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"scientific" analysis before taking the next step--generally borrowed
from market research which tests the demand for a product before
starting full-scale production.
Making an enterprise selfsufficient:
a rationalization for sup–
porting activities and institutions in the arts that will always operate at a
deficit--a growing one in an inflation economy--by fostering the
myth that a grant will put the enterprise on its feet and not just help
defray the deficit--a prime example of capitalist thinking applied to
nonprofit enterprises. Foundations, which are themselves nonprofit or–
ganizations, find it hard to believe that other nonprofit organizations
can't learn to make a profit, or at least break even.
p.s.
1. Personnel does make a difference. At the Rockefeller Foundation,
for example, a few new people are trying to get rid of the old ideological
baggage and bureaucratic language. Similarly, the Humanities Division of
the Ford Foundation has recently indicated a serious interest in literary
programs that are neither pat nor quirky.
P.S.
2. Obviously, the floundering and the constant improvisations of the
foundations help to maintain the instability of the noncommercial arts in
America, particularly the literary magazines.
W.P.
