consolidating wealth -- recognizing value

The world today is awash in competing political systems, clashing world views, and they batter against each other while we watch, times are uncertain. Where’s your money, in a bank? Good luck. History is not entirely reassuring about numbers on paper in uncertain times, and any sort of investment is risky. Wouldn’t it be convenient if wealth could be stored in an object like charge in a battery, some form with recognized value that remained fairly constant and objective, no matter how imaginary currencies fluctuated. 

These days visual art won’t work, too bad. It’s tangible enough, and when well-made should outlast its owner essentially unchanged, a unique and time-defeating asset, but no one can agree on its value, so sad. Everywhere the price of art is blatantly artificial, from the wild-west absurdities of the trophy market, to just four hundred dollars for a sweet little landscape in a gallery, it makes no sense. ‘The price of art is what someone else is willing to pay for it,’ intones the mind-reading gallery director, and that about sums it up. 

In another country, at another time, Bob says to Mike, ‘say that artist seems to be getting better, did you find that painting in a gallery?’ Mike says, ‘no, I met the artist on a studio tour and bought direct. I’m making payments.’ So then Bob says, ‘that’s a good idea. I’d like to own a painting by that artist someday, too.’ They’d both know about what to pay for a painting of that quality, no mind reading involved. This is because art for sale would be so common even ordinary people could form an opinion about whether it was good or bad, and have some idea if the price seemed fair. If people began to see the same things in art, to recognize similar signs of quality and accomplishment, then ownership of art would constitute a form of wealth, there on the wall, as well as a source of pride and inspiration, so much more rewarding than numbers on a ledger. 

Money shrinks, gets stolen, can be manipulated, it’s undependable. Real wealth lies in things that retain value no matter what the currency does, up or down, but there have to be standards, a reserve of knowledge shared by many people. Not everyone, but enough people understand the jump shot, the layup, the double dribble to make basketball a viable activity, and athletes who do it better are much admired and rewarded, like that. Art hasn’t gotten there yet, but it will if the changes happening now continue, if our ship comes back on an even keel and sails on. The value of art for the individual remains intangible, beyond calculation, but a rational market makes acquisition of art for the home plausible, means that bought art retains value, and that each individual buys with the confidence of personal knowledge, knowing what they want.