We'd just do spinoffs and imitations. That leads to a very cheap culture. You have to push people's buttons very hard to get them to buy right away. Today we have no popes, princes, and dukes competing to sponsor artists. Very much so.
Government is problematic.
Frankly, I don't imagine that in the next decade or so the U.S. government will be a very useful patron of the arts. I hope that the NEA will survive, partly because it's hard to imagine it would ever be reconstituted if it doesn't. But foundations and universities are crucial. There isn't the kind of cultural space outside these institutions that there used to be. In earlier decades, you could make money as an independent critic.