Sometimes I am so baffled by new legislation and the arts.
Via Arts Admin via Createquity…
Getting a degree in arts administration is expensive, and that has an impact on who is financially able to pursue the degree. Does the prevalence of unpaid internships exacerbate the issue? Via Createquity*, the Guardian says that a report by the UK’s Arts Group
… has called the large number of unpaid jobs in the creative sector “exploitation” and is calling for legislation to regulate the use of unpaid internships by arts organisations, suggesting that all placements over a month should be paid the national minimum wage.
As someone who had chosen to work for free in order to gain valuable experience and is not a trust fund baby, I can assure you I am perfectly capable of deciding whether and when I am being so-called exploited or not. Certainly if I have decided to volunteer my time and services to an activity I feel will benefit me in the long run, or if I’m simply feeling altruistic – I should be allowed to do so and organizations should be allowed to offer such opportunities in abundance as long as there are takers!
Legislation does not need to “fix” what simple economics has been capable of solving since the dawn of time: supply and demand. Clearly there is ample supply of free workers as well as work for them to do. I must be missing the handcuffs in this equation.
Furthermore, the additional perks of working at arts organizations, for free or paid – are numerous! In college, while I had a paid (state subsidized) internship with an arts organization – I had access to incredibly valuable networking opportunities, social and educational events, not to mention incredible performing arts programming almost every day of the organization’s season! I would have done this work for free.
As I commented on Michael Rushton’s blog,
I can’t imagine what forcing arts organizations to pay minimum wage will do other than dramatically decrease the availability and duration of internships.
The idea is so comical and detrimental to the arts I have a hard time believing something like this would pass. But satire is dead, and I’m shocked on a daily basis by the things people will allow governments to do to routinely erode their freedom of choice – even when it comes to volunteerism!
Tags: Capitalism, Economics, Michael Rushton
dramatically decreasing the duration of unpaid internships is exactly the point. There is no reason why Arts organizations can’t provide a larger number of short work experience placements that benefit more people without pricing many out of the market. Unpaid internships are not and should not be confused with volunteering either.
This whole line of thinking deserves a longer response, but for right now I’ll just say that I think you’re vastly overestimating the impact on arts organizations that would result from requiring them to pay interns. I don’t know what the minimum wage in England is, but in the US it’s $7.25/hr. Let’s say you had an intern working 20 hours a week for three months over the summer. The cost of paying them the minimum wage would be around $2000. For any arts organization large enough to have multiple full-time staff (that is to say, with a budget of $100k or more), that expense–delivering as it well might significantly more than two grand of value to the organization, especially if the intern works in development–is hardly going to break them. Not to mention that many unpaid internships are likely already illegal in the US: http://wetfeet.com/Undergrad/Internships/Articles/Unpaid-Internships.aspx
If arts organizations need volunteers, and people want to volunteer for them, then that’s fine – but the orgs should not be pretending that their volunteer opportunities are job opportunities (which is what internships are supposed to be).
Kit,
By your logic, it would be even better to decrease the duration of internships to 30 seconds in order to truly maximize the number of participants. Perhaps not? Just what is the best length to person balance? One could just allow an intern and an organization to agree on whatever terms they wish, though that would render moot the arbitrary opinions of irrelevant third parties. Finally, I think your keyboard stopped working just as you were about to type just what the difference between volunteering and unpaid interning is.
Ian,
I would think that those in the position of best understanding the impact and cost and benefit of internships in arts organizations are the organizations and interns themselves. Is there an actual reason to think that either side is incapable of making such an arrangement? Is there a reason why your calculation and arbitrary estimation of value is more relevant to the interested parties than the estimations of the interested parties themselves? That there may be a law in the US against unpaid internships is irrelevant. There are many stupid laws in the US. Lastly, why is it that you decide what an internship is? Perhaps you are talking about an internship you offer, which would be the only one which you are qualified to define.
Ah, yes, Testudo, the church of the free market. Every decision everyone makes is totally voluntary, based on perfect information, and will naturally result in the best outcome for society (I guess you’ve never heard of behavioral economics). Let’s ignore any and all income effects while we’re at it (i.e., students from poorer families declining to compete for internships because they can’t afford not to be earning income for all or most of their time). Absolutely, let’s just let everyone take responsibility for their own decisions, live and let live. I mean, take monopolies–they arise naturally from market forces, and they’re awesome, right?
To answer your question, I would daresay that yes, my calculation and estimation of value having had nearly ten years of experience working in the arts and an MBA is at least as relevant as a high school or college student’s estimation of that value. Particularly since someone who has little to no experience in the working world is less likely to be familiar with or understand the differences in the commonly-accepted industry definitions of volunteer and internship opportunities (the latter is supposed to be of educational value, the former need not be, since you seem to be confused). To take advantage of that ignorance is what some people would call, well, “exploitation.”
But whatever. Since you apparently believe that US law is irrelevant and that people are perfectly capable of making their own decisions about their employment, then unpaid internships are just fine with you — and I expect you’ll also be enthusiastically in favor of child labor laws being abolished while we’re at it. After all, if a child “wants” to work, why shouldn’t we let him? Firms could certainly use the cheap and plentiful labor. What’s the difference, really?
