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 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 already are, it's just going to the ultra wealthy and pension fund kids, while you slave your life away making that stock go up because you believe there should be no other choice.

So why not have the worker get/keep more of his money, instead of giving it to a different group of "others"?

Because the worker doesn't have the ability to be able to protect his interests when he is just keeping his money.

The rich are able to keep larger portions of their income, and then eventually leverage that to be patrons of political power and set the rules for themselves.

You are also not in the same category as the super rich, so theres an unspoken blurring of the terms here as well - theres no sense in considering a normal perso, or a rich person against someone like Bezos, who has the wealth of several countries.

Consumption matters not wealth. Wealth is just paper ownership, it's consumption that is wasting scarce resources.

And the super rich simply can't consume that much. Bezons isn't eating a thousand times as much as a millionaire. If his kids spend their lives being unproductive, it's only a tiny handful of wastrels. Mansions, yachts and large private airplanes might be a bit of a resource sink I guess .... but how does paper wealth cost society real resources? It's like being made at someone with a rare monkey gif

Wealth is power. Power matters, as with it you're in a position to decide what can be consumed to begin with. People that control wealth control what policies get implemented, which projects get funded, etc. They will not support policies that reduce consumption because it would reduce their income and power. They will support projects that waste resources if it makes them more money and power.

Consumers also don't support policies that reduce consumption because that would reduce their quality of life. Consumers happily take flights, hot showers, run their AC, etc. if it makes their lives easier.

A billionaire consumes less of their income and invests more than a regular person. Wealth is power, but virtually everyone would spend on the same things.