ON CULTURAL DEMOCRACY IN NEOLIBERAL MARKETS OR WHY TASTES SHOULD BE DISCUSSED

Text topic: Culture and Democracy - 50 Years of the Review Kultura

Text author: Ирина Милутиновић

The subject of this paper is the status of cultural assets in the contemporary merchandise and service markets. The research starts from the premise that the relationship between democracy and culture nowadays cannot be considered beyond the value matrix of neoliberal capitalism, which has a direct and decisive influence on the cultural field. The conceptual apparatus has been precisely defined and different theoretical perspectives, based on the narratives of humanistic and anthropological approaches to culture, have been analysed. A neoliberal paradigm on creative industries has been presented, with special emphasis on the institute of cultural exclusion in trade agreements, viewed from two opposing perspectives: the US and the WTO, on the one hand, and the European approach to cultural policy, on the other. The aim of the paper is to discuss, by a scientific methodology, the relationship between normative principles of cultural democracy and the practices of neoliberal markets. We conclude that cultural policy should ensure a proportion between market-oriented creative industries and various non-profit culture goals: aesthetic, ethical, educational, identity and democratic.