Then there are people who see art only as a rich person's pursuit. It can be, but it doesn't need to be.
I am reminded of Daniel James also known as Gwyrosydd, his bardic name. He was a Welsh language poet, who wrote probably the greatest Welsh language song, Calon Lân (means 'a pure heart'). People throughout Wales sing this song 130 years later. It is a proud continuation of a bardic tradition in Wales going back probably thousands of years. It also encompasses the Welsh culture of choral singing, noted in early recorded history.
Daniel James spent his life slaving away in an ironworks, making crucible steel. John Hughes, who wrote the tune worked in an office there.
I like to imagine what they could have done had they been at leisure to work and perform all day.
Go Ireland, great scheme. I wish we had it over here in the UK.
In an era where working a full time job is not enough to pay the cost of living, arts and culture no longer exist except as hobbies for rich kids. Seattle successfully exterminated their entire arts, music, and culture scene by raising the cost of living sky high.
In Ireland _today_, we are in an era where working as a nurse, paramedic, firefighter, teacher, etc have become unable to pay the cost of living, leaving them to exist only as hobbies for the rich kids who can be subsidised by their parents or immigrant labour willing to be exploited to avoid deportation.
Is health not wealth? Education? Safety? Or does only the arts deserve this subsidisation?
[1]https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/music/that-magic-...
It’s not much of a life but the same still stands in many cities.
It's a bad scheme, it divide's your population into people who have to create "wealth", and people who create "art".
Yes creating art (or preserving rare potatoes[1]) should be supported by your government if it's not survivable in a capitalistic society, however having different rights because of your occupation is not better then the middle ages.
most people don't "create wealth". They're forced to serve up half of their awake time to someone that is "wealthy", most likely through inheritance.
I think it should go a lot further than it does but it seems unambiguously positive even by your own framing.
So you do agree that art should be supported by government I see, so how would you do it?
It's the same as cities/governments spending on free public basketball courts/tennis courts/running tracks. I come from a country with none of those things, and the difference that makes on the average fitness/skill level of the population is massive compared to places where those things exist.
Both basic income, and public sporting infrastructure have a significant (but not unreasonable) upfront cost, but the payoff in even 2 years time will be massive. Provided the economics check out, there's no reason to not give it a shot.
Your either don't understand or don't want to understand what people are commenting about here. Of course nobody thinks that only money has value. If only money had value, why would anybody exchange money for, say, a bread?
What many people are wondering about, is whether the value of the money paid by tax payers to artists, equals the value of what they give to the tax payers in return. Because if it would be equal, then one might wonder why they apparently are not able to sell their art for the same amount of money.
"The headline finding from this social CBA is that for every €1 of public money invested in the pilot, society received €1.39 in return"
This came about as a mixture of greater economic activity from participants, cultural impacts that saw public-facing artist activities increase, and improvements to wellbeing of participants that reduced their requirement for psychological interventions by the state. The state also predicts that the further roll-out of this program will benefit consumers with lower prices for artistic works, as there will be more supply overall.
The scheme has been quite popular here in Ireland. Given the history of Ireland when it comes to art (both in the sense of spoken and written word, and in other mediums), it makes sense to introduce a scheme like this to safeguard and uplift those who produce art.
[1] https://www.gov.ie/en/department-of-culture-communications-a...
From reading your comment I think this observation applies to your own understanding, not the gp's.
> whether the value of the money paid by tax payers to artists, equals the value of what they give to the tax payers in return. [...] one might wonder why they apparently are not able to sell their art for the same amount of money.
You might not see it but this is effectively equivalent to thinking only money has value, because you're describing a system whereby value is defined by money. Your dichotomy assumes anything that cannot be sold has no value, & anything that is sold is only as valuable as its price. The emergent conclusion from that formula is that only money has value.
It's worth noting that it also follows from this that value is defined by people with purchasing power. If for example the only cohort who value any given piece of art cannot afford to financially support the artist creating said art, not only is the art & the artist's work without value, but by extension so too are the perspectives, autonomy & - ultimately - the lives of that cohort without value.
Because the skills and effort needed to market and sell your art to an audience are not equal to the skills and effort needed to produce good art [1].
I agree that there could be other complementary or better solutions compared to this scheme. But as long as the above premise is true, not every good artist will want or be able to sell well.
[1] However you define this. Supposedly, Van Gogh was a lousy salesman, but a good artist.
> equals the value of what they give to the tax payers in return
This seems incredibly shortsighted.
Better to amortize the cost across the population and have public works. Like we do for infrastructure. Seems to work just fine.
"Public goods" like parks, museums, bridges, roadways, transit, nature preserves, community spaces, and public safety services produce both direct value to their immediate users as well as substantial diffuse value to their community. Direct value can be captured by user fees, tolls, subscriptions, etc but capturing diffuse value is challenging. A park raises surrounding property values even for people who do not visit the park. Good transportation infrastructure increases the value of surrounding land and and productivity per capita even for nonusers. Relying solely on user fees may force some of these entities to close or fall into disrepair, thereby reducing overall value by substantially more than it would have cost to maintain them. And in some cases shifting the cost burden to direct users substantially lowers the diffuse value, for example back when fire fighting companies would let houses burn unless their owners paid them, ultimately resulting in more overall community fire damage.
In these cases, subsidizing these public services with taxes (optimally Georgist land-value taxes) is an economically rational decision.
