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300 points pseudolus | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.256s | source
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BrenBarn ◴[] No.44410806[source]
> I heard one answer more than any other: the government should introduce universal basic income. This would indeed afford artists the security to create art, but it’s also extremely fanciful.

Until we start viewing "fanciful" ideas as realistic, our problems will persist. This article is another in the long series of observations of seemingly distinct problems which are actually facets of a larger problem, namely that overall economic inequality is way too high. It's not just that musicians, or actors, or grocery store baggers, or taxi drivers, or whatever, can't make a living, it's that the set of things you can do to make a living is narrowing more and more. Broad-based solutions like basic income, wealth taxes, breaking up large market players, etc., will do far more for us than attempting piecemeal tweaks to this or that industry.

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GLdRH ◴[] No.44410825[source]
Except that socialism has failed already.

Universal basic income is impossible to justify morally.

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bryanrasmussen ◴[] No.44410832[source]
UBI is obviously a far less intensive project than Socialism would be.
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mantas ◴[] No.44410876[source]
If you want to provide truly livable UBI, it’d be even bigger than socialism. The working people would have to be taxed through the nose. And necessary professions like trash car drivers should be paid a crapton.
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ryandrake ◴[] No.44411025[source]
Why would the working people necessarily need to be taxed? You could pay for UBI with taxes on investment, or wealth, or luxury taxes, or other things besides labor.
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1. mantas ◴[] No.44411211[source]
Working people in general. Those who keep producing and not sit on their asses enjoying UBI. You can tax incomes, wealth, whatever. Either way it’d be taxing those who want more than UBI. And you’ll need to tax them a lot.

There’s no way taxing super-rich-only would cover fair UBI. It’ll have to be much much wider. Unless 99% of jobs would become automatized.