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.

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.