One could plausibly argue that artists similarly produce diffuse value e.g., raising the profile of their nation or culture, making their neighborhood a more desirable place for people with money. Not only do artists typically struggle to collect a share of this diffuse value, as renters the very value they create often ends up pricing out of their community. I could imagine cases where it is a net benefit for a government to subsidize such entities if such subsidy is less than the fraction of the diffuse benefit that ends up being collected by taxes.
I have no insight as to whether this scheme in particular is net positive, please see sibling posts for that. I'm just explaining that such arrangements are both economically rational and extremely common in high-functioning societies.
Some art, like classical music composition, is and has been propped up by grants and wealthy donors since forever.
Whether that’s a good allocation of resources is of course entirely subjective :)
It's easy to channel indignation toward those people and not, say, their corporate masters that seem to hold everyone's strings.
Another question is would Daniel James work have been as good if he wasn't working in an ironworks? In the 1800s most of the great literature was written by normal guys writing on the side, they need that experience to make great art. Heart of Darkness is never going to be written by an academic. Hemmingway doesn't write anything without his experiences in Italy, Spain and France in WWI, Civil War and WWII, if he was just a beat reporter forever, all of his great inspirations don't amount to much. Tolstoy and Doestoyevsky are notable exceptions.
As for the second question ("would Daniel James work have been as good if he wasn't working in an ironworks"), well, life and art really are too varied to draw the kind of conclusions the following comment implies.
Here's a non-exhaustive list of eligible types:
https://www.gov.ie/en/department-of-culture-communications-a...
"Dad why are you working your hands off? Well... the government decided to pay people to "make art" instead of working. How come? Well... nope I have no fucking idea"
I wonder how far are we from a song that is entirely generated by AI and becomes as loved as a song created by a human, and is still sung/played by people decades later? It feels weird to even think about it.
If AI does get as good as humans at creating art (I think it might), what happens then? Will human generated art be still as respected/valuable? Will humans even bother creating art at that stage?
On the topic of basic income - people seem to have strong opinions on both sides. I guess time will tell, but there isn't anything wrong in experimenting, at minimum. To those who strongly oppose UBI - don't we already give bailouts, huge tax breaks, subsidies to entire industries etc, to the extent of rewarding bad behavior (criminal behavior even) - like the one that caused 2008 crash? Why is corporate handouts okay but not UBI?
Humans need basic income (or at least resources) and to have culturally valuable work to do. Art and craft esp as a form of human expression seems like we should ASSUME that humans want to do this, that we as a society value the human energy that goes into it.
I would hope that humans would always value human generated art, but these days it seems that many businessmen and AI bros do not. Perhaps they are not human.
Living in a one room dwelling, with a shared bathroom is unpleasant, but safe, warm, and has a bed. Having enough for basic food, but no luxuries.
My point is, welfare(not disability, welfare) should sustain. Keep safe. Alive. Free from elements. But absolutely be something a normal person wants to escape from.
And there will always be those happy with the above, and .. well, OK.
But whether artist or whomever, basic living in hard times should be there for you.
Or is it more of have to apply to be subsidized and the government chooses what art is worth subsidizing, which won’t result in good art, more just government building lobby bad art.
Instead, focus on taxing scarce resources, especially since we cannot make more of it. If it's natural resources coming out of the grounds such as minerals and oil, it becomes a severance tax.
If we're talking about occupying land, then it's a Land Value Tax.
You could also tax negative externalities like pollution or traffic congestion.This is known as a Piguovian tax.
effective tax rates
0% ... not realistic outside very unique circumstances. 25% ... feels fair to me. 33% ... still fair but yeah 1 out of every 3 days worked you start to feel that. 50% ... the border of fair and unfair. if i keep less than half of what i make, that feeling of fairness wears thin.
Now, when you are near that border of fair and unfair and then you see John Q Artist getting his whole list comped using tax money that pushes the somewhat fair into unfair territory real fast.
Now, we already have situations similar to this in most countries either from subsidies, gov't spending you don't agree with, corruption, waste, etc.
All of that should be reduced but when you see your neighbor living free while you slave away you feel that differently.
> if i keep less than half of what i make, that feeling of fairness wears thin.
How fairly you made that money in the first place and what you get in return in the form of government services makes all the difference.
They don't care about the art, only the clout it brings them in terms of hoarding a limited thing people value.
Art is a medium that is used to convey and stir emotion in the viewer. It's not currency to anyone but shallow fools.
Am I eligible if I doodle on a piece of paper once in a while? What about if I decided to expose a urinal? Or paint a can of soup?
if your artistic practice is truly so abstract that you can't prove labor by any material means then you probably just won't get subsidized for it.
Part of being an artist (at least it used to be) is struggle.
Probably nothing.
The idle rich and trust fund kids aren’t exactly know for producing, well, anything of value, really.
Getting paid to sit around all day and do fuck-all isn’t exactly character building.
I reckon the 20 years as an iron puddler he had done by then had built his character already.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Independent_scientist... - "An independent scientist (formerly called a gentlemen scientist) is a scientist with a private income who can pursue scientific study independently as they wish without excessive external financial pressures."
