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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

#611

Post by philipallstar »

angiolillo wrote: post #593
EQmWgw87pw wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your argument makes sense, but a park has a measurable scope. We all want it to be X sqft, with Y trees, and it will cost Z dollars. Are you going to force artists to make the specific art that the community is in need of, or can they just do nothing?

> Are you going to force artists to make the specific art that the community is in need of, or can they just do nothing? My understanding is that the Irish scheme doesn't force any specific work for the three year period, though I'd expect any artist who takes a three year, ~$60k grant and uses it to do literally nothing may find it hard get a grant in the future, potentially ending their art career. Still, I wouldn'…

The economic question will be whether the Irish taxpayer gets enough value out of the art produced to warrant its total cost, including artist subsidy costs, administrative cost, etc etc.

Re: Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists

#612

Post by ryanjshaw »

komali2 wrote: post #599
ryanjshaw wrote: post #576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does the government solve this problem? Why can’t a private organization replicate that? How was art produced previously without the existence of these programs?

> How does the government solve this problem? The same way it solves all problems: poorly, yet better and more fairly than corporations do. > Why can’t a private organization replicate that? Private organizations are driven by profit motive. Profit motive is usually in a negative correlation with fair results in these sorts of situations. If you mean a church or non profit, then, because those don't represent a regio…

I didn’t really follow your argument about non-profits.

Clearly the artists somehow managed to convince government to support the scheme, why can’t the same people form a non—profit and convince ordinary members of the public to support the same scheme in a non-profit structure?

That way we have a smaller government, lower taxes, and the people who care can directly spend their money on addressing this problem - rather than have their money going to taxes where it might be spent somewhere they don’t agree with!

Nobody has to argue about money being spent on things they don’t care about. Everybody is happy.

Re: Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists

#613

Post by philipallstar »

komali2 wrote: post #472
whywhywhywhy wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s “corporate masters” got to do with a transaction from taxes and inflation (stolen value on your savings and spending power) to a handout?

If you think taxation is theft, wait till I show you some fat margins on labor value.

If you only price labour, you miss out on a lot of the picture.

Re: Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists

#614

Post by jimnotgym »

jodrellblank wrote: post #601
limagnolia wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It seems London hit record levels of empty properties in 2024, some 30,000 of them worth £2Bn or so. What part of your idea was supposed to stop that happening and why didn't it work?

Too much capital, too few assets. We can't keep building assets, so perhaps we need to do something about the capital?

We could tax it and pay some of the money to artists?

Re: Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists

#615

Post by jmye »

ryanjshaw wrote: post #467
misja111 wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I also wonder why the tax payers who care can’t contribute directly to a fund, and keep government out of entirely.

Because we use taxes as a process to crowdsource funding more effectively. That's literally the entire basis for it. Might as well ask why "only the taxpayers who care about a new highway can raise funds to buy it" and then we're back in some weird, system of no central government because someone can always claim "why not just like, let people donate money" because it's a simplistic cliche that appeals deeply to people who aren't quite clever enough to work out just how much they've benefitted from the system as it's been constructed.

Re: Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists

#616

Post by jimnotgym »

closewith wrote: post #608
dahart wrote: post #559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> does only the arts deserve this Baby steps. Everyone deserves it, but getting there in one step is politically impossible almost everywhere in the world. Nobody’s saying only the arts deserve subsidies. It’s just easier to justify. But if we want everyone to have basic income, we need to applaud whenever it happens, even if it’s a small subset, and argue they deserve it and that we should have more of it. Complaini…

> It’s just easier to justify. It definitely isn't. In fact this is so polarising that I wonder if it's an attempt to poison the concept of basic income for decades to come.

Is it so polarising in Ireland, or just hn?

Re: Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists

#617

Post by Schmerika »

inglor_cz wrote: post #377
Schmerika wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that similar though. What you're talking about is paying people to produce 'art' by the unit. This scheme is about paying credentialed artists so they can breath a little bit. No need to supply slop.

Yes, there are differences. BTW credentialism - good or bad? It certainly seems to me that the idea of credentials has crept from medicine, law and engineering into formerly freer and more bohemian territories. An idea of a perepiska for singers or actors would be considered absurd by most people in history. But once money transfers are in place, bureaucracy inevitably follows.

> credentialism - good or bad?

How long is string?

Some accreditations are strong. Others are nearly useless.

Reputation is easily hacked these days. Letters of recommendation don't mean what they used to. Something needs to fill that space - especially when you're filtering down to 2,000 applicants in a country of 5 million people.

Sure, there's a lot of dodgy doctors and lawyers out there. No shortage whatsoever, despite the efforts towards strict credentials. But I'd still rather have someone with a medical degree fixing my broken leg than a random chirurgeon.

Re: Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists

#618

Post by jimnotgym »

BSDobelix wrote: post #580
jimnotgym wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But giving housing or tax breaks needs lots of admin. Isn't that less efficient? Giving housing forces people to live in certain places. What if you are a traveling musician, you might be better off with a van. It is like the Victorian view of giving charity. 'Don't give them money, give them food', like the people don't know what they need.

>But giving housing or tax breaks needs lots of admin. Isn't that less efficient? Art community's are most always self managing, i would argue finding out who makes art is much more complicated. >Giving housing forces people to live in certain places. No one is forced to take free housing or being an artist, if you want something for free you have to play by rules. >like the people don't know what they need True, but…

> True, but why are people who are artist different from anyone else, that's my critique.

I don't think it is helpful to frame it in terms of, 'sure they should get it, but what about other people doing public good? Since the others can't get it, the artists shouldn't'. How about saying, 'this is a great start, how do we get a broader scheme for other philanthropic causes'?

Re: Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists

#619

Post by jimnotgym »

instig007 wrote: post #447
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?

> create cultural wealth and people who create mere monetary wealth the wealth in this case isn't monetary, it's material production, the productive work of people who create material objects, including your food and shelter. If it was about monetary stuff the government would just print the artists whatever amount of money they need. But that money has to be spent to buy from those who produce the stuff the artists…

The UBI money gets spent by the artist though, some on food, probably more on rent. The rent money probably gets hoarded by the landlord, the other goes to people selling real objects. That is real money back into the economy.

Re: Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists

#620

Post by relistan »

reliabilityguy wrote: post #554
relistan wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternatively, it's successful and is expanded to support more artists in the future. Cynicism with governance not unjustified in Ireland, but here we are looking at some actual progress.

> Cynicism with governance not unjustified in Ireland What do you mean?

While some things are doing great, there's a not insignificant amount of inertia in government for the last decade. This is actively being discussed in the Irish press. And Ireland has a long history of cronyism. I suspected (author clarified below) that is what was leading to the cynicism in the original post.
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