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> I heard one answer more than any other: the government should introduce universal basic income. This would indeed afford artists the security to create art, b

> I heard one answer more than any other: the government should introduce universal basic income. This would indeed afford artists the security to create art, but it’s also extremely fanciful. Until we start viewing "fanciful" ideas as realistic, our problems will persist. This article is another in the long series of observations of seemingly distinct problems which are actually facets of a larger problem, namely that overall economic inequality is way too high. It's not just that musicians, or actors, or grocery store baggers, or taxi drivers, or whatever, can't make a living, it's that the set of things you can do to make a living is narrowing more and more. Broad-based solutions like basic income, wealth taxes, breaking up large market players, etc., will do far more for us than attempting piecemeal tweaks to this or that industry.

_9ptr 1y ago
Except that socialism has failed already. Universal basic income is impossible to justify morally.
- bryanrasmussen 1y ago
  UBI is obviously a far less intensive project than Socialism would be.
  - mantas 1y ago
    If you want to provide truly livable UBI, it’d be even bigger than socialism. The working people would have to be taxed through the nose. And necessary professions like trash car drivers should be paid a crapton.
    - eru 1y ago
      What do you define to be 'truly livable'? Let's have a look at Scandinavia or Germany. They have reasonably generous welfare systems, but they are means tested. So for the sake of argument, declare them to be 'truly livable'. Especially by global standards. Now I claim, that you can get pretty much the same net payments (of means tested welfare - taxes) that these countries have today with a system of (UBI - taxes). Basically, at the moment both taxes and welfare are means tested; you could move to UBI by moving all the means testing from welfare to taxes. Because net payments would be pretty much the same, all incentives would stay pretty much the same as today. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax which is one way to implement something like a UBI. Of course, if you want to go much beyond what Germany and Scandinavia are already paying, you'd need even higher taxes or a stranger economy. Btw, per capita the US is one of the world leaders of social welfare spending. They spend more than France. (Mostly because while France spends a higher proportion of GDP, American GDP per capita is much higher.)
      - valenterry 1y ago
        > Because net payments would be pretty much the same, all incentives would stay pretty much the same as today. Nope, in Germany you are required to work. If you can't find a job, you still have to try (and prove that), you need to stay at home / be available (and notify the state about your vacation or you might be punished by receiving less welfare) and of course you have to use up all money or wealth you have and state, in written, that you have no other sources of wealth. So UBI would absolutely change incentives here.
        eru 1y ago
        Good point! Though in practice it's fairly easy to put in a token effort so your welfare won't be cut, but avoid actually getting hired. But you are very right that the token effort is still effort. > [...] and of course you have to use up all money or wealth you have and state, in written, that you have no other sources of wealth. That is similar to taxing that money and wealth. But you are right.
        mantas 1y ago
        The sell-possessions-before-welfare is very very different from taxing. With taxes, even crazy high, you can still accumulate wealth. Taxes slow you down, but it’s still possible. With net-worth-ceiling to receive welfare, you’re forced you cannot accumulate wealth on welfare. And your previous wealth is gone before you get to earn welfare. Got a nice house and BMW and decided to slow it down and live on welfare? Or, more likely, work under table and collect welfare too? Good luck with that :)
        eru 1y ago
        > With taxes, even crazy high, you can still accumulate wealth. Taxes slow you down, but it’s still possible. That's only true for income taxes, not for wealth taxes.
        mantas 1y ago
    - ryandrake 1y ago
      Why would the working people necessarily need to be taxed? You could pay for UBI with taxes on investment, or wealth, or luxury taxes, or other things besides labor.
      - mantas 1y ago
        Working people in general. Those who keep producing and not sit on their asses enjoying UBI. You can tax incomes, wealth, whatever. Either way it’d be taxing those who want more than UBI. And you’ll need to tax them a lot. There’s no way taxing super-rich-only would cover fair UBI. It’ll have to be much much wider. Unless 99% of jobs would become automatized.
- bigyabai 1y ago
  Food stamps tried it too, they're plenty successful.
  - eru 1y ago
    Food stamps are means tested. UBI as commonly understood ain't.
    - arrowsmith 1y ago
      Not "as commonly understood" - UBI isn't means tested by definition. That's what the "U" stands for!
  - nlitened 1y ago
    Successful in what?
- yoyohello13 1y ago
  The top 1% of people controlling more wealth and resources than the bottom 50% is mortally justifiable? It’s funny whenever there is a comment like “hey, maybe we shouldn’t let individual people get so rich they can basically become thier own country.” Always get called socialists/communists. You can be capitalist while also having some care and protection for the little people.
  - eru 1y ago
    'A' being morally unjustifiable (by some metric), doesn't mean that 'B' is morally justifiable. If there was a button that I could press that would double the wealth of the 99% of people and quadruple the wealth of the top 1%, I would keep pressing it, even though it technically makes inequality worse and worse every time. It would be morally reprehensible not to press that button. EDIT: just be clear, I am talking about real (i.e. inflation adjusted) wealth. I am not talking about how many zeros we add to all dollar amounts. So I am talking about the number of houses and shoes and cars we have, and the amount of ice cream and education we can enjoy.
    - ryandrake 1y ago
      It would be morally reprehensible to push that button, because the button would also cause prices of everything to inflate by the average increase (more than 2x). So you’d be making the 1% richer, relative to inflation, and the 99% poorer. Ironically, our society is basically continuously pushing that button today, much to the glee of the 1%.
      - eru 1y ago
        You are mixing up nominal and real prosperity. To be clear: I was talking about real prosperity. You are talking about nominal prosperity. And I agree: just adding a zero at the end of all dollar amounts wouldn't make anyone better off.
    - metabagel 1y ago
      If you could press another button which would shift some of the obscene wealth from the ultra-rich to people living at the margins of society, you should also be mashing that button over and over.
- blueboo 1y ago
  Depends if socialism means the US highway system, Medicare, or The Great Leap Forward
  - _9ptr 1y ago
    I'm european, so socialism means actually socialism (no/no/yes).
    - blueboo 1y ago
      And I’m American, so socialism actually means western Europe in 2025!
- ElFitz 1y ago
  Would you care to provide some facts to support your affirmations?
- scarmig 1y ago
  Socialism didn't fail because of a UBI, which it never attempted; it failed because it couldn't calculate prices accurately, because it was bad at finding and processing information, political economy, and deeper computational complexity reasons. UBIs don't have these problems (or, rather, they'd have some of them in different ways, but in ways that are closer to market capitalism than socialism).
  - _9ptr 1y ago
    I made the socialism-remark because of the post before blaming everything on economic inequality. While that can lead to problems, I don't think it's necessarily a problem in itself or a sign of injustice. You're correct in that UBI is something different than socialism.
    - scarmig 1y ago
      Ironically, I suspect a UBI not only can coexist with inequality but might substantially increase it (not a bad thing in my book). The vast majority of Americans already have incomes above a UBI level, especially when current government benefits are accounted for. But post UBI, a substantial minority would exit entirely from market labor, while another substantial minority would be more willing to take career and entrepreneurial risks that are on average income increasing. There are also some very favorable aspects of it for marginal tax rates, which would encourage workers to earn more income.
  - orthoxerox 1y ago
    That was the trait of planned economy, not socialized ownership of the means of production. You could theoretically have market socialism, where the only difference from market capitalism would be the lack of distinction between workers and owners. Gig economy would be its kryptonite, though: if allow it you are back to exploiting workers, if you ban it you will also ban a whole lot of actual self-employed professionals.
    - scarmig 1y ago
      We don't need theoretical market socialism; we had actual existing Yugoslavia. Although it functioned better than centrally planned socialism, it still had lots of issues related to prices, particularly of capital. Who provides capital for enterprise? In practice, the state. And this ran into the same political economy issues with centrally planned economies. What happens when a company is about to go under? Unemployment is bad, so the worker-owned company gets a bail out. Who can start a firm? Well, better make sure your company satisfies the objectives of your local government.
- noelwelsh 1y ago
  Socialism is community ownership of resources. UBI is not socialism. It is income redistribution. Your morals are very strange if they don't include care for others.
  - _9ptr 1y ago
    UBI is not about "care". That's just the typical left-wing compassion framing. I don't want to abolish all taxes, I'm not a libertarian. But giving away the money you took from somebody else needs a justification (for example to pay for the roads). And I find "income redistribution" for the sake of it not an acceptable goal.
    - ryandrake 1y ago
      Why is paying for roads justifiable, but providing people a safety net not justifiable?
      - Workaccount2 1y ago
        Because people don't treat it as a "safety net" and instead use it as a "living net". There is some contingent of people who will just not participate in society no matter what. So the question becomes where do we set the bar - the lower this bar, the smaller that contingent.
- eru 1y ago
  > Universal basic income is impossible to justify morally. It's pretty easy to justify morally. I mean at least as easy as any other welfare. The net payments for UBI plus (income) taxes don't have to look to different from what many countries already do today. It's just the accounting that looks a bit different.
  - foxglacier 1y ago
    By morally, he might mean it creates a moral hazard. I know that when I was poor, I worked only the minimum to support myself. If I had UBI that covered those costs, I certainly wouldn't have worked, so there'd be less productivity in the economy.
    - eru 1y ago
      Well, exactly that problem already exists qualitatively with current tax and welfare systems. Whether UBI would make the problem quantitatively worse depends on the exact design of the UBI system you have in mind and the current system you want to compare it with.
  - hn_throw2025 1y ago
