Bill Ivey's Art, Inc. With an insightful analysis of modern economics and its impact on the state of art and culture in America, Arts, Inc.: How Greed and Neglect Have Destroyed Our Cultural Rights is author Bill J. Ivey's attempt to sound the alarm and preserve the artistic and cultural heritage which defines every great society. As the former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, Ivey is uniquely qualified to assess the crucial importance of maintaining a thriving cultural atmosphere, as well as the role of governmental policy and political influence in fostering an environment which promotes artistic expression. The central premise posited by Ivey throughout Arts, Inc. is that the advent of intellectual property rights and copyright law, as well as the confluence between marketing and artistic viability, has weakened the foundation of America's expressive nature. He believes that a nation such as ours, founded as it is on the concept of free expression and the unfettered ability to produce and create, should invariably be amongst the world's leaders cultural contribution, but that "our scattershot cultural policy has failed to balance the public interest with the marketplace" (Ivey, xvii). To address this failure, Ivey proposes the formation...

Ivey repeatedly contends that the provocation of public discussion regarding the plight of art and culture in America will inevitably reawaken the populace's creative faculties, while also allowing people to free themselves from the shackles of corporate control.
Throughout the majority of Arts, Inc. Ivey repeatedly expresses his concern over the emergence and subsequent dominance of the concept of intellectual property. He laments the tragic truth that Americans "have converted the shared memory embedded in our priceless cultural heritage into mere 'intellectual property,' which is bought, sold, abandoned or simply locked away in the vaults of giant media companies" (Ivey 18). The inexorable process of commercialization, which is so rampant within the capitalistic structure of the American economic system, presents the greatest threat to free artistic expression because it seeks exploit the creation of art for monetary gain. Whereas in bygone eras, painters, sculptors, musicians and dramatists all created their various art forms simply out of the sheer desire to express…