The Death of the Middle-Class Musician

> 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.

> [...] a larger problem, namely that overall economic inequality is way too high.

What economic inequality would you deem small enough?

And why do you care about inequality, and not eg the absolute livings standards of the least well off? We can 'solve' inequality by just destroying everything the rich have, but that won't make anyone better off.

Btw, the absolute living standards of all members of society, including the least well off, have never been better. And that's true for almost any society you care to look at on our globe. (Removing eg those currently at war, that weren't at war earlier.)

> What economic inequality would you deem small enough?

I'd like the one small enough that I won't die from my (treatable) first major medical event due to being unable to fund 100% of treatment costs.

I'd also like one small enough that me and the kids didn't spend most of the 2010s in hunger-level poverty.

That'd be a start.

Nothing of what you said has anything to do with equality at all. It's about the absolute level of prosperity of yourself (and presumably everyone else).

So if everyone got 10x richer overnight, but the top 1% got 1000x richer, that would increase inequality by any reasonable metric, but it would help with the benchmarks you mentioned.

No it wouldn't. Inflation would skyrocket and baseline prices would be at least 10x higher. And that's not how UBI works, no one is some multiplier richer because it exists.

The top 1% getting 1000x richer is a problem, because trickle down economics is bullshit. Money that exists as part of a pile of gold in a dragon's den does not move the economy.

The top 1% aren't sitting on a pile of gold in a dragon's den, their wealth is mostly invested. The amount of money Jeff Bezos owns in houses and boats is small in comparison to the amount of his wealth that is represented by stock in amazon; that money in amazon's hands is absolutely cycling through the economy.