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.

I do a lot of things as an amateur but at pretty high level: athletics, music, art and more. I also pay a huge portion of my income as a software developer in direct and indirect taxation. Convince me I should fund people to focus full-time on things where they can't make a living, the same things I love to do but realize can't be your sole pursuit.

You've conflated people busting ass who can't keep up with those following their passion in the arts voluntarily. Those don't feel anything like the same thing to me. I don't think I'm alone in a perspective that if you keep taking more from me I'll stop contributing all together, and we'll all fail. The ultra-rich and others with means to avoid picking up the tab have already done so.

> Convince me I should fund people

Are you in the top 1%? If so, you can afford it. If not, then I don't think your taxes should go up - I think Bezos' taxes should go up, and there should be a wealth tax for high net worth individuals.

The top 1% globally is 60K USD for a single earner. Should taxes go up for anyone above this level?

What? Why would US taxes have anything to do with people in poorer countries?

It seems that UBI arguments are all about "fairness". So it naturally should extend to other countries it seems. Otherwise you are just creating another greedy / protected group.

Of course people usually try to draw the UBI Venn diagram such that they are a net receiver of funds.

It's sounds like you are trying to draw it to be as absurd as possible to reduce the proposition to something ridiculous.

What would be absurd about a global UBI? It's amazing how fast people jump off the high horse of equality when you point out that on a global scale they are incredibly rich and privileged.

Equality to them means them getting more material goods, not them giving up more material goods.