    UBI means giving money to people, which means that money has velocity because it would be promptly spent. We did this during Covid as furlough payments, and the result was high inflation. Wages didn’t significantly increase to match, so in my country anyway people feel that the cost if living is significantly worse post-Covid. Anywhere that implemented UBI would also have to implement rent controls, otherwise Landlords would just see it as money on the table. But you couldn’t have controls for all prices, so inflation would still result.
    - geoffmunn 1y ago
      This is what most people miss when they criticise UBI - for most people, it will be immediately spent, taxed, and put back into the economy. As long as the velocity is there, it's not an entirely bad idea as long as inflation can be kept under control.
- djmips 1y ago
  People that have inherited capital have income without merit. Is that immoral? Randomly being born in a rich nation to an advantaged life. Is that immoral too?
- ascorbic 1y ago
  UBI is not a socialist policy. It's supported by many across the political spectrum. It seems particularly popular with many libertarians
- tehjoker 1y ago
  capitalism has failed, the economy is turning into pure financial speculation. our products are made in socialist china which delivered the largest proportion of people rising from poverty
mantas 1y ago
Arts have another problem. Although I’m not even sure if it is a problem. Lots and lots of people can create arts. In old era when people would just gather together and sing. Nobody would make a living off that. Very very few people were making a living by performing to nobility. Modern recording industry with specialized instruments distorted this by allowing more talented people make a living. Yet it destroyed a lot of community singing by not-highly-talented people. On one hand more people could make a living, on the other hand much much less people were creating arts. Nowadays it feels like we’re returning back to the natural flow. More people are creating arts since modern instruments are widely accessible. But fewer people can make a living. Overall, I’d say more people creating arts is preferable outcome. And best art is created for the sake of it as a hobby.
- watwut 1y ago
  Afaik, it is opposite. You coulf live off being musician, because people liked music. Bars and such paid live music, weddings, funerals, middle class birthsdays too. That stopped when we started to play from record.
  - mantas 1y ago
    I’m talking pre industrial society. You’d have your neighbors singing at funeral or weddings. Unless you’re nobility of course. But that’s a tiny portion of society.
  - usrusr 1y ago
    Had any of those pre-recording entertainers been even remotely close to making a living off it? Outside of apex apex courts? I guess busking has existed in many societies, but that's hardly making a living, and certainly not middle class. Weddings, funerals and birthdays, that's where i see community contribution, not full time professionals. Perhaps community contribution involving a little side income, but chances are, in pre-recording days, not even that. Not much other entertainment possibilities to spend your Sunday on other than being part of the band. (it's funny how middle class is often portaied as a modern achievement, when the past is so full of examples of population that isn't the ruling elite, but economically still far above another layer of dropouts that would just move from opportunity to opportunity until an early death, at least unless they end up at some form of monastery)
anovikov 1y ago
Only problem is that it requires totalitarian world government to do it. There is that thing called competition. Societies where people aren't pushed to work by fear of hunger, homelessness, and social exclusion, will very quickly lose out and fall apart. Perhaps this is why universal basic income doesn't exist. I mean, Soviet Union was very close to having it: there was no unemployment and if you were fine living on the base salary you could do nothing on your job and as long as you didn't come there drunk or disseminated anti-Soviet jokes, you'd be fine. See where it ended up.
- whatshisface 1y ago
  Wouldn't that argument predict that the united states and most of Europe should collapse any second now? Countries where failure to find work leads to an actual threat of hunger are mostly very poor and corrupt developing nations.
  - anovikov 1y ago
    Indeed this is the big reason of why economic growth rates in rich countries and especially those of them with low inequality, is slower. Because the primary factor that pushes people to work, is much weaker. It's not the only reason (another big reason is that poorer countries are playing a catch-up adopting technology invented by rich ones which is always easier than inventing it first), but yes, one of the big reasons.
    - simonask 1y ago
      I don't think there is any evidence that people are motivated to work because of the threat of starvation. The most economically productive nations on the planet are well outside any risk of starvation, by a huge margin. This line of thinking is not a part of serious economic theory, it just comes from an extremely primitive high school level understanding of economics.
- atoav 1y ago
  That is what you would think. Yet scandinavian countries which many US observers would (wrongly) call "socialist" countries fare quite well, while the US is currently falling apart in a fractal fashion where even the big issues have smaller issues attached to them. It is maybe time for people like you to realize that the current crisis in the US is a direct result of this zero-sum worldview, where you think you can only win if someone else loses. Some turned that around and infer someone else losing will make them win, which is where a lot of the worse-than-soviet cruelty in US society comes from. Where producing win-win outcomes should be prefered, part of the US seems to be craving for lose-lose. It is hard for the fish to perceive the nature of the water they have been swimming in their whole lives, but trust me: from an European standpoint the frequency soviet-style stories emerging from the US is rising. People don’t call ambulances because they’re afraid of the cost, they die in the back of rideshares or sit bleeding out waiting for someone to Google the cheapest ER. People drink poisoned water in one of the richest countries in the world, not as a one-time scandal but as a structural outcome, in Flint, in Jackson, in places the cameras moved on from. Housing is a market, not a right, and so entire cities now feature tent villages under highways while luxury units sit empty, protected not by need but by capital. In parts of Louisiana, California and Iowa, the air you breathe and the water you touch can kill you, but only if you’re poor enough or Black or unlucky enough to live near a chemical plant, a battery smelter, a lake no one bothers to save. In these sacrifice zones, life expectancy drops like it’s wartime. In urban centres people film others burning alive on the subway (NYC) and call it content. There are cemeteries of Black Americans being paved over for parking garages, with courts hesitating to intervene. These aren’t edge cases—they’re the shape of the thing. This is not the freedom that was promised. This is the bureaucracy of cruelty operating not as failure, but as design. And the worst part is: many still think this is the price of success.
eru 1y ago
> [...] a larger problem, namely that overall economic inequality is way too high. What economic inequality would you deem small enough? And why do you care about inequality, and not eg the absolute livings standards of the least well off? We can 'solve' inequality by just destroying everything the rich have, but that won't make anyone better off. Btw, the absolute living standards of all members of society, including the least well off, have never been better. And that's true for almost any society you care to look at on our globe. (Removing eg those currently at war, that weren't at war earlier.)
- pazimzadeh 1y ago
  the healthcare situation sucks. provide universal healthcare and you might have a point
  - eru 1y ago
    I don't live in the US. We have a very different helthcare system where I live, and it's working well. But again: providing universal healthcare is all about giving (poor) people more prosperity. It has nothing to do with inequality by itself. If tomorrow Mr Zuckerberg got 100x better healthcare, but everyone else only got 10x better healthcare, that would fix the problem you mentioned, but would technically make inequality worse.
    - pazimzadeh 1y ago
      > If tomorrow Mr Zuckerberg got 100x better healthcare, but everyone else only got 10x better healthcare, that would fix the problem you mentioned, but would technically make inequality worse. No, because we outnumber Mark Zuckerberg by more than 10 fold Anyway, I would argue that having guaranteed healthcare is 10293762397697x better than not having guaranteed healthcare
      - eru 1y ago
        > Anyway, I would argue that having guaranteed healthcare is 10293762397697x better than not having guaranteed healthcare Sure, healthcare is nice. I see no disagreement. > > If tomorrow Mr Zuckerberg got 100x better healthcare, but everyone else only got 10x better healthcare, that would fix the problem you mentioned, but would technically make inequality worse. > No, because we outnumber Mark Zuckerberg by more than 10 fold Well, fix the numbers any way you feel like. Eg say Mr Zuckerberg gets better off by whatever amount the rest of us together get better (eg in terms of healthcare) plus 10% extra.
iechoz6H 1y ago
But we've had a way of addressing that since the year dot, it's called progressive taxation but no, that appears beyond the pale nowadays.
huijzer 1y ago
> it's that the set of things you can do to make a living is narrowing more and more. Or, instead of handing out more and more money from the state, try to introduce dynamism again. Try to reduce the amount of times that YouTube takes videos or accounts down for example.
dmje 1y ago
100% this. I don’t know how long we have to go on pushing at the “wealth will trickle down” door to discover it’s utter bullshit and always has been. The answer isn’t private companies, because they’re continuing to take the piss and make a small number of people incredibly wealthy at the expense of the majority. It’s never a popular thing to say on HN but the country the typifies inequality most starkly is the US - and it’s also the one with the biggest set of problems: huge issues with drug use, obesity, widespread unhappiness, simmering resentment, a divided nation. The countries that are getting this right (and by right I mean GDP, happiness, heath, pretty much any meaningful index of “a good life”) are the ones that fund public services, healthcare, education, etc through higher taxes. ~ braces for downvotes ~
- somedude895 1y ago
  And yet everyone wants to move to the US. Weird, isn't it?
  - push0ret 1y ago
    This is far from the truth in Europe.
renegade-otter 1y ago
UBI was first piloted by Richard Nixon. These ideas are not fanciful. America has moved so hard to the right that anything slightly left of center seems radical and communist.
127 1y ago
...in America. There are countries that actually fight the oligarchs and tax them until the wealth inequality becomes lesser. Of course there's no silver bullet and high progressive taxes for the mega-wealthy do have other negative effects. Like people being less motivated to strive. Less capital to invest and less competitive companies born. But billionaires paying less taxes than the guy sweeping floors at the local mall is absurd. Once you reach a certain threshold of wealth, your taxes actually start going down.
- ponector 1y ago
  There is actually no sense to put high taxes on ultra wealthy people. They have all means to avoid payment of income/profit taxes at all, no matter of the current tax rate. That's why poor people pay the highest percentage of their income: they have no choice, no ways to do tax evasion.