Including: Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin (Evolution), Ben Franklin, Robert Boyle (Boyle's gas law), Oliver Heaviside (electromagnetic theory, co-axial cables), Alexander von Humboldt (established modern Geography), Thomas Jefferson, Leopold Kronecker, Alessandro Volta (voltaic pile battery)
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_scientist - "Self-funded scientists practiced more commonly from the Renaissance until the late 19th century, including the Victorian era, especially in England, before large-scale government and corporate funding was available. Many early fellows of the Royal Society in London were independent scientists. "
Including "Charles Babbage, Henry Cavendish (discovered Hydrogen), Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Thomas Young (Young's modulus of elasticity, eyeball focusing), Joseph Priestly (discovered oxygen)
Rene Decartes "arrived in La Haye in 1623, selling all of his property to invest in bonds, which provided a comfortable income for the rest of his life."
And basically any tenured professor paid to do whatever interests them, or academic or researcher, especially mathemticians, hired and paid for blue sky research, all the places like Bell Labs that HN loves.
To be fair, the majority has been conditioned in thinking that only money should be your purpose, that's literally how capitalism works, even arts now is a product that need to be sold to the highest bidder, or manufactured in the millions to be sold.
The only person I know getting this money was already semi-retired after selling their house in London and retiring to the Irish countryside, and basically just noodles around on the guitar now and then.
The UK has this with lottery funding for athletes - it started really positive - but is now a lottery funded gap year for private school kids
Correct, the programme is FOR artists. How could this possibly work otherwise? By somebody stating they intend to become an talented artist?
How else would you gauge merit if not through their portfolio of prior work?
We're not objectively deciding what is art and what isn't, up front. Who decides what counts? Who's to say an AI generated self-published vomit novels on Amazon aren't as valid as anything else.
Maybe the issue is with the definition of the profession of artist, that's it's too vague and fluid allowing anyone to claim to be one without much hassle.
But then if you have a strict definition of the artist profession, everyone will rush to conform to the bare minimum of that in order to score those benefits.
So maybe then the core issue is with the welfare state that unfairly picks winners and losers instead of being "universal".
Artist have exited way before the welfare state has. They were poor and had patrons who supported them if they loved their work. So then why do we need the state to subsidize this now? Do we have proof this leads to higher quality art?
Seriously though, having a basic income that is not basic was bound to give issues.
Frankly we don’t know the selection criteria for the program this year. It will be only released in April.
But we know the selection criteria for the pilot program, and for that this was not true.
> So if you gave up art because you had bills and kids and needed to support yourself or a family, you're SOL.
Again we don’t know the full program’s eligibility criteria yet. Under the pilot program there were two separate streams. Those who were recently trained, and those who were “practicing artist”.
Your hypothetical “artist who gave up art” might fall into the “recently trained” stream and thus be eligible.
Or if they gave up on art a long ago (more than 5 years), there are ways they can get back to it. They can start practicing their art on the side again, produce a portfolio of work and thus become eligible again. They don’t need to be full time artist for this.
> The only person I know getting this money
In the pilot program they randomly selected 2000 participants from those who where eligible. So to get the money in the pilot program you both needed to be eligible, have applied for it, and be lucky enough in the lottery.
Because of this lottery whoever is getting it today is not representative of who is all eligible for it.
The article also mentions that overall the program had a positive impact.
edit: found it https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45590900#45591439
Lacks real courage. Not committed. Next!
Joshua Citarella (Doomscroll podcast) often talks about the practicalities of producing art.
In 1970's a (starving) artist worked part-time job (eg waiter), enabling them to focus on their craft most of the week.
Today, typical artist has to hustle, juggling 3 jobs, and can only focus once per week on their one day off work.
Further, "entry level" jobs are unpaid / underpaid. Such as internships at a museum or newspaper. Ditto teaching positions.
Consequently, only affluent persons are able to break into the creative disciplines (production of culture). Trust funds, nepotism, and other lottery winners.
--
I, for one, enthusiastically support heavily subsidizing both creative and caring work. All those "not-for-profit" gigs and unpaid labor. They're the grease that keeps society working. Despite not being tabulated in someone's payroll accounting system.
Artists had to make a buch of art which was then given to the government. The state ended up with entire warehouses filled with crap.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_Progress_Administration
The work also included infrastructure projects, and often would create public art to decorate the infrastructure. That is why you'll see far more decorative work when looking at bridges from that era, for example.
As I've gone on to live in a few older cities, I have been surprised the number of times that I have (for example) come across a bridge or tunnel or whatnot and seen a big serif "WORKS PROGRESS ADMINISTRATION 1936" plaque on one side of it. It always feels like stepping into an alternate reality where history is more present and real.
It feels like a silly way to phrase it, but growing up where only a handful of buildings were older than 40 years, encountering history in a more banal form, like a simple bridge with some engravings, always feels more impactful than seeing some 500-year-old castle, monument or other touristy site.
Due to EU rules on state aid though, it's technically a quango and not part of the government despite being spun off of the then privatised national sugar company.
They also pay Ireland's contributions toward ESA, so the Irish flags you see printed on the side of Ariane rockets aren't a direct result of what the government is doing.
Art is seen as a worthwhile endeavour even if it can't necessarily support itself as a private endeavour. It's for the same reason galleries and museums are subsidised by the government.
Anyone can call themselves an artist but to receive this money you would have to have a portfolio of work that is approved by the application programme.
Ireland already has a competitive economy. There is more to a country than economics and that includes promoting things like art to foster a sense of identity and promote Ireland on a world stage.
Milton Friedman wouldn't approve and we're okay with that.
