The Death of the Middle-Class Musician

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.

Of course there's no silver bullet and high progressive taxes for the mega-wealthy do have other negative effects. Like people being less motivated to strive. Less capital to invest and less competitive companies born.

But billionaires paying less taxes than the guy sweeping floors at the local mall is absurd. Once you reach a certain threshold of wealth, your taxes actually start going down.

That's why poor people pay the highest percentage of their income: they have no choice, no ways to do tax evasion.

But I think you underestimate the possibilities. You can just design the law to make taxation a prerequisite for doing business. That's what the EU is (trying to) do, and it seems to work well.

Doing business in the EU and the US is a lot more profitable than not doing business there, even if you pay taxes. That's kind of the point.

"I hate Jeff Bezos, by I'll be damned if I have to give up same day delivery $6 Chinese mugs. The local made ones are $40!"