I realize I've ignored this conversation for this long (read: not generating content) but I wonder if the subjectivity of value isn't the crux in this matter.
Historically, artists have enjoyed patrons...
For instance:
I have a friend whom, when I met him years back, I asked to redo the bottom of my longboard. Finally, this past summer, I simply traded mine for his, leaving mine at his house. I'd hounded him for years (literally) about scraping my deck and the day after I left my board at his house, it had begun.
Now I always intended to pay him for this task. However, both he and I have had hilarious thoughts and conversations about the ridiculousness of putting a monetary value on art and still cannot decide what I should pay for it. We've jokingly settled on a cool million, which I'll pay over time.
As I've followed along, I think Garet's most recent comment nails the crux; what I've tried to illustrate more clearly with my anecdote.
The job got done, not because I hounded my friend and threw money at him for the entirety of our relationship, but because he wanted to draw something.
We, as a society, don't seem to take the effort to cultivate a more balanced appreciation of art, with which we might reward, instead of marginalize, those creative fonts among us and so push our human boundaries.