Martha Piper gave an important Killam lecture called Building a Civil Society: A New Role for the Human Sciences.
This makes the case for serious funding for the humanities and social sciences. It starts on the importance of a civil society. It argues that a civil society is actually the condition for a strong economy not the other way around. It argues that there needs to be support for research in the human sciences as a way of promoting a healthy civil society. What is missing is the arts.