At a minimum you need a registered business, regular exhibitions or performances in your field, you have to register with the ministry of culture, and can't have a job. Contract work is allowed and encouraged. Also you are expected to apply when the government issues a Call For Creatives.
I think you get paid minimum wage as long as you continue fulfilling criteria.
But Friedman would have supported a broad basic-income scheme. We know this because he did support one. It was his proposal in 1962 of a “negative income tax” [0] (in Capitalism and Freedom) that gave rise to the movement to replace traditional social welfare programs with simple schemes that just give money to poor people. (This movement led to the Earned Income Tax Credit [1] in the United States.)
Friedman’s negative income tax is equivalent to the contemporary notion of a guaranteed basic income (but not to a universal basic income, as only people earning below some threshold would receive it). Like most economists, Friedman believed that people (even poor people) can typically make their own economic choices better than a government program can make those choices for them. (He was likewise not opposed to redistributive policies per se.) That was the root of his advocacy for market-based mechanisms of organizing the economy.
0. The idea dates to at least the 1940’s, but Friedman’s book is typically credited with popularizing it. See, e.g, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax.
Ireland's economic statistics are so badly distorted by US companies routing money there that there is an entire subfield of economics dedicated to trying to figure out what Ireland's real economic state is, called "Leprechaun economics". A common adjustment made by economics researchers when studying the EU is to just subtract Ireland entirely.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leprechaun_economics
https://www.cfr.org/articles/leprechaun-adjusted-euro-area-g...
https://democracychallenged.com/2025/05/14/irelands-phantom-...
> The key to understanding this disconnect is a number few outside Ireland pay attention to: Modified Gross National Income, or GNI*. Unlike GDP, which counts all activity happening within Ireland’s borders, GNI* adjusts for the distortions caused by the huge presence of foreign multinationals. And the gap is enormous. In 2023, GNI* was just €291 billion — meaning more than €219 billion of Ireland’s reported output never truly flowed into the Irish economy at all.
When looking at Ireland's own economy without the influence of US tax transactions, the economy shrinks by nearly half.
Well it has a competitive tax haven.
In other places (like Italy) there is.
I don't give a shit about Milton Friedman. I do give a shit about wage earners in Ireland who are being forced to pay for an artist welfare program. Ireland has a competitive economy.
A lot of societies have realized there is value in supporting art and culture. For thousands of years that activity was sponsored by monarchs, royalty and other nobility. Up until actually quite recently, most first world countries without monarchs and nobles also provided substantial support for the arts.
Basically outlandishly rich and gaudy benefactors have always had so much money they could employ OTHERS to do trivial pursuits. Now - the average taxpayer will bear that cost.
We need more art that pushes boundaries and remains controversial. Instead, we favor the type of artist who attracts the most attention through their personality, whether because of their looks or a manufactured edgy image, while producing mundane, lowest-common-denominator work. We must support contemporary artists who move us forward rather than remaining stuck in popularity contests or constant nostalgia.
Under the current system, it is almost inevitable that influencers use their status to promote gambling ads and NFTs, ruining the lives of their fans. We need to break this cycle of rewarding increasingly poor behavior while making it harder for independent artists to earn a living.
Maybe they could sing up for say extra 20-50% tax which then get distributed.
> It also recouped more than the trial's net cost of 72 million euros ($86 million) through increases in arts-related expenditure, productivity gains and reduced reliance on other social welfare payments, according to a government-commissioned cost-benefit analysis.
Your bio says:
> I'm not trolling. I actually want to know the answer, although my comment may feel less than diplomatic.
And so here is the real test. After reading the numerous responses to your question, do you get it?
I worked in "culture" for a while when I was younger. 90% of it is just disguised unemployment benefits for those that consider it a dirty word barely good enough for the hoi polloi.
Did you have to be the party pooper? People were trying to indulge one of the most noble and timeless of pursuits: pissing on the poor! >(
that's the way you do it
You play the guitar on the MTV
That ain't workin',
that's the way you do it
Money for nothin'
and your chicks for free
We got to install microwave ovens,
custom kitchen delivery
We got to move these refrigerators,
we got to move these Color TVs...
Dire Straits, Money for Nothing, 1985
Guest artist: Sting
https://www.musixmatch.com/lyrics/Dire-Straits/Money-for-Not...
That being said, wise governments recognize the value of some kind of support of the arts. One reason for the incredible esteem that Korean culture is held in within Asia is the Korean government's active support of its filmmaking, TV and music industry. This was also true in Renaissance Italy (courtesy of the Medici family) and in 17th Century France (courtesy of Louis XIV). It was even true of the CIA's active support of abstract expressionism. The payoff of such support is soft power, which is a very real force.
Through the kunstuitleen they leased and sold art to galleries and private homes. It was like a library for contemporary art which paid struggling artists and their families, while also exposing the public to more art.
To say that "no one wanted" is a massively overblown. Thousands of art pieces lived happily in many Dutch homes.
The Young British Artists (YBA) boom of the 80s was a product of the innovative teaching environment of Goldsmiths' college plus the drive of people like Damien Hirst, who organized the ground-breaking Freeze exhibition. The British Council did their best to capitalize on this.
Artists couldn't apply for this, but were officially selected. The program was stopped in 2010, meaning no new recipients have been selected since. As far as I know, there's been no studies surrounding any measurable increase in artistic quality or artistic output.
