The 30 Second Waltz

I've been becoming a sort of proselytizer for Baumol's Cost Disease. I'm surprised how many folks in the business don't know about it. Here's an earlier post on it. To sum up: the specific rate of inflation for the arts rises about twice as fast as the general rate of inflation.

I'm reading Lewis Hyde's excellent book, The Gift, and he gives a great example in the foot notes - what he's describing is Baumol's Cost Disease - though he doesn't identify it as such. Here's the note:

As those who worry about the livelihood of artists are fond of saying, "you cannot play the 'Minute Waltz' in less than a minute." Worse (or perhaps better) you cannot write "The Minute Waltz" in less than...what? A day, a week, a year? -- however long it takes. There is no technology, no time saving device that can alter the rhythms of creative labor. When the worth of labor is expressed in terms of exchange value, therefore, creativity is automatically devalued every time there is an advance in the technology of work.

What's particularly intriguing about the last sentence is that from Baumol's perspective (that of an economist) the arts suffer from a "disease." From the arts' perspective, maybe it's the market that's infected.