How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?

Something like a grant from the government to work on your project of interest with no expectation that it be commercially successful. You want to be an artist the government gives you a grant to support yourself while contributing to the cultural lexicon. Scarecity is manufactured today for profit and not real; nobody needs to work at a 7/11 but they are essentially trapped into those sorts of jobs because they are profitable for those business owners vs a good use of creativity or labor for our species.

Now before you get all hung up how this isn’t possible. There is precedent. The government would do just this during the great depression, sponsoring artists knowing it is more valuable to have artists in the population than to lose that talent pool and benefits to culture over cold cruel economics.

Why on Earth would taxpayers give their hard earned money to other people to work on their "projects of interest"?

Scarcity is very real, I'm not sure why you would feel otherwise. Fortunately, we have largely eliminated scarcity of the necessities of life due to economic policies that are as far from your suggestions as possible, but that doesn't mean that they are produced at no cost or that scarcity in general does not exist.

And you don't need to go back 100 years for precedent. We basically paid people to sit at home during covid, and I didn't see some sort of renaissance as a result. Why would this be any different?

Maybe it is more meaningful for people to be creative than it is to staff yet another sheetz on the side of the road because truckers tend to piss and need smokes at that intersection. But who knows maybe you are right and it is better we take on jobs at a local gas station if we have such a wonderful opportunity like that in front of us. So much innovation is produced as we know from people who have the opportunity to work 60 hour weeks on minimum wages between two jobs that won't schedule them full time and incur any potential added worker benefits from having a full time vs part time laborer. You are right.

> Why on Earth would taxpayers give their hard earned money to other people to work on their "projects of interest"?

I think the implication here is that such a society is not built on markets or even money, but rather by individuals working together to foster a collective community that meets everyone’s needs.

Yes, communism. The more advanced we become technologically the more sense it makes. We’re largely at a point where most jobs are made up - created to give people something to do because if we don’t then they die.

We’ve pushed consumerism to the absolute max. Now, most goods are pretty much worthless. But we have to buy them, or we die. That’s how markets works. We work, and we consume, or else.

That made sense when the work we were doing was beneficial and the stuff we’re consuming was needed. We’re past that now. Most people are working to produce something dumb, or worse, evil. New addictions, new poisons, new bombs, and new problems to be solved by new software.

so your idea is basically to mooch off of people who do have productive jobs, by proxy of the government?

there is no such thing as an art-based economy

meaningful for who?

>Why on Earth would taxpayers give their hard earned money to other people to work on their "projects of interest"?

I don't know, but if suddenly someone really has a problem with the fact that the government is still not taking enough money from them to finance various unpromising projects, I am happy to take on the government's work and free of charge get any amount of money from them to implement the widest range of interesting projects.

If you look around and think most jobs are made up, most goods are worthless, and you have no choice but to make discretionary purchases, I don't know what to tell you.

Communism makes no sense until we reach a post-scarcity economy, which will never happen.

I hate to break it to you, but people working as gas station cashiers as adults aren't going to produce much innovation no matter what. They work those jobs because they need resources to survive and they can't make more money elsewhere.

Like I said, the people you're talking about just had a significant period of time where they were effectively paid to stay home and had ample time to pursue their personal interests, yet no meaningful innovation was produced by that cohort that I'm aware of. What am I missing?