The Awl points out this interview with Tina Brown. At about 19:40, Brown asks: “Are we building this new sort of subculture frankly of impoverished, living in garret writers? Because the fact is writers can hardly make a living right now because they don’t get paid.” Leon Wieseltier made a similar observation last month when he described writers as “the new proles“.
I don’t write for a living, and I have mostly sympathy (and perhaps also a little envy) for those who do. But it’s worth recalling that the expectation that journalists, critics, and editors could expect a middle-class income and lifestyle has developed only quite recently.
Before about World War II, newspaper writing was little respected and worse paid, more trade than profession. National magazines offered better fees and more respect. But relatively few people actually supported themselves writing for them. And the scribbler’s existence before the 20th Century–and outside the United States–was notoriously poor and dissolute. There are many memorable portraits of life on both the literal and the figurative Grub Street. The most compelling is Balzac’s Illusions perdues.
But the pre- and proto-capitalist economies of the 17th, 18th, and and early 19th centuries offered a solution that we’ve since forgetten: patronage. Rather than trying to sell their wares on the open market, the men of letters of Paris and London tried to sell themselves to wealthy and influential patrons. Work as a hired polemicist, secretary, or a private tutor, wasn’t romantic. But it did provide a stable income not only to honest hacks, but also some very eminent minds. What would Burke have been without Rockingham? Hobbes without the Cavendishes?
It’s hard to imagine any modern magnate personally supporting a stable of bloggers. But why? It would be cheaper, and probably more amusing, than endowing a building at some pompous university. For one thing, buildings can’t tell you how wise you were to pay for them. For another, they can’t tell your enemies how stupid they are. As it happens, I’m looking for a job myself at the moment. Let the bidding begin!
March 16th, 2010 | 1:56 pm
There were a lot of occupations at that time where you couldn’t live at a middle class level on your wages. Should all of them continue to live in poverty? Or, at least, have no complaint if they suddenly find you can’t live on their wages except in poverty?
March 16th, 2010 | 2:34 pm
“It’s hard to imagine any modern magnate personally supporting a stable of bloggers.”
No it isn’t. Look at the Weekly Standard and Reason and The New Republic. All of them are and have been magazines supported by the largesse of wealthy individuals. Some are structured as nonprofits, others are not. (I seem to recall that TWS is a for-profit in order to secure press credentials, but ALWAYS loses money.) I envision that all of them will eventually be online-only. Why would that make magnates no longer support them?
March 16th, 2010 | 3:58 pm
That’s it everyone. Until y’all pay up, I ain’t a commentin’ anymore!
Yeah, right.
March 16th, 2010 | 4:29 pm
Carl, I can see the headlines. “PoMoCons Go Galt: Internet Yawns”.
Sam, you’re right that many political magazines rely on sugar daddies. I was really talking about patronage of individuals, which I think most people today would consider vaguely unethical.
Molly, I’m not suggesting that journalists don’t deserve a living wage or shouldn’t be upset if they don’t get one. Only that the EXPECTATION that journalism would provide stable employment and a good income is no more than forty years old, and reflects a very specific constellation of cultural and economic factors. Similarly–and much more importantly–unionized auto and steel workers were once able to support middle-class families on a single wage. Those were good times, but they aren’t coming back.
March 17th, 2010 | 5:02 am
Or look at places like the Center for American Progress, where leftist new-class billionaries like George Soros support entire stables full of political hacks like Mathew Yglesias.
March 17th, 2010 | 9:02 am
The best I can do is offer to buy the first round for the PoMoCons whenever I’m in town, assuming we can get you all in the same place. I’d be curious to hear Mr. Cheeks after a couple of rounds.
The Porchers are welcome, too, but will have to clue me in on the appropriate local watering hole.
March 19th, 2010 | 7:54 am
The blogging culture requires a compressed time environment due to the digital age, hence the lack of perspective and capability to step away from the canvas and take a second look. As such, it is a cottage industry of hobby as opposed to vocation for most of us.
When writing for a military journal, my articles were “put to bed” three months before publication. After signing the TOP, it is somewhat the finalized product. But blogging releases the final product with a mere click.
Happy hunting for renumeration for your thoughts. It is a difficult endeavor.
Tammy Swofford
March 19th, 2010 | 3:06 pm
I thought that’s what the romanists had you doing right here.
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