  - xienze 1y ago
    > That's why poor people pay the highest percentage of their income The key word here is income. “Wealth” and “income” tend to be conflated by ostensibly intelligent people who should know better. If I’m granted a million dollars in stock but draw a $20K salary, I’m “wealthy” but not “paying my fair share” because I’ve hardly earned any income for the year.
    - ponector 1y ago
      Is it right? From my knowledge stock compensation is considered as income and is taxed. But I got your point. There are ways to be wealthy, have a rich lifestyle but report no taxable income/profit. What you actually want is to have a wealth tax like in Switzerland. 0.05-0.3% annual tax based on net assets.
      - Workaccount2 1y ago
        Realizing stock value (selling stock) is considered income.
ponector 1y ago
> actors, or grocery store baggers, or taxi drivers, or whatever, can't make a living Until they are dying on the streets, they are actually make a living. If they cannot make a decent living with their low income - UBI wouldn't help. UBI is a safety net, a minimal salary payment. You are never going to have a decent life on minimal salary.
- VerminOctopus1 1y ago
  Capitalism seems to be an optimizer for this type of “efficiency”. How far can we squeeze people for their labour before they are dying in the streets or rioting?
weatherlite 1y ago
I totally agree. There's the inequality side of things were many working people are still in a precarious position. Then there's also the burnout / job conditions side of things where people can't persist in their roles without slowly losing their mental health. Think about nurses, police officers, teachers etc. It can be solvable by making their work weeks shorter and/or by increasing the numbers of staff per student and many other things we can do - that are deemed too expensive now but can become realistic if we distribute the wealth in a more equal way.
TimByte 1y ago
This isn't about any one industry failing, it's about a system designed to funnel value upwards while pretending the rest of us are just not hustling hard enough
- monero-xmr 1y ago
  I would argue the system is designed for efficiency. Economic solutions to this problem are about introducing legally-mandated inefficiencies, like limiting competition or artificially increasing labor costs
  - westmeal 1y ago
    Efficiency for extracting money from poor people to mega corporations? Seems to me there isn't really a lot of competition left since theres a handful of main players that just buy out smaller competitors.
    - bluGill 1y ago
      The poor are richer than ever under the system. They have clean running water and not just light but televisions.
      - RobotToaster 1y ago
        Most of them don't even own homes.
        bluGill 1y ago
        there are rich who don't own their own homes either. Often renting is the choice a mythical rational ecconomic actor would choose.
      - lapcat 1y ago
        > They have clean running water They actually don't. Water is contaminated at various levels in many places. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_water_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_water_crisis
tim333 1y ago
Universal basic income is a bit impractical just now - give everyone free money and who will do the jobs that need doing? - but shortly will be very practical when robots/AI will do the jobs that need doing.
- graemep 1y ago
  No, people always want more money. Why do so many rich people who could afford to retire work hard to make more? Why does hardly anyone on a high hourly rate work the minimum hours they need for an adequate income? There have been numerous trials of UBI and I have yet to heard of one that showed people worked significantly less when given it.
  - tim333 1y ago
    I kind of figure people will work on things that don't really need doing like putting on music festivals etc. while the robots will do the essential work like grow food and take out the trash. Maybe I'm being optimistic. Although I have lived places where things worked a bit like that like when I was in South Africa a while ago with the blacks doing the less desirable jobs usually. So maybe like that but with robots?
  - gosub100 1y ago
    my only problem with it is "give everyone 1400/mo and suddenly prices will rise by an effective rate of 1400/mo". I don't see any argument to counter that. I want it to work though. The only way I could see it working is having a 2nd currency, comparable to SNAP benefits or housing vouchers, that is independent of the dollar (and not stigmatized either). Then let the dollar value of rents and food fluctuate as they may, but require that the UBI currency is accepted for some fraction of housing and food (and the minimum housing is sufficient to be covered 100% by UBI). Then cover the spread through taxing the corporations who wish to do business in that state. If the greedy Private-Equity owned corporation wants to jack up the rent, they can get their UBI tax jacked up also. If they want to quit the state, they can sell their assets to a local resident who wants to build a small business being a property manager.
hackable_sand 1y ago
Cultural investment in education is my take. People should be enabled to study for career mobility in highly regulated environments. Getting this and that cert. is costly, but even things like hands-om experience in new domains is inaccessible if you don't have the cash flow.
HPsquared 1y ago
UBI would introduce massive inequality between those who work and those who don't. Much tension would arise.
- trueismywork 1y ago
  How would it increase inequality?
  - gosub100 1y ago
    those who choos 40hr work weeks have similar earnings and quality of life as someone who sits at home all day on UBI.
    - jenniferCrawdad 1y ago
      Why do you think the word "universal" is in the phrase "universal basic income"?
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
      - gosub100 1y ago
        then it will never happen, of course. keep fantasizing
    - sensanaty 1y ago
      No? Everyone would get the same amount, and then the people working 40h would get more than the people not doing anything.
    - orangecat 1y ago
      Absolutely not. Our current system is closer to that because you lose benefits as your income increases, to the point where in some case it's possible to get a raise and end up worse off. With UBI (assuming it replaces most means-tested benefits), you're always better off earning more.
decimalenough 1y ago
You're conflating three very different types of jobs here. Minimum wage hourly jobs like grocery baggers need to be able to survive off a 40-hour week, and it's a societal problem if they can't. Taxi drivers are essentially sole proprietors who set their own hours and accept higher risk for a higher payoff. Demand and supply will calibrate themselves unless the government distorts the market (eg. taxi medallions). Musicians and actors are and have always been in a brutal power law market where all the wealth accrues to the 0.1% at the top of the heap. This drives exploitation since people will do anything to get to the top, but at the end of the day society does not need them the way it needs taxi drivers or grocery baggers and there is no economic rationale for subsidizing them.
- somedude895 1y ago
  > at the end of the day society does not need them the way it needs taxi drivers or grocery baggers This is absolutely true. In my country psychologists are complaining about "low" wages and tough conditions, and yet people go study psychology in droves because they "find it interesting." There's only so much demand for any one thing and if you decide because you enjoy something you want to make that your career well tough shit, there's thousands like yourself and nobody wants more of what you supply. So you can keep it as a hobby, but to make a living you have to provide something that people want and need, otherwise you're just a leech on society. It's funny that the ones complaining about these issues are usually the people who care about the social aspect of things, yet there's absolutely nothing social about demanding money without contributing anything that others actually need.
- grumpy_coder 1y ago
  The grocery bagger on a zero hour contract needs to be able to survive when not given 40 hours. Also the 5% unemployed people in a 'full employment' economy need to be able to survive when sacrificed to control inflation.
giantg2 1y ago
If you want to talk about the root of problems, it comes down to preferences. Income inequality in musicians? People prefer some musicians and songs over others. UBI and taxation isn't going to meaningfully change the income inequality between the median and top earners in entertainment fields due to social dynamics. Guess what the primary driver of the housing shortage is? Preference for larger homes and "better" locations. There are enough housing units nationally, but their distribution and charateristics don't match the preferences. You might be thinking about NIMBY, but guess what that is? The preferences of the people already there. Solutions like UBI or just building more skip a logical step of evaluating the true underlying causes and presume them instead. To solve a problem we must first understand it.
- fraggleysun 1y ago
  Any reference that you can point to on the housing shortage being due to preference? It seems like job location, compensation, average cost of living, and commute would play a fairly large role.
  - giantg2 1y ago
    "It seems like job location, compensation, average cost of living, and commute would play a fairly large role." Are you saying these don't involve preferences? And a web search will bring up tons of housing preference sources coming various aspects. https://learn.upright.us/real-estate-investing-blog/a-housing-shortage-of-preference-why-categories-show-disparate-severity https://learn.upright.us/real-estate-investing-blog/a-housin...
    - soulofmischief 1y ago
      Sure, you could argue that some people prefer to not live a destitute life, and that influences the high price of housing. But that is reductive, ignoring a host of other factors, which again, you might be able to boil down to preference (wealthy capitalists prefer to make more money) but again, it's reductive and offers a somewhat shallow perspective and not much to act on.
reactordev 1y ago
And yet they just voted to do the opposite. It’s not universal income that’s the solution, it’s breaking apart the monopolistic legislation that allows certain companies strangleholds on the markets. M&A shouldn’t be allowed if 65% of the majority of the market is owned by those two companies. Individuals with wealth should be capped and any excess should be used for low-income development programs. We built a world for higher level thinking but ever since 2010, we’ve been failing to meet that standard.
- gosub100 1y ago
  one idea I've been toying with is to give municipalities ability to be hostile to corporations. for instance, levy a hefty tax on the wealth that is extracted from the community and paid to shareholders. Of course I'm sure there are a million laws against this at the state or federal level, but citizens could still band together to make them comply or else run them out of town. ie. the police could agree to stop responding to McDonalds, or courts could allow trial by jury for eviction cases, and simply have the jurors find them not guilty (for the case of corporate landlords). These would be elements of last resort. The first resort would be to require corporate owners to pay a lot more to do business. A second line would be to rescind a lot of the "tax cuts" given to companies to build there. Just say sorry, this is an emergency and we cannot afford to give you the cuts anymore. It would be dangerous, no doubt, and ripe for abuse. But it's a tool that could be used at the local level to provide relief. Ultimately, I think certain sectors should be forbidden for corporations to operate, such as restaurants and landlording. These are entry-level small business opportunities for normal people to get involved in, and they do not deserve to be pushed out by wealthy corporations.
