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How could we make #2 much, much higher than #1? It sounds implausible, but I like the idea of some kind of subsidized access to music.
by gcr 10y ago
How could we make #2 much, much higher than #1?
It sounds implausible, but I like the idea of some kind of subsidized access to music.
- toomuchtodo 10y ago1. Government grants program 2. Basic income
- gcr 10y agoGovernment-subsidized access to music! Absolutely yes. What a fun idea.
- toomuchtodo 10y agoSubsidizing music and the arts in general is no different then us pouring money into NASA and the NIH.
- mattkrause 10y agoIn fact, we already do a little bit of that through the National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, and various programs run by the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian (among others). In the 1930s, The Works Progress Administration did a lot of interesting things with the arts. Some of it involved prettying up overpasses and federal buildings, and some of it was much more ambitious, like the Federal Music Project ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Music_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Music_Project ), which did everything from holding free concerts to recording and studying various types of traditional american music.
- TheOtherHobbes 10y agoAll Western countries do this already. But most of the subsidy money goes to non-popular "high" art - usually classical and/or academic. But... back in the 1960s and 70s, and to a lesser extent in the 80s, access to unemployment payments in the UK were much easier than they are now. And so a lot of people used "the dole" as basic income while working on a music career. As an informal system, it worked pretty well. The UK got a lot of tax money from of the most successful musicians, and the entire sector brought in significant international revenue. It wouldn't work now because there's too much music being made, and too little income from most of it. You'll still get a handful of exceptional breakout YouTube stars. But you'll get a much bigger mass of wannabes with no real prospects. That's not necessarily bad, but it would be a first in history - instead of bread and circuses, it's going to be laptops and social media.
- DougWebb 10y agoSubsidizing music and the arts may or may not be a good idea, but it's certainly very different from funding NASA and the NIH.
- jcoffland 10y agoOh yeah, I'm just dying to pay more taxes to make this happen. /s