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The Death of the Middle-Class Musician

(thewalrus.ca)
300 points pseudolus | 7 comments | 28 Jun 25 22:06 UTC | HN request time: 1.558s | source | bottom
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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. amelius ◴[29 Jun 25 15:48 UTC] No.44414020[source]▶
The root of the problem is that the rules of the economy are unfair.

By analogy, try playing a game of monopoly but enter the game after a few rounds have already been played. Exorbitant housing prices are an example.

Another problem is that while it is fine if hardworking people make more money, these people can use that money __against__ people who made different life choices, in various ways, consciously and unconsciously.

We have to acknowledge that the system is broken, and it is starting to show.

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2. MichaelZuo ◴[29 Jun 25 16:41 UTC] No.44414407[source]▶
This doesn’t make sense… people have always been able to use their time, effort, and resources against someone else?

Since the beginning of society I imagine.

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3. amelius ◴[29 Jun 25 18:27 UTC] No.44415210[source]▶
Yes, but whether that becomes a problem to society depends on a number of parameters. One of them is the existing level of wealth inequality.
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4. MichaelZuo ◴[29 Jun 25 19:18 UTC] No.44415561{3}[source]▶
If someone is grinding you down… what does it matter whether they are 10x or 100x wealthier?

Even perfect equals can wreck each other’s lives completely, in legal ways too, if they commit their all to it.

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5. ◴[29 Jun 25 19:35 UTC] No.44415698[source]▶
6. amelius ◴[29 Jun 25 19:59 UTC] No.44415912{4}[source]▶
You are looking for extremes, whereas I am merely looking at it from the average behavior of wealthy people.

If there is a large wealth inequality that means that the relatively poor will simply have a smaller piece of the cake and the wealthy growing their wealth will have a larger impact on the poor, percentage-wise. Now, if that growth is only due to hard work, then you can't really argue against that; however, if that growth is partially due to "wealth abuse", then that's a different matter.

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7. MichaelZuo ◴[30 Jun 25 21:02 UTC] No.44427839{5}[source]▶
Sure, your very unlikely to ever encounter such a situation… But any given wealthy person you encounter in life is also very unlikely to be so malicious?