  - missedthecue 1y ago
    A community that engages rapaciously with enterprise based on unpredictable or moving standards is one that will quickly be left without any enterprise. I cannot imagine opening a restaurant in a city that could one day decide to fine me for doing too much business or have the police stop responding (an open invite for consequence-free theft). If you want to raise higher taxes across the board that's one thing, but becoming hostile is shooting yourself in the dick. An ultimate example of short term over long term thinking.
osigurdson 1y ago
Usually when people in western countries think about UBI, they are assuming that money from people richer than themselves will trickle down to them. What they don't realize is, globally, money will trickle out of their pockets to the rest of the world. Basically they are looking for a constrained hypothetical situation in which free money flows to them.
Mars008 1y ago
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amelius 1y ago
The root of the problem is that the rules of the economy are unfair. By analogy, try playing a game of monopoly but enter the game after a few rounds have already been played. Exorbitant housing prices are an example. Another problem is that while it is fine if hardworking people make more money, these people can use that money __against__ people who made different life choices, in various ways, consciously and unconsciously. We have to acknowledge that the system is broken, and it is starting to show.
- MichaelZuo 1y ago
  This doesn’t make sense… people have always been able to use their time, effort, and resources against someone else? Since the beginning of society I imagine.
  - amelius 1y ago
    Yes, but whether that becomes a problem to society depends on a number of parameters. One of them is the existing level of wealth inequality.
    - MichaelZuo 1y ago
      If someone is grinding you down… what does it matter whether they are 10x or 100x wealthier? Even perfect equals can wreck each other’s lives completely, in legal ways too, if they commit their all to it.
      - amelius 1y ago
        You are looking for extremes, whereas I am merely looking at it from the average behavior of wealthy people. If there is a large wealth inequality that means that the relatively poor will simply have a smaller piece of the cake and the wealthy growing their wealth will have a larger impact on the poor, percentage-wise. Now, if that growth is only due to hard work, then you can't really argue against that; however, if that growth is partially due to "wealth abuse", then that's a different matter.
deleted 1y ago
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skeeter2020 1y ago
I do a lot of things as an amateur but at pretty high level: athletics, music, art and more. I also pay a huge portion of my income as a software developer in direct and indirect taxation. Convince me I should fund people to focus full-time on things where they can't make a living, the same things I love to do but realize can't be your sole pursuit. You've conflated people busting ass who can't keep up with those following their passion in the arts voluntarily. Those don't feel anything like the same thing to me. I don't think I'm alone in a perspective that if you keep taking more from me I'll stop contributing all together, and we'll all fail. The ultra-rich and others with means to avoid picking up the tab have already done so.
- mystified5016 1y ago
  First because generally in order to be a good person you have to care what happens to other people. Second because the second order effects of reverting American society to Victorian slums would be incredibly bad for the economy and your tax burden. Because somehow a plurality of Americans seem to have been convinced by the guy stealing all their money that it's someone else's fault and you should stone them to death instead. Because letting large portions of the population starve to death slowly is just a bad thing in general? Because it would be good for everyone including you. Because you'd wish that someone else wasn't a smug asshole with an "I got mine" attitude and gave you help when you need it.
- tossandthrow 1y ago
  Assuming you live in the US, it is relatively easy to convince you - but it heavily relieve on you opening your eyes. Start traveling, talking to other cultures, and stop being dismissive and defensive.
- metabagel 1y ago
  > Convince me I should fund people Are you in the top 1%? If so, you can afford it. If not, then I don't think your taxes should go up - I think Bezos' taxes should go up, and there should be a wealth tax for high net worth individuals.
  - deleted 1y ago
pstuart 1y ago
UBI seems inevitable with the progress of AI and automation -- but transitioning to it will need a catalyst to break through the wall of resistance to make that happen. Covid was such a catalyst, and at least in the US it was so poorly managed on the distribution of funds it did not help shift the mindset to support UBI. That's a pity, because it could have done so brilliantly. The catch is that we need a government that is not corrupt and incompetent to administer that process and that's exactly what was in charge at the time. So while it can't happen now it would be worth exploring what that tipping point might be and how to make sure it serves the people its supposed to.
tptacek 1y ago
Acknowledging inequality won't change the economics of a midlist artist, because you can't compel people to buy music they don't want to buy.
motorest 1y ago
> Until we start viewing "fanciful" ideas as realistic, our problems will persist. This article is another in the long series of observations of seemingly distinct problems which are actually facets of a larger problem, namely that overall economic inequality is way too high. I actually read the article before going into the comment section, and your comment was surprising and baffling by how detached from the content of the post it was. There are plenty of exploitation arguments made in it, but if you read the article is income inequality one of them? Well, no. > It's not just that musicians, or actors, or grocery store baggers, or taxi drivers, or whatever, can't make a living, it's that the set of things you can do to make a living is narrowing more and more. I think that this conclusion is far-fetched if your starting point is the actual article. The music business is notorious for being virtually impossible to make a living, even if you are an international act. There were plenty of examples from decades ago up until now of musicians from popular international bands with packed international tours not being able to afford to quit their day job to make ends meet. If your income comes from selling tickets to the public, sometimes directly, and you still cannot generate a livable income, the problem is not income inequality. The problem is that there is not enough demand for what you're selling to make it a viable business. I mean, if your primary source of income is playing shows and not enough people want to spend money to attend them, why do you think the fact that some people earn way more than you is even relevant? > Broad-based solutions like basic income, wealth taxes, breaking up large market players, etc., will do far more for us than attempting piecemeal tweaks to this or that industry. Here is a though experiment: does your assertion hold valid if you replace "store baggers" and "taxi drivers" with "contortionists" or "jugglers"? Because while "store baggers" and "taxi drivers" aren't exactly activities associated with upper middle class income levels, they are activities that most people are coerced to have because they have no alternative to make a living. Musicians are another story altogether, and associated with people pursuing their dreams. In fact, there is that age old cliche about third generation wealth being artists and academics because their exceptional wealth allowed them to pursue their dreams.
msgodel 1y ago
We already have a pretty burdensome welfare system, it might be that we've gone too far towards UBI to make middle class musicians practical.
cma 1y ago
Not only that there's already one in place (earned income tax credit) and Alaska has one for oil revenue. We can just increase the EICT.
astrange 1y ago
> Broad-based solutions like basic income, wealth taxes, breaking up large market players, etc., will do far more for us than attempting piecemeal tweaks to this or that industry. Basic income has been tested very thoroughly many different times and all results show it basically doesn't do anything good or bad. So it won't create any new musicians. The main effect is it's simpler to administrate than other kinds of welfare, which is a good thing because it saves money. Wealth taxes are inflationary (because they force you to sell assets) and so would probably cause fewer musicians. Especially if you assume musicians are nepo babies, in which case you actually need rich/upper-middle-class people to create them. Anyway, the solution here is to copy other countries where it works. They don't do any of these made-up future policy ideas. Japan/Korea produces a lot of culture because it has a low cost of living, a mature industry that trains a lot of people, and most importantly (but negatively) wages are low so there's nothing more productive for the musicians to be doing. Doubly so for women, who might as well become Z-grade idols when they can't get a career job at all. In the West IIRC a surprising amount of songwriting talent comes from Sweden, but don't know much about that.
osigurdson 1y ago
Perhaps instead of UBI we should be doing UBE (Universal Basic Expense). Most governments run deficits today so maybe we start with ending those. Here is how it could work: At the end of ever taxation year, the government calculates its deficit for the year. Divide this by all income earners at their marginal tax rate. Then, at tax time, the tax payer can choose to either pay this or allow it to accumulate at the same rate that the government charges itself. Maybe once we can cover deficits we can start thinking about UBI.
corimaith 1y ago
>Broad-based solutions like basic income, wealth taxes, breaking up large market players, etc., will do far more for us than attempting piecemeal tweaks to this or that industry. The cost of living is correlated to the high cost of housing, competitive job market and high cost of labor in basic services such as infrastructure development. How exactly does "reducing inequality" address all of this? Taxing a bunch of billionaires isn't going to magically increase the number of well-paid jobs, and the guys quoting $5,000 for your AC installation aren't anywhere near the 1% either. Even with stuff like crime and homelessness, just look at Bloomberg's tenure of NYC or Hong Kong when the businesses have a say, they do manage cleaning up cities quite well! If anything, it's the billionares providing the cheap goods you do like to consume so much like Amazon or new Iphones each year. The funny thing is that back in March we already had this conversation with the whole tariff and manufacturing debacle, no matter how stupid Trump's execution was in reality, this board or really progressives are essentially shooting themselves in the foot in adamantally claiming that "manufacturing will never return" and wanting to continue the status quo of cheap exports but expensive domestic labour. Yeah well, that's what exactly leads to the situation you're in today. You might point to nominally higher salaries, but truth be told, do you feel particularly more civilized in the Bay Area than in Shenzhen or Tokyo?

