I agree that capitalist societies have democratized and promoted the arts. But we could say the same about capitalism's effect on domesticated animals: with economic and population growth, capitalist societies can be interpreted as "patrons" of pigs, cows, goats, and chickens, since we need more and more of these animals to feed the rich, developed societies. These animals, of course, aren't free; they serve their masters.

Likewise, while the quantity of art expands exponentially, thanks largely to innovations in technology and to the consumer mindset of affluent people, that very expansion means we start to take art for granted, so the quality of art declines and its economic value plummets. And most of the artists become servants, producing for next to nothing like domesticated animals or like most peasants of feudal societies. This is the gig economy of precarity.

I agree that capitalism doesn't reward abstract goods or merits but only what actual buyers want out of the transaction. That's consistent with my point, though. Like democracy, capitalism is vulnerable to predation by demagogues. Once people's expectations and character are debased, having been exploited by a legion of expert fraudsters, we no longer appreciate abstract values or care about real merit. We prefer only what's superficially valuable because our intellectual standards have been lowered. We've become infantilized consumers to serve the plutocrats who naturally rule the ever-corruptible "free market."

I don't see why collectivism should be inherently opposed to art.