It is of course easy to point out how deeply unfair such programs are on multiple levels. Unsurprisingly, many recipients have utilized loopholes in order to receive the grant despite having incomes and wealth well above the threshold.
Edit to clarify: Sweden still grants long-term stipends to various artists, sometimes up to a decade. What's described above is a guaranteed, life-long, basic income.
Scholarships and this kind of funds happen elsewhere and are based on merits. They end up funding a bunch of upper middle class's children because it turns out those children are well-equipped to perform higher on merits.
If you are too rich, then you wouldn't need this kind of fund.
If you are below upper middle class, then you would have a hard time competing with children from that class.
The upper middle class isn't rich enough to fund the kid but is good enough to accumulate a lot of merits.
While I'm sure there are some wholly self-made virtuosos on the list, it does give off an air of apparent nepotism.
I'd argue they are well equipped to give the appearance of merit, rather than performing higher on actual merit.
[1] https://www.gamereactor.eu/report-20-of-steams-revenue-goes-...
https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statlig_inkomstgaranti_f%C3%B6...
https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/money-and-tax/tax/inco...
Maybe it shouldn't be possible. Society is telling your friend that her work is not particularly valuable and that she should probably consider doing something else.
Challenge
> I don’t think it would be possible without the tax exemption.
^ That tax exemption _is_ from society. You may not agree with it, but clearly (at least some part of) "society" does.
1. She gets better all the time, and might be super popular in the future 2. Many writings became relevant only long after the death of the author
Broadly speaking, vernacular artists work for a fucking living; it’s rare there (like in most pursuits) to get super rich. We can’t all be David Baldacci or Danielle Steele.
NB: Thanks to Neal Stephenson for the best essay on this. He calls genre artists “Beowulf” artists.
I have thoughts on how we're defining value as well, but others have covered those.
Obviously not because of this income scheme and not complete disintegration, but Irish society is under extreme strain from housing pressures, rising living costs, and growing polarisation that is tearing at social cohesion.
It's frustrating to see funds allocated to this scheme when health, housing, transport, etc are all failing apart.
There is already a "Merit based" system that supports the arts. It's called the private market.
My initial gut reaction was akin to many responses here but a post that detailed the implementation mitigates many concerns I'd have if I were an Irish citizen. As long as the system has some required 'buy-in' from applicants to prove they are working towards being an artist, and the distribution is random so it's not a guaranteed payout, and possibly the odds of being selected are driven by the number of applicants and so no one could do a cost-benefit analysis of submitting the 'buy-in' purely with hope of receiving a payout, then this seems to be a more fair way of supporting up and coming 'arts' than the government paying some already established artist for a mural or to design a park or to create a sculpture.
Another funny difference is the word "corporation" meaning the government in some cases. Like someone living in Belfast could go home from their corporation job to their corporation flat, if they lived in public housing and were employed by Stormont.
3 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45590900
4 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29977176
People have seemed critical of the presentation, scope, and goal of this program. (e.g. It's not "universal" basic income, the number of recipients is limited to 2,000, and why are artists being subsidized instead of essential workers?)
Now it seems that we'll get some real world answer to those questions/concerns.
Tbh though, that doesn't sound that special. Many countries subsidize artists.
There are far more than 2,000 real, paying jobs for schoolteachers. And for grocery clerks. And for nurses. And for fire fighters. And for drivers of rubbish lorries. And for ...
Not so much for the folks who hope to be the next James Joyce or Louis le Brocquy.
As part time artist I see many problems with these schemes:
- Decoupled from people's actual appreciation of the art being done: I feel better when I know people voluntarily gave up their hard-earned money for what I do. - Monopoly-style "winner takes all". The people who benefit from this are the ones already in a position to ask for the benefit. - No one bites the hand that feeds then. That will form a body of "artists" subservient to the state.
The human problem is that no artist is willing to acknowledge that the public is not willing to spend money on their product.
And in hard economic times artists ought to turn to gleaning.
I have a hobby and I don't get compensated for it (quite the opposite). It's not making art, but if art were my calling I could quite easily see myself making it without any hope of monetary reward. There are plenty of people who have the same hobby as me and don't have a job -- they pursue it as is it's a job, though most are not paid either. I view that as some combination of privilege and laziness.
If there's any problem here it's that people don't have enough time to pursue hobbies. I only have enough time because I work from home (no time wasted commuting). Perhaps the government should focus on where we as a society waste people's time and energy such that they have none left over for hobbies.
> Ireland rolled out a permanent basic income scheme for the arts on Tuesday, pledging to pay 2,000 creative workers 325 euros ($387) per week following a trial that participants said eased financial strain and allowed them to spend more time on projects.
> The randomly selected applicants will receive the payments for three years, after which they would not be eligible for the next three-year cycle. O'Donovan said he would like to increase the number of recipients over time.
> Over 8,000 applicants applied for the 2,000 places in the pilot scheme.
> A report on the trial found it lowered the likelihood of artists experiencing enforced deprivation, and reduced their levels of anxiety and reliance on supplementary income.
Which sounds quite a bit like "we spent more on one type of welfare so we ended up spending less on a different type of welfare." Which, okay, good, but I don't think you can say you "recouped" anything.
Personally I would have thought this money would have been better spent getting people on the margins the stability to retrain into in-demand skilled careers (e.g. single, unskilled parents training as electricians or plumbers). That feels like it would be a more durable, multi-generational benefit.
