Why should we fund the arts? Publicly funded arts institutions are under more pressure than ever to quantify the social benefits they bring, as would be done for schools and hospitals. But isn't the crucial role of art to challenge the way society is run? Please God, no. Over 60 years after the foundation of the Arts Council , 50 years after the creation of the RSC, with publicly funded British plays the toast of Broadway, visits to newly free museums doubling in a decade and British concert life the envy of the world, surely we don't have to justify giving public money to the arts? Again? Well, yes, we do. Despite the culture minister Ed Vaizey's insistence that the 30% cut in the Arts Council's budget is a temporary expedient, many of his Conservative colleagues consider any public funding of the arts a form of grand larceny. Ivan Lewis, Labour's former culture spokesman, acknowledges that the case for the arts is yet to be won even within his party; and the new arts spokesman, Dan Jarvis, sees quantifying the value of the arts as one of his most urgent priorities. In the zero-sum economy of austerity Britain, the arts are increasingly required to couch their case in terms appropriate to those basic services -- social care, education, policing -- with which they're in competition for dwindling public funds. It wasn't always like this. When it was founded in 1946, the Arts Council could justify its activities in its own