Oh, and news flash: there’s no such thing as an “irrelevant third party.” I suppose you’ve never heard of externalities either…man, you do have a lot of reading in the ol’ economics textbook to catch up on, don’t you? Every single transaction (or action of any kind) anyone makes, unless they do so on a planet that has a population of two and no other living beings, affects third parties. Therefore third parties are relevant.
On further consideration, I’ll offer this olive branch: since I don’t actually know anything about your economics background, testudo, I take back my ad hominem comments relating to that. They were inappopriate and I apologize. I stand by the rest of my response, though.
Ian,
There is not much to be made of your first paragraph. Some sarcasm and a few strawmen. The substantial element within is an aside about poorer families declining to compete for internships that don’t pay. It isn’t explained why that would be the responsibility of an intern who happens to be well off or of the arts organization. There are quite a lot of things poorer people do not have access to which are available to those with more money. Your pose of altruism may be admirable to some, but it would carry more weight if you didn’t so glibly demand sacrifice from others. You may think people should help more, that’s fine, I believe people should read more. Neither are just grounds for legislation.
You mention that your expertise is in fact more valuable than that of the parties involved in the primary exchange. It seems they must disagree or we wouldn’t be having a conversation about legislation. Perhaps you overestimate the value of your experience. It could also be that the interested parties have little use for your idiosyncratic definition of ‘ignorance’ and ‘exploitation’.
Next you make an analogy to child labor laws. It may be that interns and art organizations don’t ask your opinion on negotiating internships because you compare them to children in that their faculty of reason is so undeveloped that they need your experience to guide them. I had assumed we were talking about adults.
Finally, you mention that there are mysterious externalities wherein every human is a relevant party. You may need to clarify just what those externalities are in this case and why it follows that all humans should have input and just what the nature of that input is. Saying ‘externalities’ as though it were an incantation doesn’t explain why the actual two parties involved need your input.
Testudo,
You’ve chosen not to respond to most of my first paragraph, which is your prerogative of course, but it goes to the center of our disagreement. You appear to believe that the freedom of two individual parties to make their own decisions is central, even if a suboptimal outcome from the perspective of society as a whole is the result. I am willing to sacrifice some of my own and others’ personal freedom (by which I mean I am willing to vote for and support candidates and legislation that would result in such sacrifice) if it results in a better outcome for all.
I have named at least two instances in which it is generally agreed that parties in transactions who are left to their own devices make decisions that are suboptimal for society: child labor and monopolies. Both situations were the result of unregulated free markets before legislation was created to stop them. So my question to you is, if you (presumably) are willing to accept legislation in these areas because it results in a better outcome for society despite violating individual choice, then why are you not willing to make the exception more broadly?
(By the way, you also dodge my point about child labor laws by claiming we’re talking about adults, not children. But surely the age cutoff for individuals considered capable of making their own decisions is no less arbitrary than my definition of “ignorance” and “exploitation,” is it not? So why do we have a law that tells people when they are capable of making their own decisions, and why are you okay with it–if indeed you are?)
Perhaps our disagreement is really about whether a prevalence of unpaid internships is in fact a bad thing for society. Here is where my argument about income comes in. To me, the fact that “there are quite a lot of things poorer people do not have access to which are available to those with more money” isn’t just an incidental aside, an excuse to justify not doing anything about inequality, it is one of the central motivators guiding my decisions and philosophy. It is also a very personal issue as I would be living a quite different, and much less fulfilling, life had I not the benefit of generous subsidization of my education from private individuals and the federal government alike. But it’s not just about altruism – it’s about what we want for ourselves as a society. Put simply, intelligence and ability are not concentrated among the upper classes, but opportunities to exercise intelligence and ability in ways that affect the world are. If we want the world to be a better place, we need to ensure people of all socioeconomic backgrounds have a level playing field so that the winners of competitive opportunities (like jobs) are truly the best available and we have the most efficient sorting of talent in our labor force.
In this particular case, the issue of income inequality shows itself in the form of who is able to accept internships, and thus who is able to benefit from whatever career- and resume-building value they have. I think people from lower-income families should have a fair shot at internships, but this is only possible if they can earn a living wage while competing them. Volunteer opportunities are not generally seen to carry the same kind of career-building value, so I do not have a problem with them being available disproportionately to upper classes.
One final thought: you say, “it isn’t explained why that would be the responsibility of an intern who happens to be well off or of the arts organization.” That’s right, they are not the responsibility of either – hence the need for legislation! See, we do agree on some things. Though to be honest, I might be satisfied without new legislation in this case, if the current (US) legislation were simply enforced. In case you didn’t read that link I posted earlier, the Department of Labor spells out very specifically what unpaid internships are supposed to entail. Organizations that advertise internships but do not hew to these requirements once the internship starts are engaging in a form of false advertising – which I hope even you’ll agree is a justifiable grounds for legislation.
