7 ms·

Ireland has already provided substantial benefits to artists — income from art is exempt from income tax up to a certain level. Society has not disintegrated. S

• qeternity 8mo ago
  > I don’t think it would be possible without the tax exemption. Maybe it shouldn't be possible. Society is telling your friend that her work is not particularly valuable and that she should probably consider doing something else.
  • pwim 8mo ago
    There’s plenty of things that are valuable for society while still not having significant financial value.
    • philipallstar 8mo ago
      Money is generally how we describe value.
      • nvader 8mo ago
        Almost all religions, a good chunk of philosophy and even a good bit of economics would differ with you. I hope you find out before it's too late.
        • bagacrap 8mo ago
          Pretty patronizing, but I'll bite. I think we as a society strive to make gp correct that money is representative of value, and rightfully so. Anyone partaking in any activity that has value to others should be given money. That is literally what this basic income/tax break for artists is for. Someone thought producing art had value and pure capitalism wasn't correctly matching that value with monetary rewards. There are lots of rich churches and church leaders out there. That's because they serve a human need, and those humans are willing to direct some of their finite resources towards that provider. (I'm talking about the collections plate if you didn't catch that.) Now obviously money on its own is not value. It should represent value that you delivered to someone else in the past, and is helpful for getting whatever value your life needs. You mentioned philosophy --- that yoga retreat in the Andes isn't free, is it? Now sometimes we muddy the waters, for example we permit lotteries where the winner takes home a good deal of money without providing any value to anyone. That debases money, and I think it has no part in society, but I'm unfortunately swimming against the tide on that one.
      • jjgreen 8mo ago
        Love, honesty, kindness, ..., none of these have value?
        • RHSeeger 8mo ago
          So... Money is generally how we describe value for those things which can be traded for
        • philipallstar 8mo ago
          Of course they do. I'm not saying it's the only way to measure value as individuals. But as a society, lots of things do boil down to money, as that's the medium of exchange. Society was the context of this thread, not individual.
        • bagacrap 8mo ago
          Working a 9-5 to support one's loved ones; an honest day's work; generosity. It's quite easy to connect each of these values to money.
          • some_random 8mo ago
            Yeah ok now what's the value of verisimilitude? /s
      • dgb23 8mo ago
        Money describes prices, not value.
      • TheSpiceIsLife 8mo ago
        What I would suggest you do is, find a loving partner to start a family with, then do everything you can for 20 years to focus primarily on earning, or otherwise acquiring, money. Then get divorced and discover your children don’t know who you are, and neither do you. And your wife took the dog too. It’s an almost guaranteed way to eradicate this wildly stupid idea you have.
      • Spooky23 8mo ago
        Money describes a price, not a value. Two different concepts.
      • komali2 8mo ago
        Not quite. Money is how we describe instrumental value, and occasionally allocation priority. Personal attachment and moral worth are also terms often used interchangeably with "value," though in my opinion that should stop and we should all simply never use the word "value" again because so many meanings have collapsed into it.
      • master-lincoln 8mo ago
        The most expensive vacations I took were not the most valuable ones to me
    • some_random 8mo ago
      One of the really cool things about capitalism is that you can, directly or indirectly, put financial value on pretty much anything.
      • buellerbueller 8mo ago
        One of the uncool things about capitalism is that it, directly or indirectly, monetizes everything.
    • nickd2001 8mo ago
      Indeed! e:g - looking after elderly and/or disabled people, to give their family carers respite. Which is a minimum wage job seen by many as "drain on the taxpayer", ignoring that apart from being worth providing for its own sake, it can enable the family carers to be also economic contributors and pay tax themselves.
  • halls-940 8mo ago
    It's naive to conflate income as a clear signal of what society needs.
    • qeternity 8mo ago
      If you have any understanding of history, it's naive not to.
  • tappio 8mo ago
    This is a false assumption. We will only know retrospectively whether it was valuable or not. 1. She gets better all the time, and might be super popular in the future 2. Many writings became relevant only long after the death of the author
    • roenxi 8mo ago
      A lot of those relevant writings became relevant because of the horrible experiences the author went through forged them into an interesting writer. If we're assuming that we only know retrospectively whether the writing is important then the best course of action would be for people to write as a hobby and make choices that are likely (rather than unlikely) to lead to a comfortable life. Particularly in this current era where we might suspect that writing and publishing a book is getting much easier thanks to technology.
      • danlitt 8mo ago
        Are you arguing that most good writers from history were poor? This is after all the only "horrible experience" a subsidy would alleviate. I don't think that's actually supported by evidence, most great writers I can think of were relatively extremely sheltered (although they often were sensitive to the horrible experiences of others)
        • roenxi 8mo ago
          > Are you arguing that most good writers from history were poor? No. If I was arguing that I'd have said that. I'm observing that a lot of great writers had pretty miserable lives and I'm arguing that people should aim to live comfortably.
          • danlitt 8mo ago
            Sorry, I must have misunderstood, I thought you were still on the topic of the subsidy.
        • spockz 8mo ago
  • karolinepauls 8mo ago
    As demonstrated, crisps are more valuable to the society than art.
  • krige 8mo ago
    Society told Van Gogh that nobody wants or will ever want his work. He killed (probably) himself out of depression and feeling unwanted, miserable.
    • qeternity 8mo ago
      Yes, this was empirically true at the time. Things change. And that does not invalidate my comment in the least.