_9ptr 1y ago

Except that socialism has failed already. Universal basic income is impossible to justify morally.

bryanrasmussen 1y ago
UBI is obviously a far less intensive project than Socialism would be.
- mantas 1y ago
  If you want to provide truly livable UBI, it’d be even bigger than socialism. The working people would have to be taxed through the nose. And necessary professions like trash car drivers should be paid a crapton.
  - eru 1y ago
    What do you define to be 'truly livable'? Let's have a look at Scandinavia or Germany. They have reasonably generous welfare systems, but they are means tested. So for the sake of argument, declare them to be 'truly livable'. Especially by global standards. Now I claim, that you can get pretty much the same net payments (of means tested welfare - taxes) that these countries have today with a system of (UBI - taxes). Basically, at the moment both taxes and welfare are means tested; you could move to UBI by moving all the means testing from welfare to taxes. Because net payments would be pretty much the same, all incentives would stay pretty much the same as today. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax which is one way to implement something like a UBI. Of course, if you want to go much beyond what Germany and Scandinavia are already paying, you'd need even higher taxes or a stranger economy. Btw, per capita the US is one of the world leaders of social welfare spending. They spend more than France. (Mostly because while France spends a higher proportion of GDP, American GDP per capita is much higher.)
    - valenterry 1y ago
      > Because net payments would be pretty much the same, all incentives would stay pretty much the same as today. Nope, in Germany you are required to work. If you can't find a job, you still have to try (and prove that), you need to stay at home / be available (and notify the state about your vacation or you might be punished by receiving less welfare) and of course you have to use up all money or wealth you have and state, in written, that you have no other sources of wealth. So UBI would absolutely change incentives here.
      - eru 1y ago
        Good point! Though in practice it's fairly easy to put in a token effort so your welfare won't be cut, but avoid actually getting hired. But you are very right that the token effort is still effort. > [...] and of course you have to use up all money or wealth you have and state, in written, that you have no other sources of wealth. That is similar to taxing that money and wealth. But you are right.
        mantas 1y ago
        The sell-possessions-before-welfare is very very different from taxing. With taxes, even crazy high, you can still accumulate wealth. Taxes slow you down, but it’s still possible. With net-worth-ceiling to receive welfare, you’re forced you cannot accumulate wealth on welfare. And your previous wealth is gone before you get to earn welfare. Got a nice house and BMW and decided to slow it down and live on welfare? Or, more likely, work under table and collect welfare too? Good luck with that :)
        eru 1y ago
        > With taxes, even crazy high, you can still accumulate wealth. Taxes slow you down, but it’s still possible. That's only true for income taxes, not for wealth taxes.
        mantas 1y ago
  - ryandrake 1y ago
    Why would the working people necessarily need to be taxed? You could pay for UBI with taxes on investment, or wealth, or luxury taxes, or other things besides labor.
    - mantas 1y ago
      Working people in general. Those who keep producing and not sit on their asses enjoying UBI. You can tax incomes, wealth, whatever. Either way it’d be taxing those who want more than UBI. And you’ll need to tax them a lot. There’s no way taxing super-rich-only would cover fair UBI. It’ll have to be much much wider. Unless 99% of jobs would become automatized.
bigyabai 1y ago
Food stamps tried it too, they're plenty successful.
- eru 1y ago
  Food stamps are means tested. UBI as commonly understood ain't.
  - arrowsmith 1y ago
    Not "as commonly understood" - UBI isn't means tested by definition. That's what the "U" stands for!
- nlitened 1y ago
  Successful in what?
yoyohello13 1y ago
The top 1% of people controlling more wealth and resources than the bottom 50% is mortally justifiable? It’s funny whenever there is a comment like “hey, maybe we shouldn’t let individual people get so rich they can basically become thier own country.” Always get called socialists/communists. You can be capitalist while also having some care and protection for the little people.
- eru 1y ago
  'A' being morally unjustifiable (by some metric), doesn't mean that 'B' is morally justifiable. If there was a button that I could press that would double the wealth of the 99% of people and quadruple the wealth of the top 1%, I would keep pressing it, even though it technically makes inequality worse and worse every time. It would be morally reprehensible not to press that button. EDIT: just be clear, I am talking about real (i.e. inflation adjusted) wealth. I am not talking about how many zeros we add to all dollar amounts. So I am talking about the number of houses and shoes and cars we have, and the amount of ice cream and education we can enjoy.
  - ryandrake 1y ago
    It would be morally reprehensible to push that button, because the button would also cause prices of everything to inflate by the average increase (more than 2x). So you’d be making the 1% richer, relative to inflation, and the 99% poorer. Ironically, our society is basically continuously pushing that button today, much to the glee of the 1%.
    - eru 1y ago
      You are mixing up nominal and real prosperity. To be clear: I was talking about real prosperity. You are talking about nominal prosperity. And I agree: just adding a zero at the end of all dollar amounts wouldn't make anyone better off.
  - metabagel 1y ago
    If you could press another button which would shift some of the obscene wealth from the ultra-rich to people living at the margins of society, you should also be mashing that button over and over.
blueboo 1y ago
Depends if socialism means the US highway system, Medicare, or The Great Leap Forward
- _9ptr 1y ago
  I'm european, so socialism means actually socialism (no/no/yes).
  - blueboo 1y ago
    And I’m American, so socialism actually means western Europe in 2025!
ElFitz 1y ago
Would you care to provide some facts to support your affirmations?
scarmig 1y ago
Socialism didn't fail because of a UBI, which it never attempted; it failed because it couldn't calculate prices accurately, because it was bad at finding and processing information, political economy, and deeper computational complexity reasons. UBIs don't have these problems (or, rather, they'd have some of them in different ways, but in ways that are closer to market capitalism than socialism).
- _9ptr 1y ago
  I made the socialism-remark because of the post before blaming everything on economic inequality. While that can lead to problems, I don't think it's necessarily a problem in itself or a sign of injustice. You're correct in that UBI is something different than socialism.
  - scarmig 1y ago
    Ironically, I suspect a UBI not only can coexist with inequality but might substantially increase it (not a bad thing in my book). The vast majority of Americans already have incomes above a UBI level, especially when current government benefits are accounted for. But post UBI, a substantial minority would exit entirely from market labor, while another substantial minority would be more willing to take career and entrepreneurial risks that are on average income increasing. There are also some very favorable aspects of it for marginal tax rates, which would encourage workers to earn more income.
- orthoxerox 1y ago
  That was the trait of planned economy, not socialized ownership of the means of production. You could theoretically have market socialism, where the only difference from market capitalism would be the lack of distinction between workers and owners. Gig economy would be its kryptonite, though: if allow it you are back to exploiting workers, if you ban it you will also ban a whole lot of actual self-employed professionals.
  - scarmig 1y ago
    We don't need theoretical market socialism; we had actual existing Yugoslavia. Although it functioned better than centrally planned socialism, it still had lots of issues related to prices, particularly of capital. Who provides capital for enterprise? In practice, the state. And this ran into the same political economy issues with centrally planned economies. What happens when a company is about to go under? Unemployment is bad, so the worker-owned company gets a bail out. Who can start a firm? Well, better make sure your company satisfies the objectives of your local government.
noelwelsh 1y ago
Socialism is community ownership of resources. UBI is not socialism. It is income redistribution. Your morals are very strange if they don't include care for others.
- _9ptr 1y ago
  UBI is not about "care". That's just the typical left-wing compassion framing. I don't want to abolish all taxes, I'm not a libertarian. But giving away the money you took from somebody else needs a justification (for example to pay for the roads). And I find "income redistribution" for the sake of it not an acceptable goal.
  - ryandrake 1y ago
    Why is paying for roads justifiable, but providing people a safety net not justifiable?
    - Workaccount2 1y ago
      Because people don't treat it as a "safety net" and instead use it as a "living net". There is some contingent of people who will just not participate in society no matter what. So the question becomes where do we set the bar - the lower this bar, the smaller that contingent.
eru 1y ago
> Universal basic income is impossible to justify morally. It's pretty easy to justify morally. I mean at least as easy as any other welfare. The net payments for UBI plus (income) taxes don't have to look to different from what many countries already do today. It's just the accounting that looks a bit different.
- foxglacier 1y ago
  By morally, he might mean it creates a moral hazard. I know that when I was poor, I worked only the minimum to support myself. If I had UBI that covered those costs, I certainly wouldn't have worked, so there'd be less productivity in the economy.
  - eru 1y ago
    Well, exactly that problem already exists qualitatively with current tax and welfare systems. Whether UBI would make the problem quantitatively worse depends on the exact design of the UBI system you have in mind and the current system you want to compare it with.
- hn_throw2025 1y ago
  UBI means giving money to people, which means that money has velocity because it would be promptly spent. We did this during Covid as furlough payments, and the result was high inflation. Wages didn’t significantly increase to match, so in my country anyway people feel that the cost if living is significantly worse post-Covid. Anywhere that implemented UBI would also have to implement rent controls, otherwise Landlords would just see it as money on the table. But you couldn’t have controls for all prices, so inflation would still result.
  - geoffmunn 1y ago
    This is what most people miss when they criticise UBI - for most people, it will be immediately spent, taxed, and put back into the economy. As long as the velocity is there, it's not an entirely bad idea as long as inflation can be kept under control.
djmips 1y ago
People that have inherited capital have income without merit. Is that immoral? Randomly being born in a rich nation to an advantaged life. Is that immoral too?
ascorbic 1y ago
UBI is not a socialist policy. It's supported by many across the political spectrum. It seems particularly popular with many libertarians
tehjoker 1y ago
capitalism has failed, the economy is turning into pure financial speculation. our products are made in socialist china which delivered the largest proportion of people rising from poverty

