Reading and seeing coverage of the death of Tony Benn reminds us of how far the country has moved to the right in one person's lifetime. Where once left wing Keynesianism was unquestioned, now conservative monetarism is the conventional wisdom. Similarly there is an acceptance of privatisation and the free market across all the main parties. 

It's hard to imagine the Labour Party of 30 years ago supporting a cap on the welfare budget or people being allowed to cash in their pensions.

Just as hard to imagine any mainstream politician promoting, as Tony Benn would have, councils owning housing stock or state ownership of utilities or managing not-for-profit institutions without financial targets or raising income taxes. So left wing opinion is now about how best to manage a right wing economy. The centre is now so far to the old right that left-of-centre merely means a paler shade of blue.

We've all experienced the failings of state and local government managers so I support the idea of a free market economy in principle, I simply draw the line at an out-of-control market. The problem seems to me that the market will pursue profit without conscience, overview, common sense or any other restraints. Along the way, it creates bubbles that others have to clear up and increases the gap between rich and poor which in the past has led to societies' downfall.

Those of us working in the arts also take the free market as a given. We are constantly striving to show the economic benefit of what we do: we prove the arts are worth so many millions to the local economy or x billions to the tourist industry and so on.

I remain a believer in art for art's sake. The primary benefit of the arts is to our well being as individuals and society and therefore cannot be quantified in monetary terms.

I've made a career out of ensuring that arts organisations don't spend unnecessarily and that we maximise what we get for our spending through better marketing but I don't think thatgetting more bangs for your bucks is the same as saying a financial return on investment is how we should judge success.

The limit of the market is its lack of humanity. As humans, we use money for transactions but the value we place on what we do is very different to the price and much of what we value is priceless (as Jessie J reminded us)- love, nature, freedom, giving, happiness, health. The arts need to be paid for whether through grants, giving or earned income but their value to us is beyond price.