Should Philosophy Be Monetized?

Or Art? Or Torah? Or insert Idealistic term here. Often when it is, we balk, imagining the Great Transcendental Thing has been cheapened, commodified, instrumentalized.

Sophists were distinguished (negatively) from philosophers in part by virtue of the fact that they charged for their time.

They were also distinguished by the fact that they focused on the value proposition of philosophy—a greater capacity to win legal arguments in court.

Philosophers—the claim goes—are not motivated by winning status or building something customers want, but by truth; therefore, they must be prepared to suffer what society or the market value, since they care about “what is” and not simply “opinion.”

Academics, clerics, and life-long students, love to defend the purity of philosophy and religion as against capitalist pressures, but in so doing also set these institutions up to be corrupt in their own way (e.g. through “rent seeking.”)

As Bob Dylan says, “You gotta serve somebody.” Who and how will you serve? Is there a point at which you stop being a philosopher and become a sophist? How will you know?