Market observers are content with superficial correspondences between art and securities markets, while observers of culture complain simplistically about the decline in artistic quality in the age of a dominant market. But if we consider aesthetic and economic theory, art and economic history as separate domains, we fail to apprehend the constitutive significance of the interconnection between them.

In the FUNDUS volume Wertwechselstrom, the economist Michael Hutter analyzes the interdependency of economics and art. Marshaling concrete examples, he demonstrates how the very differences between art and business can become a resource, a mutual wellspring of value creation. The book gathers studies into the historic influence of the arts—fine art, literature, and music—on economic growth as well as essays on the politics of art, the organization of labor, the creative economy, and the theory of value. It is rounded by two case studies on Goethe’s Faust II and Proust’s Recherche that illustrate the uses of economic phenomena as literary material.

Michael Hutter (b. 1948) is an economist and sociologist. Until his retirement, he taught “Culture, Knowledge, and Innovation” at Technische Universität Berlin’s Institute of Sociology. As an economist, he studies the relevance of social communication for economic development.