Patronage

Patronage is the support, encouragement, privilege, or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows on another. In the history of art, art patronage refers to the support that princes, popes, and other wealthy and influential people have provided to artists such as musicians, painters, and sculptors. It can also refer to the right of bestowing offices or church benefices, the business given to a store by a regular customer, and the guardianship of saints. The word patron derives from the Latin patronus ('patron'), one who gives benefits to his clients (see patronage in ancient Rome).

In some countries, the term is used to describe political patronage or patronal politics, which is the use of state resources to reward individuals for their electoral support. Some patronage systems are legal, as in the Canadian tradition of the prime minister appointing senators and the heads of a number of commissions and agencies; in many cases, these appointments go to people who have supported the political party of the prime minister. The term is also used to refer to a type of corruption or favoritism in which a party in power rewards groups, families, or ethnicities for their electoral support illegally using gifts, appointments to positions, or government contracts.

In many systems, corrupt patronage developed as a means of maintaining control over the populace, concentrating economic and political power in a small minority which held privileges that the majority of the population did not. In this system, the patron holds authority and influence over a less powerful person, whom he protects by granting favors in exchange for loyalty and allegiance. The system, with roots in feudalism, was designed to maintain an inexpensive, subservient labor force, which could be utilized to limit production costs and allow wealth and its privileges to be monopolized by a small elite.