mantas 1y ago

Arts have another problem. Although I’m not even sure if it is a problem. Lots and lots of people can create arts. In old era when people would just gather together and sing. Nobody would make a living off that. Very very few people were making a living by performing to nobility. Modern recording industry with specialized instruments distorted this by allowing more talented people make a living. Yet it destroyed a lot of community singing by not-highly-talented people. On one hand more people could make a living, on the other hand much much less people were creating arts. Nowadays it feels like we’re returning back to the natural flow. More people are creating arts since modern instruments are widely accessible. But fewer people can make a living. Overall, I’d say more people creating arts is preferable outcome. And best art is created for the sake of it as a hobby.

watwut 1y ago
Afaik, it is opposite. You coulf live off being musician, because people liked music. Bars and such paid live music, weddings, funerals, middle class birthsdays too. That stopped when we started to play from record.
- mantas 1y ago
  I’m talking pre industrial society. You’d have your neighbors singing at funeral or weddings. Unless you’re nobility of course. But that’s a tiny portion of society.
- usrusr 1y ago
  Had any of those pre-recording entertainers been even remotely close to making a living off it? Outside of apex apex courts? I guess busking has existed in many societies, but that's hardly making a living, and certainly not middle class. Weddings, funerals and birthdays, that's where i see community contribution, not full time professionals. Perhaps community contribution involving a little side income, but chances are, in pre-recording days, not even that. Not much other entertainment possibilities to spend your Sunday on other than being part of the band. (it's funny how middle class is often portaied as a modern achievement, when the past is so full of examples of population that isn't the ruling elite, but economically still far above another layer of dropouts that would just move from opportunity to opportunity until an early death, at least unless they end up at some form of monastery)

anovikov 1y ago

Only problem is that it requires totalitarian world government to do it. There is that thing called competition. Societies where people aren't pushed to work by fear of hunger, homelessness, and social exclusion, will very quickly lose out and fall apart. Perhaps this is why universal basic income doesn't exist. I mean, Soviet Union was very close to having it: there was no unemployment and if you were fine living on the base salary you could do nothing on your job and as long as you didn't come there drunk or disseminated anti-Soviet jokes, you'd be fine. See where it ended up.

whatshisface 1y ago
Wouldn't that argument predict that the united states and most of Europe should collapse any second now? Countries where failure to find work leads to an actual threat of hunger are mostly very poor and corrupt developing nations.
- anovikov 1y ago
  Indeed this is the big reason of why economic growth rates in rich countries and especially those of them with low inequality, is slower. Because the primary factor that pushes people to work, is much weaker. It's not the only reason (another big reason is that poorer countries are playing a catch-up adopting technology invented by rich ones which is always easier than inventing it first), but yes, one of the big reasons.
  - simonask 1y ago
    I don't think there is any evidence that people are motivated to work because of the threat of starvation. The most economically productive nations on the planet are well outside any risk of starvation, by a huge margin. This line of thinking is not a part of serious economic theory, it just comes from an extremely primitive high school level understanding of economics.
atoav 1y ago
That is what you would think. Yet scandinavian countries which many US observers would (wrongly) call "socialist" countries fare quite well, while the US is currently falling apart in a fractal fashion where even the big issues have smaller issues attached to them. It is maybe time for people like you to realize that the current crisis in the US is a direct result of this zero-sum worldview, where you think you can only win if someone else loses. Some turned that around and infer someone else losing will make them win, which is where a lot of the worse-than-soviet cruelty in US society comes from. Where producing win-win outcomes should be prefered, part of the US seems to be craving for lose-lose. It is hard for the fish to perceive the nature of the water they have been swimming in their whole lives, but trust me: from an European standpoint the frequency soviet-style stories emerging from the US is rising. People don’t call ambulances because they’re afraid of the cost, they die in the back of rideshares or sit bleeding out waiting for someone to Google the cheapest ER. People drink poisoned water in one of the richest countries in the world, not as a one-time scandal but as a structural outcome, in Flint, in Jackson, in places the cameras moved on from. Housing is a market, not a right, and so entire cities now feature tent villages under highways while luxury units sit empty, protected not by need but by capital. In parts of Louisiana, California and Iowa, the air you breathe and the water you touch can kill you, but only if you’re poor enough or Black or unlucky enough to live near a chemical plant, a battery smelter, a lake no one bothers to save. In these sacrifice zones, life expectancy drops like it’s wartime. In urban centres people film others burning alive on the subway (NYC) and call it content. There are cemeteries of Black Americans being paved over for parking garages, with courts hesitating to intervene. These aren’t edge cases—they’re the shape of the thing. This is not the freedom that was promised. This is the bureaucracy of cruelty operating not as failure, but as design. And the worst part is: many still think this is the price of success.

eru 1y ago

> [...] a larger problem, namely that overall economic inequality is way too high. What economic inequality would you deem small enough? And why do you care about inequality, and not eg the absolute livings standards of the least well off? We can 'solve' inequality by just destroying everything the rich have, but that won't make anyone better off. Btw, the absolute living standards of all members of society, including the least well off, have never been better. And that's true for almost any society you care to look at on our globe. (Removing eg those currently at war, that weren't at war earlier.)

pazimzadeh 1y ago
the healthcare situation sucks. provide universal healthcare and you might have a point
- eru 1y ago
  I don't live in the US. We have a very different helthcare system where I live, and it's working well. But again: providing universal healthcare is all about giving (poor) people more prosperity. It has nothing to do with inequality by itself. If tomorrow Mr Zuckerberg got 100x better healthcare, but everyone else only got 10x better healthcare, that would fix the problem you mentioned, but would technically make inequality worse.
  - pazimzadeh 1y ago
    > If tomorrow Mr Zuckerberg got 100x better healthcare, but everyone else only got 10x better healthcare, that would fix the problem you mentioned, but would technically make inequality worse. No, because we outnumber Mark Zuckerberg by more than 10 fold Anyway, I would argue that having guaranteed healthcare is 10293762397697x better than not having guaranteed healthcare
    - eru 1y ago
      > Anyway, I would argue that having guaranteed healthcare is 10293762397697x better than not having guaranteed healthcare Sure, healthcare is nice. I see no disagreement. > > If tomorrow Mr Zuckerberg got 100x better healthcare, but everyone else only got 10x better healthcare, that would fix the problem you mentioned, but would technically make inequality worse. > No, because we outnumber Mark Zuckerberg by more than 10 fold Well, fix the numbers any way you feel like. Eg say Mr Zuckerberg gets better off by whatever amount the rest of us together get better (eg in terms of healthcare) plus 10% extra.

iechoz6H 1y ago

But we've had a way of addressing that since the year dot, it's called progressive taxation but no, that appears beyond the pale nowadays.

huijzer 1y ago

> it's that the set of things you can do to make a living is narrowing more and more. Or, instead of handing out more and more money from the state, try to introduce dynamism again. Try to reduce the amount of times that YouTube takes videos or accounts down for example.

dmje 1y ago

100% this. I don’t know how long we have to go on pushing at the “wealth will trickle down” door to discover it’s utter bullshit and always has been. The answer isn’t private companies, because they’re continuing to take the piss and make a small number of people incredibly wealthy at the expense of the majority. It’s never a popular thing to say on HN but the country the typifies inequality most starkly is the US - and it’s also the one with the biggest set of problems: huge issues with drug use, obesity, widespread unhappiness, simmering resentment, a divided nation. The countries that are getting this right (and by right I mean GDP, happiness, heath, pretty much any meaningful index of “a good life”) are the ones that fund public services, healthcare, education, etc through higher taxes. ~ braces for downvotes ~

somedude895 1y ago
And yet everyone wants to move to the US. Weird, isn't it?
- push0ret 1y ago
  This is far from the truth in Europe.

renegade-otter 1y ago

UBI was first piloted by Richard Nixon. These ideas are not fanciful. America has moved so hard to the right that anything slightly left of center seems radical and communist.

