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The Death of the Middle-Class Musician

(thewalrus.ca)
300 points pseudolus | 3 comments | 28 Jun 25 22:06 UTC | HN request time: 0.41s | source
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BrenBarn ◴[29 Jun 25 06:43 UTC] 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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1. decimalenough ◴[29 Jun 25 10:10 UTC] No.44411818[source]▶
You're conflating three very different types of jobs here.

Minimum wage hourly jobs like grocery baggers need to be able to survive off a 40-hour week, and it's a societal problem if they can't.

Taxi drivers are essentially sole proprietors who set their own hours and accept higher risk for a higher payoff. Demand and supply will calibrate themselves unless the government distorts the market (eg. taxi medallions).

Musicians and actors are and have always been in a brutal power law market where all the wealth accrues to the 0.1% at the top of the heap. This drives exploitation since people will do anything to get to the top, but at the end of the day society does not need them the way it needs taxi drivers or grocery baggers and there is no economic rationale for subsidizing them.

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2. somedude895 ◴[29 Jun 25 16:07 UTC] No.44414158[source]▶
> at the end of the day society does not need them the way it needs taxi drivers or grocery baggers

This is absolutely true. In my country psychologists are complaining about "low" wages and tough conditions, and yet people go study psychology in droves because they "find it interesting." There's only so much demand for any one thing and if you decide because you enjoy something you want to make that your career well tough shit, there's thousands like yourself and nobody wants more of what you supply. So you can keep it as a hobby, but to make a living you have to provide something that people want and need, otherwise you're just a leech on society. It's funny that the ones complaining about these issues are usually the people who care about the social aspect of things, yet there's absolutely nothing social about demanding money without contributing anything that others actually need.

3. grumpy_coder ◴[29 Jun 25 16:33 UTC] No.44414346[source]▶
The grocery bagger on a zero hour contract needs to be able to survive when not given 40 hours. Also the 5% unemployed people in a 'full employment' economy need to be able to survive when sacrificed to control inflation.