But again, this is just a grant programme.
Who said it is a UBI that this "rebuttal" even makes sense to appear here? The Irish government isn't calling it a UBI. The article doesn't call it a UBI. Even the FAQ for the program says it is not UBI:
>> Why this is not a Universal Basic Income
>> It is important to note that that the Basic Income for the Arts Pilot is not a Universal Basic Income. This is a sectoral intervention to support practicing artists and creative arts workers to focus on their creative practice. This policy is separate to the Universal Basic income as outlined in the Programme for Government.
https://www.gov.ie/en/department-of-culture-communications-a... - C-f for "universal"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Endowment_for_the_Art...
If you or your parents would like to sample a NSFW taste of your tax dollars at work, try this deep cut from Plaintiff Karen Finley: https://youtu.be/5gk6JCeGExo?si=FEqZtLlDiQDr0_XI
What criteria of artistic merit, cultural relevance, and common decency will Irish artists need to meet, in order to qualify for their basic income?
Unfortunately I don't remember the references off hand.
I do think there's value in a society encouraging the arts. I don't know what that best implementation is (if at all), though.
>—Kurt Vonnegut
the irish government is adept at misplaced priorities, (very) short-term thinking, pursuers of feel-good vibes, basically everything besides running a state. incompetence here has bred the need for more and varied welfare programs just so we can have a variety of careers that cater to the needs of life. of course, necessity of the arts is undisputed. but can the artist make a career here when the money you make from a show, including tips, can’t pay your utility bills? when your income can’t afford you decent accommodation?
</rant>
Think about the big picture: your salary is a cost for someone else. In the case of "basic income" is a cost for the tax payers. Who decides what benefits the tax payers? The state can't possibly do it, if not for a limited extent. Today we don't have a method more efficient than free market and free prices. Planned economies have historically failed. It may work for now, we all love arts; but tomorrow it will be the artisans (were is the boundary between art and crafts?), then maybe small businesses?
Each of this "tax exemptions" or subsidies eats the profits of someone else. Very rarely it's the richest luxuries that are taken away. Usually it's the middle-low class that doesn't receive exemptions and subsidies who's penalized. Ironically, that same class that most could consume art, crafts, and products in general. This way society spirals toward an halt.
The subsidies and tax exemptions artists receive are small so if you are arguing for less state subsidy or its the least of the problems you should look at.
I am not convinced that this particular scheme is a good idea, but the alternative is not a free market.
> then maybe small businesses?
Big business already receives both explicit exemptions and defacto ones. Ireland is part of the mechanism that lets they structure their businesses in ways that avoid tax that are not available to small businesses.
> Planned economies have historically failed.
Very much false - the US war and post-war economy was very heavily planned, and was perhaps the most successful economy in history (precisely until it was gutted in the 70s/80s).
> best case scenario, create a proportional inflation
You give no reason to expect that this inflation will at best be proportional. It is perfectly possible (in fact likely) that the inflation will be less than proportional, because the price-setters (companies) are being taxed to give money to people on low incomes, who are economically speaking mostly consumers.
> Each of this "tax exemptions" or subsidies eats the profits of someone else. Very rarely it's the richest luxuries that are taken away.
Defeatist argument. It is obvious from history that taxation can be recouped from the rich, we just don't generally try to do that at the moment. We should start.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artist_subsidy_(Netherlands). 1956-1987.
>The randomly selected applicants will receive the payments for three years, after which they would not be eligible for the next three-year cycle.
Is it really correct to call this UBI? It is hardly universal if it applies to only 2000 selected artists.
Seems more like a 3-year grant, similar to the art grants awarded by the national endowment for the arts.
Proper basic income has never really been tried. It would have to be universal (for the entire population) and be enough to live on.
Most countries have non universal basic income in the form of benefits, state pensions, food stamps, and various social security insurance programs. One way or another people that can't or won't work still get enough to survive. Mostly, countries don't let their citizens starve. They mostly don't put them out on the streets. And if people get sick, generally hospitals/doctors will help. You won't necessarily get a very nice version of all that in most countries.
If you think of basic income like that, UBI is actually not that much of a departure from that status quo. It just establishes that as a bare minimum that everybody gets one way or another. The reason that the idea gets a lot of push back is that people have a lot of morals about having to earn stuff which then results in complex rules to qualify for things only if you are unable to earn a living. Which then turns into a lot of complex schemes to establish non universal income that comes into a variety of forms and shapes. But it adds up to the same result: everybody is taken care off.
A proper UBI would have to award it to anyone. That's what universal means. It would be a simplification of what we have now. If you are employed, you would get a chunk of income from UBI and the rest from your employer. Basically, you work to add income on top of your UBI and it's between you and your employer to sort out how much you work and how much you earn. If you get unemployed, you fall back to UBI. UBI would be untaxed. But if you work or earn income you pay taxes. Company earnings are taxed as well. And you pay VAT when you buy stuff. Those revenue streams are what already fund things today.
People think of UBI as extra cost but it could actually be a cost saving if done properly. There's a lot of bureaucracy that's no longer needed. You could still layer insurances and benefits on top of course. But that would be more optional. And you could incentivize people to work that are currently actively incentivized to not work (e.g. to not lose benefits or get penalized on their pensions).
People forget that the status quo is not free either and that it requires an enormous, convoluted bureaucracy that also costs money. UBI could end up being simpler and cheaper.
