So much in the world, like art, to become a reality, has required tremendous doses of inequality.

Walking around the museum Louvre in Paris I suddenly saw an amazingly decorated silk embroidered full with gold filaments shield, made around 1555-1560 by Pierre Reddon for King Charles IX.

https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010117233

I then asked myself who in his sane mind would request this type of absolutely useless shield? Clearly it had to be someone extremely wealthy and powerful, someone who did not care one iota about his own security being threaten on a close range, or about its enormous costs.

In that moment it suddenly dawned on me that basically nothing of what I was seeing at the museum would exist, if it had to be produced by a society where income and wealth was equally distributed. In other words, all this art around me, to have become a reality, has actually required a very unequal society. 

In other words, shhh... between you and me...the museum of Louvre is, unwittingly, a homage to inequality.

So are all those of us who with good intentions are fighting for a more equal society truly aware of what we could be giving up, of all unexpected consequences, if we were too successful?

I then tweeted: What would Thomas Piketty’s France exhibit at Louvre, had not huge societal inequality allowed the financing of so much "unnecessary" art?

Then of course you find cases like Vincent Van Gogh who did not require much inequality to give us his marvels, much more of a loving brother.

PS. That’s not only at Louvre just go to the BritishMuseum.

PS. Without inequality the world would never ever have been able to see a Fabergé egg.

Would that have been a better world? I don’t know. You tell me! At least we would not have to envy that some got more impressive burial gaskets than us.

PS. Redistributing wealth is not as straightforward as redistribution profiteers want us to think.

PS. Where would Florence be without the Medicis?

Out of the box tourism: Lessons from Florence

THE CONTEST!

My apologies to the Florentines, but their beautiful city is like the Magic Kingdom of the Renaissance. The inexhaustible flow of tourists, hotels, prices, and lines for attractions, fast or slow meals, and souvenirs, all makes one question, between Medici and Disney, just who copied the model of whom. In my opinion, not only are the gelatos of Florence richer, but also, with the possible exception of Goofy, Michelangelo’s David and the frescos of Fra Angélico are far superior to Mickey, Pluto, and the rest. 

What an inheritance the Medicis left to their city! The Florentine economy will always be easy to manage, since the only thing that their Paperon de Paperoni (Scrooge McDuck) has to do is fix admissions prices. The one little cloud on the horizon could be the quantity of English, Venezuelan, German, and other immigrants who try to take advantage of the infrastructure. What would Machiavelli have thought about entering the European Union?

We know that despite all its possibilities, Venezuela, in a local saying, still has not managed to connect the foot to the ball when it comes to developing its tourism industry. This will never be resolved by naming ministers who spend their time conducting publicity campaigns, or visiting Orlando and Florence. We are not proposing that other Medicis substitute for those who govern us—we can discuss this on another day. But in the meantime, we could emulate the experts.

In Florence 500 years ago, the contest system was used to assure that the best artistic proposals were utilized to adorn the city. So let’s organize a grand contest.

It will be a grand contest to choose a grand team and a grand plan for the strategic development and management of the tourism sector for the next 30 years, with an estimate of costs and results.

A qualified panel of judges should choose the best three proposals, and the proposals should be publicly debated on television. The losers will receive an important prize, and the winners will be commissioned to execute their proposal during thirty years, with a significant fixed, indexed and guaranteed annual budget.

Since televised public contests enjoy high ratings, this contest could also be a way to build pontes novos, new bridges, in our divided society.

The Santa María del Fiore Cathedral took more than 100 years to construct, and for a long time everyone thought its dome would be impossible to build. And so, friends, let’s not lose the hope of finding a local genius like Brunelleschi for our Helicoide (a local 45-year-old monstrous white elephant). 

From El Universal, Caracas, April 10, 2003

Extracted from "Voice and Noise" 2006