题目：Some people think that governments should give financial support to creative artists such as painters and musicians. Others believe that creative artists should be funded by alternative sources. Discuss both views and give your own opinion.
有的人认为政府应该支持像画家、音乐家这样的艺术家的创作，有的人为艺术家应该从其他的渠道获得资助。你怎么看？
英文：
Whether governments should give financial support to creative artists is a tough question for many countries.
To begin with, there are many nice impacts for governments to fund artists. Art has great meanings for human’s mental life. The art products like songs and paintings give us all kinds of feelings as well as knowledge of the world, and cities are more attractive and glutted with rich humanism atmosphere by sculptures and buildings.
Art industry is also a very important industry in a country’s economy. By helping artists, government can impulse the industry and create more job vacancies. Like in South Korea, the culture industry’s GDP is 15% of the total GDP.
Let’s talk more about South Korea. After the 1997 Asia Financial Crisis, South Korea’s government determined to guide and help cultural industry. And they had formed an effective way. For example, the online game industry was lack of professional personnel and game engines inthe beginning. So the government put large amounts of money to enroll talented and experienced people to develop game engines. And then gave the game engines to all startups in the online game industry for free so that the startup companies could focus on the game design. After many years’ competing, the survived companies can now make great profits, and can hire professional personnel or buy game engines abroad. The way of finding weakness and giving targeted help is Korea’s advanced experience.
On the other hand, there are some shortcomings in government’s help to arts. Compared with education, health and other fundamental needs of people, art products are more like luxury goods. Developing economy and solving livelihood issues should be in the government’s high priority, not funding artists, since the money is limited. Besides, artists and art companies can use other ways to find supports, for example selling their products. So there is no need for the government to be involved.
The biggest problem is wasting if governments take part in funding the art industry. There was a project supporting by Chinese government to screen films in villages. But this activity was not very popular and there were almost nobody to watch since the films were not chosen by audience. In the end, the sessions of films were cut off to a half to save the budget.
In my opinion, government’s management and funding for artists is essential but only suitable to huge events such as the Olympic Games and World Expositions. In small events, it is better to change the way of giving money to artists directly due to its low efficiency. Governments should give free consumption coupons to consumers and let them to buy cultural products they like. Then the cultural industry can be more prosperous and competent.
首先来说，政府去资助艺术家有很多好的影响。艺术对于人类的精神生活来说有重大意义，音乐和绘画等艺术作品能够让我们体验到各种各样不同的情感，以及增加我们对这个世界的认识。雕塑和绘画还能增加一座城市的人文气息，让城市更具吸引力。
艺术行业也是一个很重要的经济行业，通过资助艺术家，政府能够促进该行业的发展，从而创造更多的工作机会。比如韩国，文化产业占全国总GDP的15%。
接着说韩国，在1997年亚洲金融危机之后，政府下定决心要去引导帮助文化产业，并且探索出来了自己的方法。比如韩国的网游行业，刚开始最缺的是人才和技术引擎，政府就拿资金招募人才做技术引擎，然后免费提供给所有的网游创业企业，这样企业和可以专注于游戏本身的设计，然后他们之间竞争，政府就退出了。经过竞争的企业盈利能力强，就可以自己招人做引擎，或者买国外的引擎了。这套找到薄弱环节并针对性帮助的方法，是韩国政府的很好经验。
另一方面，政府帮助艺术家是有一些缺点的。相比教育、健康这些需求来说，艺术需求属于奢侈品。对于很多国家来说，最重要是事情应该是发展经济，解决民生需求，而不是用有限的资金去资助艺术。另外，艺术家和艺术公司有其他的渠道去获得支持，比如出售自己的艺术产品，所以没必要让国家来介入。
政府介入资助文化产业的最大问题是浪费。中国有个项目是到乡村去放映电影。但是这个活动并不是特别受欢迎，几乎没人看，因为电影不是观众自己选的。到最后，为了节约预算，电影放映的场次被砍了一半。
我认为，政府对艺术家的管理和资助是必需的，但是只适用于超大型活动，比如奥运会、世博会这种。对于小活动，最好改变直接给艺术家资金的方式，因为效率太低。政府应该发放一些免费的消费券，让消费者可以自由选择喜欢的艺术产品。这样艺术行业才能更加繁荣和有竞争力。
