>Go Ireland, great scheme. I wish we had it over here in the UK.
It's a bad scheme, it divide's your population into people who have to create "wealth", and people who create "art".
Yes creating art (or preserving rare potatoes[1]) should be supported by your government if it's not survivable in a capitalistic society, however having different rights because of your occupation is not better then the middle ages.
Most people do create wealth. That is exactly how those wealthy people become wealthy - by having someone create wealth for them, and then appropriating most of it.
Leveraging ownership of capital, more specifically.
But lest we forget, all this wealth is still protected by people with guns. These days, those people normally work for the state rather than directly for the wealthy, but the latter can also leverage their wealth to steer politics such that the state does violence on their behalf to protect their property as needed.
What fraction of that time goes to subsidizing the exponentially wealthier? We could just tax the hell out of the rich and and make better lives for the vast majority of us, while wealth hoarders still get to “win” at the game of life.
>Or it divides them into people that create cultural wealth and people who create mere monetary wealth.
That's what i meant with the potatoes, the government pays for the field with the rare potatoes, and the standardized potatoes make wealth.
>So you do agree that art should be supported by government I see, so how would you do it?
With free housing (art community's), tax free stuff (for small to medium sales etc) like it's done today. And to be honest i think 99.5% of artist dont do a full-time-art-job, most of them do other stuff too...and that's good.
Is my friend who plays the didgeridoo in his free time now an artist if he declares it's suddenly his full-time occupation?
One example, why exclude people like Geo-scientists who sometimes dont even get any money (except they work for big-oil or the state).
On a base your are right, not everything that's good for societies is compatible within a capitalistic system. But this is just a complete wrong step.
> Is my friend who plays the didgeridoo in his free time now an artist if he declares it's suddenly his full-time occupation?
Is this really a risk, given UBI is generally minimal? Anyone who wants to live on it full-time to support their art, whatever it may be, is welcome to it. It's not like they're sitting back and getting rich, here.
> One example, why exclude people like Geo-scientists who sometimes dont even get any money (except they work for big-oil or the state).
Because "UBI for everyone who deserves it" is a much harder, bigger step, and fighting against small wins because they don't include literally every single outlier case you can think of is absurdly non-productive, not to mention that it's a vacuous counter-argument.
>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 why are people who are artist different from anyone else, that's my critique. Why is creating art more important then preserving art, being a scientist, a rare-potato-farmer, a retro-game-preserver...or a small town politician?
> 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'?
>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'.
I think it's the only logical way, same right for everyone, occupation is not a factor for additional rights.
> 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 need to live. Who's sponsoring the wealth producers?
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.
Guess what helps provides a reason for people to want to keep the world running?
We've seen what happens to pieces of the world that prioritize economic production over everything else, and it isn't pretty. We have a number of laws and regulations preventing that sort of production at all costs behavior.
It's the same as cities/governments spending on free public basketball courts/tennis courts/running tracks. I come from a country with none of those things, and the difference that makes on the average fitness/skill level of the population is massive compared to places where those things exist.
Both basic income, and public sporting infrastructure have a significant (but not unreasonable) upfront cost, but the payoff in even 2 years time will be massive. Provided the economics check out, there's no reason to not give it a shot.
It's a bad scheme, it divide's your population into people who have to create "wealth", and people who create "art".
Yes creating art (or preserving rare potatoes[1]) should be supported by your government if it's not survivable in a capitalistic society, however having different rights because of your occupation is not better then the middle ages.
[1] https://irishpotatofederation.ie/varieties/