I don’t get it. Why are artists more deserving than unemployed insurance salespeople or carpet installers?
If you find yourself alone in an Island, who would you want with you among the trades you listed?
Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists
301–310 of 736 posts
Re: Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists
#302I know so many "artists" in Paris, London, Barcelona and Berlin and I can't name a single one who deserves this. In my opinion any other demographic is more deserving. But as long as we're going to pretend anyone who says they do art is an artist or "you just a lowly pleb who doesn't understand art" we're going to have to play this game and pay for it.
Re: Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists
#303The frustrating thing about this program is that it is not possible to avail of this unless you are ALREADY an artist. So if you gave up art because you had bills and kids and needed to support yourself or a family, you're SOL. The only person I know getting this money was already semi-retired after selling their house in London and retiring to the Irish countryside, and basically just noodles around on the guitar no…
If they didn't have this restriction everyone would suddenly be an "artist" and would claim the money.
Oh no!
Seriously though, having a basic income that is not basic was bound to give issues.
Re: Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists
#304I don’t get it. Why are artists more deserving than unemployed insurance salespeople or carpet installers?
Irish here. It's a cultural thing. Ireland is the only country in the world whose national symbol is a musical instrument. Art is seen as a worthwhile endeavour even if it can't necessarily support itself as a private endeavour. It's for the same reason galleries and museums are subsidised by the government. Anyone can call themselves an artist but to receive this money you would have to have a portfolio of work that…
> Ireland already has a competitive economy
Well it has a competitive tax haven.
Re: Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists
#305Sweden introduced a similar scheme in 1964, in which artists (broadly defined, having since come to include one clown and one chess player) have been given a basic income, supplementing their other incomes up to a specific level. Artists couldn't apply for this, but were officially selected. The program was stopped in 2010, meaning no new recipients have been selected since. As far as I know, there's been no studies…
Sweden punches far above its weight in game development (allegedly up to 20% of Steam revenue all goes to Swedish teams [1]), so if any people on any Swedish game developers have ever benefited from that program, I'd say the whole country has. That's surely been a huge benefit in terms of tax revenue, plus the gaming industry brings a lot of great minds to Sweden as well as improving their cultural soft power.
[1] https://www.gamereactor.eu/report-20-of-steams-revenue-goes-...
Re: Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists
#306Earlier quoted context omitted.
Note that many carpet installers and other handyman also do work (partially) under the table so their salary isn't representative of their regular income either. This also fluctuates a lot based on season. It's the cost of being (partially) self employed.
Why should the government be asked to cover income that wasn't reported / taxed by an individual? There's a clear process to report income that's non W2 (or equivalent)
Mentioning it since it's mostly the same with small artists. You'll always only report the bare minimum which results in the unemployment $ being rough issue.
I'm not in Ireland but it's the same everywhere. No one likes paying taxes.
Not saying that anything should be done about it. TBH I'd even like to have unemployment benefits be an optional insurance to reduce my taxes since I haven't gotten a cent out of it yet, but that's separate.
Just noting that artists aren't in some unique situation.
Nothing is stopping them from opening a company and giving themselves a fixed salary or doing some mix of salaried, freelance and under-table work.
Re: Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists
#307The frustrating thing about this program is that it is not possible to avail of this unless you are ALREADY an artist. So if you gave up art because you had bills and kids and needed to support yourself or a family, you're SOL. The only person I know getting this money was already semi-retired after selling their house in London and retiring to the Irish countryside, and basically just noodles around on the guitar no…
If they didn't have this restriction everyone would suddenly be an "artist" and would claim the money.
If a system is based on a userbase pulling the ladder from under them in order to make sure only they can benefit from it, then it's not a good or fair system from the get go.
Maybe the issue is with the definition of the profession of artist, that's it's too vague and fluid allowing anyone to claim to be one without much hassle.
But then if you have a strict definition of the artist profession, everyone will rush to conform to the bare minimum of that in order to score those benefits.
So maybe then the core issue is with the welfare state that unfairly picks winners and losers instead of being "universal".
Artist have exited way before the welfare state has. They were poor and had patrons who supported them if they loved their work. So then why do we need the state to subsidize this now? Do we have proof this leads to higher quality art?
Re: Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists
#308I don’t get it. Why are artists more deserving than unemployed insurance salespeople or carpet installers?
Because people hardly pay for art, yet many consider it worth keeping the arts alive.
Re: Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists
#309Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is generally a heavy bias to focusing on abuse instead of outcomes. Who cares that there are some false positives if there is a net benefit, it's just noise.
Every special interest will claim that "give more money to us" leads to better societal outcomes.
This. I've never met anyone in any setting that complained about receiving too much money.
If you ask pensioners if they should get higher pensions, they'll say YES. If you ask students if they should get more subsidies, they'll say YES. If you ask unemployed people if they should raise unemployment benefits, they'll say YES. If you ask people on minimum wage if they should raise the minimum wage, they'll say YES.
Everyone is quick to be very generous when it's from other peoples' money without accounting for the second order effects of those decisions, which is especially a big problem of the extended welfare state, since everyone pays taxes and so then everyone wants more and more subsidies so they can feel they're getting their money's worth out of the system, or else they feel cheated.
Re: Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists
#310I don’t get it. Why are artists more deserving than unemployed insurance salespeople or carpet installers?
I come from Quebec, a cultural island in North America. You need to create infrastructure for your culture, so that it’s not swallowed by American culture. Funding culture protects our language, and to an extent our history and our perspective. There are books, art, movies and shows about us, in our language. It makes us a people.