The hard part with UBI is balancing fairness and financial viability and implementing it in a way that isn't massively disruptive and complicated. You'd need to incentivize most people to still want to work while making the system generous enough that people can opt not to. That's not a solved problem and the key show stopper. Many people that work object against anyone getting anything for free. But if you consider the status quo, we already have a lot of people not working anyway. And we all pay for that already. That is actually a rather large percentage of people that are allowed to vote in many countries.
Mostly the moral arguments against UBI are what perpetuates the very inefficient and costly status quo. We just keep on making that harsher, more complicated, and more expensive. Effectively if you work, you are paying extra for all that inefficiency. Worse, you can work your ass off your whole life and still have to worry about having enough to retire, the affordability of housing, or being able to afford essential health care.
If they leave the country, then not so much.
It's even worse for techbros. All techbros ever read are self-help books and Nick Land's meth-fueled ramblings. Peter Thiel is a head honcho techbro because he was able to finish The Lord of the Rings.
The cost benefit analysis includes a euro value to attribute to better wellbeing, using the WELLBY framework and apply £13,000 per WELLBY
That came as a big relief as he always struggled to make money, but it's still not a thing that a lot of people get.
Get rid of it. State sanctioned art is is probably worse than no art.
I think a mix is fine. But there are disadvantages if you weigh too heavily on the latter two. In Europe, there's already quite a lot of government subsidies for art. Try finding a British or French movie that doesn't open by announcing its connection with some government subsidy program. While I quite like quite a lot of what Europe produces (especially cinema), in the long run I suspect it won't be sustainable. Whereas the free(r) market approach of e.g. the US and Japan will end up ahead.
Much better than all three choices combined if you ask me.
Overall It's a bit sad going to American bars and not hearing the whole bar singing along to the musician up on stage. Amercia's culture I feel is way more focused on celebrity then musicianship.
Nashville has plenty in the evenings, and then you can find hot spots in some cities. I've seen regular buskers in Boston, Seattle, Sarasota, and Boulder - usually in pedestrianized touristy quarters.
In Dublin's best music venues, nobody is singing along because it's brand new material from brand new artists. If you're singing along to well known songs in Temple Bar then I'm afraid you're missing some of the best music the city has to offer, in venues like Whelan's, Workmans, Sin É, The Grand Social etc.
What's far worse is hearing a sing along in the original release. Listen to Strumpella's "Spirits"-- those are paid crises singers!
Edit: clarification
I think the amount is something that can be disputed, but the underlying idea is, IMO, a sound one. Similar to the "unconditional basic income" idea - again, the amount can be contemplated, but the idea is sound, even more so as there are more and more superrich ignoring regular laws or buying legislation in a democracy. That means the old model simply does not work. Something has to change - which path to pick can be debated, but something has to be done.
Why would you want to randomly select here?
So it's permanent, but the recipients don't get it permanently?
So to answer your question: Yes, it's permanent (or as permanent as any gov't program can be), but the recipients don't get the money for an indefinite span of time (permanently).
Budgets are limited so they can't give to everyone all the time. They give each batch of artists money for 3 years and then move to the next batch. Interesting to see if there's a chance they start looping over.
Other industries don't move as fast but a 3 year layoff in tech could be a career death sentence.
The idea is not new, only the rhetoric.
Whereas in this Irish program, it is less money for more people chosen by lottery. The only editorial control is who is qualified to enter the lottery. It is also subsidizing the artist and not the art work, with artists working in cheap mediums receiving the same as artists dealing with high costs. So you are still going to need a grant or commission if you work in monumental bronze.
France has had a similar scheme for a long time (“intermittent du spectacle”).
It is not perfect but does a great job at sustaining artists who work hard to live from their art.
But in my view, arts should be funded by people in private. Any spare resources the government can muster up should be invested in improving the security and quality of life for its people. If no one ever goes hungry, and their medical needs are met swiftly, and justice is swift and accessible to all. then I can see the appeal in funding arts. But even then, sciences can meaningfully and in the long-term improve humans' lives.
I don't even know if the arts would benefit from this. Will the government arbitrate whose art is better? Private persons would, they won't fund a terrible artist. and from what I know about artists, the rejection and failure is instrumental to revelations and breakthroughs in their art. Without that, will the state be funding or facilitating mediocrity in art?
Imagine if this was for entrepreneurs. If the government will provide income so long as you're starting businesses. If you didn't have much to begin with, it might prevent you from giving up businesses that are failing, hold on to that restaurant years after it's failed because you like the vibe, and your needs are met. But if you'll eventually be in danger of running out of money to support yourself, you'll be forced to shut doors early, learn lessons and move on to something better.
I'm just making a case against dreams being kept alive artificially on life-support. And of the consequence of not having adversity when needed. I don't know if it's true, but I remember an analogy of artificial biospheres failing to grow trees and plants early on, because they didn't simulate wind. the trees needed the resistance, push and adversity of wind to thrive.
But I'll digress, I'm not saying Ireland did wrong, just putting my thoughts on the subject out there. They know what they're doing, I'm sure. And this is sounding too much like damn linkedin post, and on HN too of all places, talking about entrepreneurship, shame on me! :)
For a start, it's a lottery. 2000 randomers who call themselves artists will get no-questions-asked income regardless of their skill or importance as artists. We have people who are full time carers for family members who get less money in their allowance, and it's means-tested.