127 1y ago

...in America. There are countries that actually fight the oligarchs and tax them until the wealth inequality becomes lesser. Of course there's no silver bullet and high progressive taxes for the mega-wealthy do have other negative effects. Like people being less motivated to strive. Less capital to invest and less competitive companies born. But billionaires paying less taxes than the guy sweeping floors at the local mall is absurd. Once you reach a certain threshold of wealth, your taxes actually start going down.

ponector 1y ago
There is actually no sense to put high taxes on ultra wealthy people. They have all means to avoid payment of income/profit taxes at all, no matter of the current tax rate. That's why poor people pay the highest percentage of their income: they have no choice, no ways to do tax evasion.
- xienze 1y ago
  > That's why poor people pay the highest percentage of their income The key word here is income. “Wealth” and “income” tend to be conflated by ostensibly intelligent people who should know better. If I’m granted a million dollars in stock but draw a $20K salary, I’m “wealthy” but not “paying my fair share” because I’ve hardly earned any income for the year.
  - ponector 1y ago
    Is it right? From my knowledge stock compensation is considered as income and is taxed. But I got your point. There are ways to be wealthy, have a rich lifestyle but report no taxable income/profit. What you actually want is to have a wealth tax like in Switzerland. 0.05-0.3% annual tax based on net assets.
    - Workaccount2 1y ago
      Realizing stock value (selling stock) is considered income.

ponector 1y ago

> actors, or grocery store baggers, or taxi drivers, or whatever, can't make a living Until they are dying on the streets, they are actually make a living. If they cannot make a decent living with their low income - UBI wouldn't help. UBI is a safety net, a minimal salary payment. You are never going to have a decent life on minimal salary.

VerminOctopus1 1y ago
Capitalism seems to be an optimizer for this type of “efficiency”. How far can we squeeze people for their labour before they are dying in the streets or rioting?

weatherlite 1y ago

I totally agree. There's the inequality side of things were many working people are still in a precarious position. Then there's also the burnout / job conditions side of things where people can't persist in their roles without slowly losing their mental health. Think about nurses, police officers, teachers etc. It can be solvable by making their work weeks shorter and/or by increasing the numbers of staff per student and many other things we can do - that are deemed too expensive now but can become realistic if we distribute the wealth in a more equal way.

TimByte 1y ago

This isn't about any one industry failing, it's about a system designed to funnel value upwards while pretending the rest of us are just not hustling hard enough

monero-xmr 1y ago
I would argue the system is designed for efficiency. Economic solutions to this problem are about introducing legally-mandated inefficiencies, like limiting competition or artificially increasing labor costs
- westmeal 1y ago
  Efficiency for extracting money from poor people to mega corporations? Seems to me there isn't really a lot of competition left since theres a handful of main players that just buy out smaller competitors.
  - bluGill 1y ago
    The poor are richer than ever under the system. They have clean running water and not just light but televisions.
    - RobotToaster 1y ago
      Most of them don't even own homes.
      - bluGill 1y ago
        there are rich who don't own their own homes either. Often renting is the choice a mythical rational ecconomic actor would choose.
    - lapcat 1y ago
      > They have clean running water They actually don't. Water is contaminated at various levels in many places. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_water_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_water_crisis

tim333 1y ago

Universal basic income is a bit impractical just now - give everyone free money and who will do the jobs that need doing? - but shortly will be very practical when robots/AI will do the jobs that need doing.

graemep 1y ago
No, people always want more money. Why do so many rich people who could afford to retire work hard to make more? Why does hardly anyone on a high hourly rate work the minimum hours they need for an adequate income? There have been numerous trials of UBI and I have yet to heard of one that showed people worked significantly less when given it.
- tim333 1y ago
  I kind of figure people will work on things that don't really need doing like putting on music festivals etc. while the robots will do the essential work like grow food and take out the trash. Maybe I'm being optimistic. Although I have lived places where things worked a bit like that like when I was in South Africa a while ago with the blacks doing the less desirable jobs usually. So maybe like that but with robots?
- gosub100 1y ago
  my only problem with it is "give everyone 1400/mo and suddenly prices will rise by an effective rate of 1400/mo". I don't see any argument to counter that. I want it to work though. The only way I could see it working is having a 2nd currency, comparable to SNAP benefits or housing vouchers, that is independent of the dollar (and not stigmatized either). Then let the dollar value of rents and food fluctuate as they may, but require that the UBI currency is accepted for some fraction of housing and food (and the minimum housing is sufficient to be covered 100% by UBI). Then cover the spread through taxing the corporations who wish to do business in that state. If the greedy Private-Equity owned corporation wants to jack up the rent, they can get their UBI tax jacked up also. If they want to quit the state, they can sell their assets to a local resident who wants to build a small business being a property manager.

hackable_sand 1y ago

Cultural investment in education is my take. People should be enabled to study for career mobility in highly regulated environments. Getting this and that cert. is costly, but even things like hands-om experience in new domains is inaccessible if you don't have the cash flow.

HPsquared 1y ago

UBI would introduce massive inequality between those who work and those who don't. Much tension would arise.

trueismywork 1y ago
How would it increase inequality?
- gosub100 1y ago
  those who choos 40hr work weeks have similar earnings and quality of life as someone who sits at home all day on UBI.
  - jenniferCrawdad 1y ago
    Why do you think the word "universal" is in the phrase "universal basic income"?
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - gosub100 1y ago
      then it will never happen, of course. keep fantasizing
  - sensanaty 1y ago
    No? Everyone would get the same amount, and then the people working 40h would get more than the people not doing anything.
  - orangecat 1y ago
    Absolutely not. Our current system is closer to that because you lose benefits as your income increases, to the point where in some case it's possible to get a raise and end up worse off. With UBI (assuming it replaces most means-tested benefits), you're always better off earning more.

decimalenough 1y ago

You're conflating three very different types of jobs here. Minimum wage hourly jobs like grocery baggers need to be able to survive off a 40-hour week, and it's a societal problem if they can't. Taxi drivers are essentially sole proprietors who set their own hours and accept higher risk for a higher payoff. Demand and supply will calibrate themselves unless the government distorts the market (eg. taxi medallions). Musicians and actors are and have always been in a brutal power law market where all the wealth accrues to the 0.1% at the top of the heap. This drives exploitation since people will do anything to get to the top, but at the end of the day society does not need them the way it needs taxi drivers or grocery baggers and there is no economic rationale for subsidizing them.

somedude895 1y ago
> at the end of the day society does not need them the way it needs taxi drivers or grocery baggers This is absolutely true. In my country psychologists are complaining about "low" wages and tough conditions, and yet people go study psychology in droves because they "find it interesting." There's only so much demand for any one thing and if you decide because you enjoy something you want to make that your career well tough shit, there's thousands like yourself and nobody wants more of what you supply. So you can keep it as a hobby, but to make a living you have to provide something that people want and need, otherwise you're just a leech on society. It's funny that the ones complaining about these issues are usually the people who care about the social aspect of things, yet there's absolutely nothing social about demanding money without contributing anything that others actually need.
grumpy_coder 1y ago
The grocery bagger on a zero hour contract needs to be able to survive when not given 40 hours. Also the 5% unemployed people in a 'full employment' economy need to be able to survive when sacrificed to control inflation.

giantg2 1y ago

If you want to talk about the root of problems, it comes down to preferences. Income inequality in musicians? People prefer some musicians and songs over others. UBI and taxation isn't going to meaningfully change the income inequality between the median and top earners in entertainment fields due to social dynamics. Guess what the primary driver of the housing shortage is? Preference for larger homes and "better" locations. There are enough housing units nationally, but their distribution and charateristics don't match the preferences. You might be thinking about NIMBY, but guess what that is? The preferences of the people already there. Solutions like UBI or just building more skip a logical step of evaluating the true underlying causes and presume them instead. To solve a problem we must first understand it.

fraggleysun 1y ago
Any reference that you can point to on the housing shortage being due to preference? It seems like job location, compensation, average cost of living, and commute would play a fairly large role.
- giantg2 1y ago
  "It seems like job location, compensation, average cost of living, and commute would play a fairly large role." Are you saying these don't involve preferences? And a web search will bring up tons of housing preference sources coming various aspects. https://learn.upright.us/real-estate-investing-blog/a-housing-shortage-of-preference-why-categories-show-disparate-severity https://learn.upright.us/real-estate-investing-blog/a-housin...
  - soulofmischief 1y ago
    Sure, you could argue that some people prefer to not live a destitute life, and that influences the high price of housing. But that is reductive, ignoring a host of other factors, which again, you might be able to boil down to preference (wealthy capitalists prefer to make more money) but again, it's reductive and offers a somewhat shallow perspective and not much to act on.

reactordev 1y ago

And yet they just voted to do the opposite. It’s not universal income that’s the solution, it’s breaking apart the monopolistic legislation that allows certain companies strangleholds on the markets. M&A shouldn’t be allowed if 65% of the majority of the market is owned by those two companies. Individuals with wealth should be capped and any excess should be used for low-income development programs. We built a world for higher level thinking but ever since 2010, we’ve been failing to meet that standard.

gosub100 1y ago
one idea I've been toying with is to give municipalities ability to be hostile to corporations. for instance, levy a hefty tax on the wealth that is extracted from the community and paid to shareholders. Of course I'm sure there are a million laws against this at the state or federal level, but citizens could still band together to make them comply or else run them out of town. ie. the police could agree to stop responding to McDonalds, or courts could allow trial by jury for eviction cases, and simply have the jurors find them not guilty (for the case of corporate landlords). These would be elements of last resort. The first resort would be to require corporate owners to pay a lot more to do business. A second line would be to rescind a lot of the "tax cuts" given to companies to build there. Just say sorry, this is an emergency and we cannot afford to give you the cuts anymore. It would be dangerous, no doubt, and ripe for abuse. But it's a tool that could be used at the local level to provide relief. Ultimately, I think certain sectors should be forbidden for corporations to operate, such as restaurants and landlording. These are entry-level small business opportunities for normal people to get involved in, and they do not deserve to be pushed out by wealthy corporations.
- missedthecue 1y ago
  A community that engages rapaciously with enterprise based on unpredictable or moving standards is one that will quickly be left without any enterprise. I cannot imagine opening a restaurant in a city that could one day decide to fine me for doing too much business or have the police stop responding (an open invite for consequence-free theft). If you want to raise higher taxes across the board that's one thing, but becoming hostile is shooting yourself in the dick. An ultimate example of short term over long term thinking.

osigurdson 1y ago

Usually when people in western countries think about UBI, they are assuming that money from people richer than themselves will trickle down to them. What they don't realize is, globally, money will trickle out of their pockets to the rest of the world. Basically they are looking for a constrained hypothetical situation in which free money flows to them.

