ART MARKET vs. FINE ART AND CULTURE

A recent article on the art market asked the question: is the art market making us stupid? or are we making the art market stupid?
To put this question into some sort of context one needs to look at the origins of the art market and the basis of its existence which is basically a product of the artistic and cultural pursuits of artists.
The current boom in the art market has promoted art as a commodity and exposed the financial side of fine art which has caused some people to express concern in relation to the potential for the artistic and cultural aspects of art to be overshadowed by the financial aspects. I totally agree that there is the potential for this to happen and that both buyers and sellers need to continue to promote the artistic and cultural facets of fine art and nurture the artists that supply the art market.
I think that the art market can be compared to a manufacturing business in that the owners of a manufacturing business can't purely focus on how much they are selling and ignore the production and manufacturing side of the business because otherwise there is the potential for the manufacturing and production processes to collapse causing the whole business to collapse. Although I am not comparing art to a manufactured product i do think that the art market does have similarities to a manufacturing/production business.
I don't agree that at this point that the art market is making us stupid because many of the people that have become involved in art investment would not be interested in the cultural and artistic aspects of art regardless of the financial focus of the art market.
Likewise I don't agree that we are making the art market stupid because the art market is based wholly on the trading of art for money and therefore will always have a financial focus. I do think that there is tendency for the art market to stray away from the indicators of value that are related to the artistic merits of the work and become too involved in publicity, media and popular culture which causes confusion and contradiction for both sellers and buyers.