  • crabmusket 8mo ago
    Society is not telling her that - the labour market is. I guess she should get off her lazy ass and learn how to become a high frequency trader.
  • BryantD 8mo ago
    I don't think that being able to support a family of three in Ireland is particularly a sign that society doesn't value your work. If she had to pay income tax, perhaps she'd only be able to support herself -- but if you think everyone in Ireland who only makes enough money to support themselves is doing not particularly valuable work, I think it's worth considering the implications of that. I have thoughts on how we're defining value as well, but others have covered those.
  • alexpotato 8mo ago
    Her work can be valuable, in money terms, even of the value of her work is less than the money needed to support her family.
    • qeternity 8mo ago
      Sure, and again, she should do something else then. She isn't entitled to have a large family and work whatever job she finds fulfilling.
  • RHSeeger 8mo ago
    > Society is telling your friend that her work is not particularly valuable and that she should probably consider doing something else. Challenge > I don’t think it would be possible without the tax exemption. ^ That tax exemption _is_ from society. You may not agree with it, but clearly (at least some part of) "society" does.
  • vessenes 8mo ago
    You’re missing, somewhat gleefully, most of the history of western art, which you could imagine as split between patronage-based art (have you heard of the Sistine Chapel, for instance?) and vernacular art - where things like genre storytelling and family portraits come from. Broadly speaking, vernacular artists work for a fucking living; it’s rare there (like in most pursuits) to get super rich. We can’t all be David Baldacci or Danielle Steele. NB: Thanks to Neal Stephenson for the best essay on this. He calls genre artists “Beowulf” artists.
    • specialist 8mo ago
      TIL "vernacular art". I like it. Am noob. The phrase "folk art" never satisfied me. Is it really all that different? But I didn't have the gumption to learn more. Happily, the critics and philosophers did: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naïve_art https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naïve_art Thanks.
• closewith 8mo ago
  > Society has not disintegrated. Obviously not because of this income scheme and not complete disintegration, but Irish society is under extreme strain from housing pressures, rising living costs, and growing polarisation that is tearing at social cohesion. It's frustrating to see funds allocated to this scheme when health, housing, transport, etc are all failing apart.
  • dgb23 8mo ago
    That's a problem with all tax havens. They drastically increase inequality and inflate assets, especially housing and rent.
    • TheSpiceIsLife 8mo ago
      Australia isn’t a tax haven, it’s a tax supermassive black hole. And we have wildly out of control inequality, inflated asset prices, and unaffordable housing, out the wazoo.
  • BryantD 8mo ago
    All true, but let's not lose track of relative costs. The income program provides €33,800,000 a year (2000 participants, €325 a week, 52 weeks in a year). Double that to account for cost of managing the program -- that seems too high to me, but I want to err on the side of caution for this analysis. Some percentage of that money flows right back into the economy, of course. Meanwhile, ignoring windfall corporate taxes, Ireland ran a €7.4 billion deficit in 2025. So the cost of the program, ignoring the money flowing back into the economy, is under half a percentage point of the budget? Those small amounts do add up, but I can't see this as relevant competition to the cost of shoring up health, housing, and transport. I don't have good estimates of how much those costs are, which is why I'm using the deficit as a relevant proxy, but still -- we ought to avoid the trap of seeing numbers which are large to you and me and forgetting that other numbers are larger by orders of magnitude. (There's a term for this which slips my mind.)
    • TheSpiceIsLife 8mo ago
• Spooky23 8mo ago
  People get very high and mighty when it comes to other people’s getting of benefits or paying taxes.
  • bagacrap 8mo ago
    ... shouldn't they? Ultimately that comes out of their pockets. Every tax benefit my neighbor gets simply shifts the tax burden more to me. Unless I am someone who doesn't pay taxes I guess. Do you pay taxes?
    • Spooky23 8mo ago
      IMO, no. I pay alot of taxes. Probably more annually in the last decade than I made in total my first decade working. Many of my peers spend alot of time agonizing about this stuff and spending both mental energy and significant capital in avoidance. I get a higher ROI focusing on more valuable activities. Besides, art is an economic engine. If you studied it, I’d guess those tax credits in Ireland generate multiples in domestic economic activity.
      • bagacrap 8mo ago
        Agreed it is a waste to spend too much time worrying. It seems dubious to claim that the tax break is a net positive for the country's economy. If art were so economically viable I suspect it would pay for itself and not need government incentives. I have no problem with the government paying a muralist to beautify some public space, but this is not that. This is subsidizing art that already has some economic value to someone, just not very much. I feel like what is actually happening is subsidizing the buying of art, as the artist themselves can afford to charge a lower price due to the tax break. So you are encouraging the population to buy more art. And I guess that has some hypothetical returns in terms of life satisfaction and civility...? I think if they framed it this way, as a tax benefit available to anyone instead of exclusively to a select few, it might be more well received. I think of the mortgage interest tax break in the USA (which is actually almost completely negated at this point by the growing standard deduction) in the same way. It encourages people to settle down, maintain a job, and buy into society, so it helps build social stability and reduces violence.
• jcarrano 8mo ago
  > Society has not disintegrated. Has art improved in any measure?
  • komali2 8mo ago
    Yes! Can you prove me wrong?
• some_random 8mo ago
  Ireland has not disintegrated, but it's society is under incredible pressure and is fewer missed meals away from a cultural revolution sized event than most places.