Mars008 1y ago

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amelius 1y ago

The root of the problem is that the rules of the economy are unfair. By analogy, try playing a game of monopoly but enter the game after a few rounds have already been played. Exorbitant housing prices are an example. Another problem is that while it is fine if hardworking people make more money, these people can use that money __against__ people who made different life choices, in various ways, consciously and unconsciously. We have to acknowledge that the system is broken, and it is starting to show.

MichaelZuo 1y ago
This doesn’t make sense… people have always been able to use their time, effort, and resources against someone else? Since the beginning of society I imagine.
- amelius 1y ago
  Yes, but whether that becomes a problem to society depends on a number of parameters. One of them is the existing level of wealth inequality.
  - MichaelZuo 1y ago
    If someone is grinding you down… what does it matter whether they are 10x or 100x wealthier? Even perfect equals can wreck each other’s lives completely, in legal ways too, if they commit their all to it.
    - amelius 1y ago
      You are looking for extremes, whereas I am merely looking at it from the average behavior of wealthy people. If there is a large wealth inequality that means that the relatively poor will simply have a smaller piece of the cake and the wealthy growing their wealth will have a larger impact on the poor, percentage-wise. Now, if that growth is only due to hard work, then you can't really argue against that; however, if that growth is partially due to "wealth abuse", then that's a different matter.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

skeeter2020 1y ago

I do a lot of things as an amateur but at pretty high level: athletics, music, art and more. I also pay a huge portion of my income as a software developer in direct and indirect taxation. Convince me I should fund people to focus full-time on things where they can't make a living, the same things I love to do but realize can't be your sole pursuit. You've conflated people busting ass who can't keep up with those following their passion in the arts voluntarily. Those don't feel anything like the same thing to me. I don't think I'm alone in a perspective that if you keep taking more from me I'll stop contributing all together, and we'll all fail. The ultra-rich and others with means to avoid picking up the tab have already done so.

mystified5016 1y ago
First because generally in order to be a good person you have to care what happens to other people. Second because the second order effects of reverting American society to Victorian slums would be incredibly bad for the economy and your tax burden. Because somehow a plurality of Americans seem to have been convinced by the guy stealing all their money that it's someone else's fault and you should stone them to death instead. Because letting large portions of the population starve to death slowly is just a bad thing in general? Because it would be good for everyone including you. Because you'd wish that someone else wasn't a smug asshole with an "I got mine" attitude and gave you help when you need it.
tossandthrow 1y ago
Assuming you live in the US, it is relatively easy to convince you - but it heavily relieve on you opening your eyes. Start traveling, talking to other cultures, and stop being dismissive and defensive.
metabagel 1y ago
> Convince me I should fund people Are you in the top 1%? If so, you can afford it. If not, then I don't think your taxes should go up - I think Bezos' taxes should go up, and there should be a wealth tax for high net worth individuals.
- deleted 1y ago

pstuart 1y ago

UBI seems inevitable with the progress of AI and automation -- but transitioning to it will need a catalyst to break through the wall of resistance to make that happen. Covid was such a catalyst, and at least in the US it was so poorly managed on the distribution of funds it did not help shift the mindset to support UBI. That's a pity, because it could have done so brilliantly. The catch is that we need a government that is not corrupt and incompetent to administer that process and that's exactly what was in charge at the time. So while it can't happen now it would be worth exploring what that tipping point might be and how to make sure it serves the people its supposed to.

tptacek 1y ago

Acknowledging inequality won't change the economics of a midlist artist, because you can't compel people to buy music they don't want to buy.

motorest 1y ago

> Until we start viewing "fanciful" ideas as realistic, our problems will persist. This article is another in the long series of observations of seemingly distinct problems which are actually facets of a larger problem, namely that overall economic inequality is way too high. I actually read the article before going into the comment section, and your comment was surprising and baffling by how detached from the content of the post it was. There are plenty of exploitation arguments made in it, but if you read the article is income inequality one of them? Well, no. > It's not just that musicians, or actors, or grocery store baggers, or taxi drivers, or whatever, can't make a living, it's that the set of things you can do to make a living is narrowing more and more. I think that this conclusion is far-fetched if your starting point is the actual article. The music business is notorious for being virtually impossible to make a living, even if you are an international act. There were plenty of examples from decades ago up until now of musicians from popular international bands with packed international tours not being able to afford to quit their day job to make ends meet. If your income comes from selling tickets to the public, sometimes directly, and you still cannot generate a livable income, the problem is not income inequality. The problem is that there is not enough demand for what you're selling to make it a viable business. I mean, if your primary source of income is playing shows and not enough people want to spend money to attend them, why do you think the fact that some people earn way more than you is even relevant? > Broad-based solutions like basic income, wealth taxes, breaking up large market players, etc., will do far more for us than attempting piecemeal tweaks to this or that industry. Here is a though experiment: does your assertion hold valid if you replace "store baggers" and "taxi drivers" with "contortionists" or "jugglers"? Because while "store baggers" and "taxi drivers" aren't exactly activities associated with upper middle class income levels, they are activities that most people are coerced to have because they have no alternative to make a living. Musicians are another story altogether, and associated with people pursuing their dreams. In fact, there is that age old cliche about third generation wealth being artists and academics because their exceptional wealth allowed them to pursue their dreams.

msgodel 1y ago

We already have a pretty burdensome welfare system, it might be that we've gone too far towards UBI to make middle class musicians practical.

cma 1y ago

Not only that there's already one in place (earned income tax credit) and Alaska has one for oil revenue. We can just increase the EICT.

astrange 1y ago

> Broad-based solutions like basic income, wealth taxes, breaking up large market players, etc., will do far more for us than attempting piecemeal tweaks to this or that industry. Basic income has been tested very thoroughly many different times and all results show it basically doesn't do anything good or bad. So it won't create any new musicians. The main effect is it's simpler to administrate than other kinds of welfare, which is a good thing because it saves money. Wealth taxes are inflationary (because they force you to sell assets) and so would probably cause fewer musicians. Especially if you assume musicians are nepo babies, in which case you actually need rich/upper-middle-class people to create them. Anyway, the solution here is to copy other countries where it works. They don't do any of these made-up future policy ideas. Japan/Korea produces a lot of culture because it has a low cost of living, a mature industry that trains a lot of people, and most importantly (but negatively) wages are low so there's nothing more productive for the musicians to be doing. Doubly so for women, who might as well become Z-grade idols when they can't get a career job at all. In the West IIRC a surprising amount of songwriting talent comes from Sweden, but don't know much about that.

osigurdson 1y ago

Perhaps instead of UBI we should be doing UBE (Universal Basic Expense). Most governments run deficits today so maybe we start with ending those. Here is how it could work: At the end of ever taxation year, the government calculates its deficit for the year. Divide this by all income earners at their marginal tax rate. Then, at tax time, the tax payer can choose to either pay this or allow it to accumulate at the same rate that the government charges itself. Maybe once we can cover deficits we can start thinking about UBI.

corimaith 1y ago

>Broad-based solutions like basic income, wealth taxes, breaking up large market players, etc., will do far more for us than attempting piecemeal tweaks to this or that industry. The cost of living is correlated to the high cost of housing, competitive job market and high cost of labor in basic services such as infrastructure development. How exactly does "reducing inequality" address all of this? Taxing a bunch of billionaires isn't going to magically increase the number of well-paid jobs, and the guys quoting $5,000 for your AC installation aren't anywhere near the 1% either. Even with stuff like crime and homelessness, just look at Bloomberg's tenure of NYC or Hong Kong when the businesses have a say, they do manage cleaning up cities quite well! If anything, it's the billionares providing the cheap goods you do like to consume so much like Amazon or new Iphones each year. The funny thing is that back in March we already had this conversation with the whole tariff and manufacturing debacle, no matter how stupid Trump's execution was in reality, this board or really progressives are essentially shooting themselves in the foot in adamantally claiming that "manufacturing will never return" and wanting to continue the status quo of cheap exports but expensive domestic labour. Yeah well, that's what exactly leads to the situation you're in today. You might point to nominally higher salaries, but truth be told, do you feel particularly more civilized in the Bay Area than in Shenzhen or Tokyo?