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300 points pseudolus | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.204s | 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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HPsquared ◴[] No.44411793[source]
UBI would introduce massive inequality between those who work and those who don't. Much tension would arise.
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1. graemep ◴[] No.44413036[source]
It would do the opposite.

It would set a minimum income that everyone would know they had.

Whatever work people did would add to that. It would encourage the unemployed to start businesses, or do casual work as they would keep all the money (rather than having their benefits cut).