So you can be a millionaire heir / heiress, independently wealthy and still be eligible for it. One artist on Twitter bragged about getting it, and has been using the "extra money" to go on long holidays. It's basically free world travel for her.
Also, what is an artist? There's one guy on twitter who gets this income and really, he just seems to take bad semi pornographic photos. Like the world really needs more of that.
Another lady my wife knows personally is a terrible artist, never had any talent and doesn't make money. No sense of colour, no line skills, just paints awful blobs in awful colours. She's 100% in favour of this scheme and won't shut up about it on twitter.
My wife has been struggling to make an income from her art for decades, but has created a small business around it, wedding stationery, other print fits. Guess what? She probably doesn't qualify as "an artist" she "runs a small print business". She also thinks that the government could do a lot of practically things to make life easier for artists but it's easier to take your budget and just give it to random artists. No effort, no real benefit. It's laziness and incompetence.
I know exactly one "real" artist whose paintings will genuinely be hanging on walls for hundreds of years. He has no business around his art, he literally paints and holds exhibitions to sell his work. His name is famous in art circles and you can instantly recognise his style whenever you see it. His work is truly amazing. He has a wife and two kids and struggles sometimes. The long gaps between exhibitions, the worry that an exhibition won't go well. Anxiety, depression. Did he get this magic lottery? Did he fuck.
For a start, it's a lottery. 2000 people who meet very broad but generally fair eligibility criteria (https://www.gov.ie/en/department-of-culture-communications-a...) will get no-questions-asked income regardless of their skill or importance as artists, these being qualities that are both highly subjective and not fixed in time.
So you can be anyone – rich, poor, or something in between – and still be eligible for it. All you have to do is meet the criteria, which were created in consultation with artists.
Also, what is an artist? Thankfully that's not for me to say, because I have quite a narrow view of what art is, and that view would certainly exclude some people who were successful in the pilot.
My partner has been struggling to make an income from her art for over a decade. As she is a working artist under the pilot definition, she qualifies for the lottery even though she runs a small business (to be precise, she's self-employed – making and selling her art full time. There is a reasonable chance that you have seen it). She also thinks that the government could take many other practical steps steps to make life easier for artists, but that taking a small amount of money and giving it to random artists has a huge potential upside: practically no effort, many benefits.
I know several artists whose paintings will genuinely be hanging on walls for hundreds of years. Or prints. Or photographs. Most make ends meet, and one or two are comfortable. Their work ranges from truly amazing to decidedly mediocre (in my opinion). Did any of them get this magic lottery? Yes, some did. Others (including my partner) did not.
Did anyone take a note of what kind of output the artists produced? Was any of it any good?
All the government-subsidized art that I've come across is straight up awful, and nobody ever actually cares for it. Typically it's weird abstract stuff.
By these standards, should I be paid an income from your tax money for my 5 side-projects on GitHub that nobody uses?
If we applied the rule of "it has to be good to be worth it" and money is the main indicator for "good", then what about the myriad products and services that are low quality / terrible, yet make tons of money because they can afford to shove marketing down everyone's throats and thus stay relevant?
Most popular music is downright awful to me. Do I want to take their money away because I don't think they deserve it? No. On the other side of that coin I'd like to see some kind of counter balance. How many artists were considered awful until they suddenly became the biggest deal ever? Often posthumously.
This tiny sliver of funding for some people you may not like won't take anything away from you.
The early internet was so great because it was full of weird things. We've lost ALL of it, due to commercialisation. We stand to lose even more if we don't do something to fund the people who dare to be weird.
This goes right back to the thing Bezos said about how we need to become interplanetary so we can inhabit the galaxy, because if we inhabit the galaxy we could have a thousand Mozarts. I think we could already have a thousand Mozarts if they weren't busy slaving away in Amazon's warehouses.
Once there's a trillion humans in the galaxy and they're still all slaving away in warehouses, we still won't have any Mozarts.
Not everything can or should be quantified by money and economics.
Also HN: UBI is a scam and no one will want to contribute to society.
Maybe UBI works for some recipients when it's clearly time-limited and the recipients have a clear way to building a stable income, but are bottlenecked on time and capital. I think artists are a good fit for such a program.
There's a huge group of people in western countries that has received unconditional basic income for decades, without any requirements. No questions asked, no documents required, no forced work. They could basically use that free money to flourish and pursue whatever creative activity they could imagine, without fear of economic downsides.
And we know the results already. We see it in our cities daily. But as a society, we have decided not to talk about it so we are not called racists or far right. Instead, we keep ignoring this massive group with an equivalent of basic income and keep pretending we still require experiments on its effects.
But yeah, let's test a few dozen Irish artists and keep pretending everyone needs to work for a living.
Still a good idea though.
I absolutely do not expect sillycon valley libertarians to understand or appreciate any of this so probably a good idea to avoid the comment section here...
It's despicable, they're as much as an insider threat as Hungary.
"Permanent", I don't think that word means what you think it means.
The same is true for a lot of open source and indie software. I have been running a free AI companion bot on Telegram for months and the operating cost (5/month server) comes entirely out of pocket. The users get genuine value from it but there is no revenue model that does not compromise the experience. If I add ads or charge money, the thing that makes it feel like talking to a friend (no transactional friction) disappears.
Ireland is essentially saying: some things are worth publicly funding because the market undersupplies them. That is a healthier framing than trying to force everything into a subscription box.
