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Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists

reuters.com

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Re: Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists

#561

Post by Supernaut »

Loudergood wrote: post #547
Supernaut wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nicely set out. I completely agree with you. I'm also pretty certain - and I say this both as a lover of the arts and as a taxpayer - that I will see no benefit whatsoever in my life, or to society in general, from the works produced under the aegis of this programme. You know what would have been a worthwhile use of that €114 MM? Improving the pay and conditions of our naval personnel. That way, the nation might now…

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

Those who are cold won't find their situation improved if an undetected Russian submarine sabotages the country's natural gas interconnectors.

Re: Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists

#562

Post by limagnolia »

kiba wrote: post #556
closewith wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In an era where working a full time job is not enough to pay the cost of living, arts and culture no longer exist except as hobbies for rich kids. In Ireland _today_, we are in an era where working as a nurse, paramedic, firefighter, teacher, etc have become unable to pay the cost of living, leaving them to exist only as hobbies for the rich kids who can be subsidised by their parents or immigrant labour willing to…

The problem with a UBI is not the UBI itself, but the fact that landlords could just raise their price. You need to solve the contradiction within the economy in order to make UBI works. The current way our taxation policy work is to tax labor and capital, which is the basis of our economy, while flinching away from taxing land, which derives much of its value from the surrounding economic activity rather than an own…

If cities allowed more supply to be constructed, landlords couldn't just raise the price.

Re: Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists

#563

Post by tokai »

_heimdall wrote: post #388
BSDobelix wrote: post #372

This is how you kill the idea of basic income, create rifts and factions.

Killing the idea of basic income would be a good thing. It will never work and would leave a society in much the same situation as other past attempts at Marxism.

Basic income is not Marxism. Marxism is against basic income. Getting a basic income is almost the opposite to getting the actual value of your labor. I write this as someone against Marxism. You should read up on things, and not just let your biases dictate how you understand things.

Re: Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists

#564

Post by boston_clone »

ecshafer wrote: post #555
jimnotgym wrote: post #351

There are some pretty revealing comments here. People seem to think only money has value. Then there are people who see art only as a rich person's pursuit. It can be, but it doesn't need to be. I am reminded of Daniel James also known as Gwyrosydd, his bardic name. He was a Welsh language poet, who wrote probably the greatest Welsh language song, Calon Lân (means 'a pure heart'). People throughout Wales sing this so…

Who gets to be an artist? I want to be an artist now. Is it people who go to certain universities with art degrees? Can any working class guy decide he wants to pursue art and get the basic income? Another question is would Daniel James work have been as good if he wasn't working in an ironworks? In the 1800s most of the great literature was written by normal guys writing on the side, they need that experience to mak…

Heck yeah, go be an artist! If you want to be one and aren't, what's stopping you? Perhaps the lack of financial security? ;)

Here's a non-exhaustive list of eligible types:

https://www.gov.ie/en/department-of-culture-communications-a...

Re: Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists

#565

Post by TomasBM »

misja111 wrote: post #431
jimnotgym wrote: post #351

There are some pretty revealing comments here. People seem to think only money has value. Then there are people who see art only as a rich person's pursuit. It can be, but it doesn't need to be. I am reminded of Daniel James also known as Gwyrosydd, his bardic name. He was a Welsh language poet, who wrote probably the greatest Welsh language song, Calon Lân (means 'a pure heart'). People throughout Wales sing this so…

> People seem to think only money has value. Your either don't understand or don't want to understand what people are commenting about here. Of course nobody thinks that only money has value. If only money had value, why would anybody exchange money for, say, a bread? What many people are wondering about, is whether the value of the money paid by tax payers to artists, equals the value of what they give to the tax pa…

> one might wonder why they apparently are not able to sell their art for the same amount of money.

Because the skills and effort needed to market and sell your art to an audience are not equal to the skills and effort needed to produce good art [1].

I agree that there could be other complementary or better solutions compared to this scheme. But as long as the above premise is true, not every good artist will want or be able to sell well.

[1] However you define this. Supposedly, Van Gogh was a lousy salesman, but a good artist.