Ian,
This will be my last comment on this topic. We proceed from diametrically opposed premises and it would take a lifetime to attend to each contention.
I will begrudgingly respond to your first paragraph if only to reinforce my initial comment that it was largely content free.
“A yes, the church of the free market.” – the free market is a concept, not a church.
“Every decision everyone makes is totally voluntary, based on perfect information, and will naturally result in the best outcome for society (I guess you’ve never heard of behavioral economics)” – this is assertion is not an argument, nor does it resemble anything I’ve said. Either way it is fraught with problems and doesn’t make the point you intend it to make. Decisions made under threat of force are not voluntary. Fortunately, arts organizations do not forcibly coerce interns. Where there is no threat of force, the decision is voluntary. Perhaps you mean that you think the choice was hasty or unwise? Next time say that instead. Also, volition is not contingent upon perfect information, if it were there would be no such thing as volition at all when discussing anything remotely as complex and dynamic as markets where perfect information is unattainable. Finally, what is or is not the best outcome for society would depend largely on what metric you are using to determine ‘best’ and what you call society. Neither point has yet to be defined, or even been inquired about. As a parody of something I presumably think or have said, it fails. And yes, I have heard of behavioral economics.
“Let’s ignore any and all income effects while we’re at it (i.e., students from poorer families declining to compete for internships because they can’t afford not to be earning income for all or most of their time)” – this I’ve addressed. Why exactly should either the organization or the intern be legally obliged to accommodate anyone not involved in the transaction? Also, would you care to elaborate on what relevance the financial status of the third party has on the primary parties solely involved in the transaction?
“Absolutely, let’s just let everyone take responsibility for their own decisions, live and let live.” – OK, was there something I was supposed to address here? I’m assuming you are being facetious. I imagine this was stated to be obviously erroneous though I’m not sure why. Would you care to provide a reason?
“I mean, take monopolies–they arise naturally from market forces, and they’re awesome, right?” – monopolies do not typically arise naturally from market forces. I’ll be happy to address any examples you might have, though I won’t hold my breath. Also, do you mean that I think monopolies are awesome? Is that really what you want me to address? No, Ian, monopolies, which generally arise from government subsidies and regulatory barriers to entry for competitors, are not in my opinion awesome. Even granting you the possibility that you have a contrary example, my opinion of their awesomeness has little to do with proper justification for legislative action.
I hope that suffices as an (supremely tedious) instance of me not ignoring your first, precious paragraph.
As to your most current commentary,
“even if a suboptimal outcome from the perspective of society as a whole is the result” – just how is the ‘perspective of society’ determined? This concept is meaningless. You do not nor cannot know what is suboptimal from the perspective of society, as you are an individual. That this is indeterminate compels one to consider only individuals. For this reason I do believe that individuals’ freedom to make their own choices and contracts is central despite your alleged willingness to sacrifice your own freedom. As for other’s freedom, you have neither moral justification nor authority to make that decision regardless of what laws are passed. Your assertion to the contrary would, however, be comforting to slave-owners.
Now, I do not accept legislation regarding monopolies, even though I may not think they are ‘awesome’. Again, please provide an example wherein the existence of a free market born monopoly infringes on an individual’s right in order to warrant legislative intervention. As for child labor laws, there are instances, of course, wherein a child is unable to resist coercion to work. I support protecting the child’s rights against this aggressor. This has nothing to do with what you call ‘better for society’, whatever that is. My final comment on this point is that though the line between child and adult is difficult to define, it nonetheless exists. Surely you don’t really believe that a three year old has the same ability to reason as a thirty year old? I’m certainly open to hear arguments of where that line should be, but be assured, that the distinction is controversial in no way renders it non-existent.
Regarding your next paragraph, with all due respect, I simply do not care about your personal philosophy. Do not presume to speak for me or for society, which is composed of many individuals and many philosophies. That you qualify your philosophy with the adjective ‘personal’ should tip you off that you cannot and should not speak for the rest of society. I certainly do not subscribe to your philosophy of ‘sacrificing others’ personal freedoms’, nor do I share the opinion that this will create a better society. In fact, it is quite the opposite, individual freedom from coercion is not a game on a field at all.
“I think people from lower-income families should have a fair shot at internships” – great, anyone who agrees with you can offer them internships. I have no problem with that. Why again should organizations or individuals be compelled to abide by your personal morality?
“Volunteer opportunities are not generally seen to carry the same kind of career-building value, so I do not have a problem with them being available disproportionately to upper classes.”- I’m not sure if any party involved cares much for whether or not you have a problem with their association.
At last, I admittedly did not read your link. I care very little about particular laws, which may or may not be just. Many things historically or currently legal are unjust, so the existence of one more example does little to persuade me either way. Sincerely meaning no disrespect, I don’t believe we agree on anything.
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[...] had no idea the topic of unpaid internships was so contentious when I first blogged about it on Let’s Level the Playing Field by Ruining Everyone’s Chances, as it elicited vociferous and emotional responses from readers and fellow arts bloggers alike. I [...]