Re: Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists

#566

Post by maleno »

ecshafer wrote: post #555
jimnotgym wrote: post #351

There are some pretty revealing comments here. People seem to think only money has value. Then there are people who see art only as a rich person's pursuit. It can be, but it doesn't need to be. I am reminded of Daniel James also known as Gwyrosydd, his bardic name. He was a Welsh language poet, who wrote probably the greatest Welsh language song, Calon Lân (means 'a pure heart'). People throughout Wales sing this so…

Who gets to be an artist? I want to be an artist now. Is it people who go to certain universities with art degrees? Can any working class guy decide he wants to pursue art and get the basic income? Another question is would Daniel James work have been as good if he wasn't working in an ironworks? In the 1800s most of the great literature was written by normal guys writing on the side, they need that experience to mak…

Just to answer the question in this specific case: yes, a working class guy can decide he wants to pursue art (in quite a broad range of forms), and he can apply for the basic income once he can show that he is working as an artist. The artists who ultimately receive the payment will be chosen randomly once they meet the criteria to apply in the first place (which, again, is simply that you are working as an artist—exhibiting, publishing, performing, whatever "work" might mean in your case). There is a fixed number of people who can receive it in each round (I think it's 2500 people, cycling every three years), and those people are picked by lottery; if you receive it in one round, you cannot apply for the next. This, and in fact no arts funding in Ireland, has anything to do with certain universities or art degrees. This scheme is far from perfect, but these vaguely leading questions (so common to all commentary on public funding for the arts) are clearly irrelevant.

As for the second question ("would Daniel James work have been as good if he wasn't working in an ironworks"), well, life and art really are too varied to draw the kind of conclusions the following comment implies.

Re: Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists

#567

Post by Spooky23 »

bagacrap wrote: post #526
Spooky23 wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People get very high and mighty when it comes to other people’s getting of benefits or paying taxes.

... shouldn't they? Ultimately that comes out of their pockets. Every tax benefit my neighbor gets simply shifts the tax burden more to me. Unless I am someone who doesn't pay taxes I guess. Do you pay taxes?

IMO, no.

I pay alot of taxes. Probably more annually in the last decade than I made in total my first decade working.

Many of my peers spend alot of time agonizing about this stuff and spending both mental energy and significant capital in avoidance. I get a higher ROI focusing on more valuable activities. Besides, art is an economic engine. If you studied it, I’d guess those tax credits in Ireland generate multiples in domestic economic activity.

Re: Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists

#568

Post by jimnotgym »

qualitylearing wrote: post #420
jimnotgym wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or it divides them into people that create cultural wealth and people who create mere monetary wealth. So you do agree that art should be supported by government I see, so how would you do it?

[dead]

>You could not be more aloof couldn't you?

I don't even know how to parse that sorry. I could be or couldn't be?

>Guess what pays for the world to run?

The sun? Or something deeper than that? God?

Edit: I think the actual answer is, 'a sense of humour', especially in today's world.

Re: Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists

#569

Post by irishcoffee »

ecshafer wrote: post #555
jimnotgym wrote: post #351

There are some pretty revealing comments here. People seem to think only money has value. Then there are people who see art only as a rich person's pursuit. It can be, but it doesn't need to be. I am reminded of Daniel James also known as Gwyrosydd, his bardic name. He was a Welsh language poet, who wrote probably the greatest Welsh language song, Calon Lân (means 'a pure heart'). People throughout Wales sing this so…

Who gets to be an artist? I want to be an artist now. Is it people who go to certain universities with art degrees? Can any working class guy decide he wants to pursue art and get the basic income? Another question is would Daniel James work have been as good if he wasn't working in an ironworks? In the 1800s most of the great literature was written by normal guys writing on the side, they need that experience to mak…

You're saying the quiet part out loud. Clearly we just need to pay people to "make art" all day long on the backs of taxpayers who will most likely never see the "art" or derive any value from it.

"Dad why are you working your hands off? Well... the government decided to pay people to "make art" instead of working. How come? Well... nope I have no fucking idea"

Re: Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists

#570

Post by antonvs »

inglor_cz wrote: post #287
antonvs wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is their brain on capitalism

I wish more intellectuals had their "brain on capitalism". It is dismaying to find out how many American academicians take Marxism seriously - unless they stem from countries like Cuba that had the misfortune to actually let Marxist ideas rule them. It is mental fentanyl for certain kind of collectivist mind. Give me Hayek and Buckley instead.

It's possible to criticize one thing without endorsing another. Your comment reads like a response to someone criticizing what the current US administration is doing by saying "yeah but the Democrats..."

Binary thinking is analogous to quantizing an LLM to 2 bits (worse, actually). You're not going to get good results.

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