cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/46478336
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Unions and experts are increasingly warning that many are struggling to make a living in the arts sector due to low pay, patchy work and the high cost of living.
One potential solution now being looked into in Scotland is for the government to pay artists directly - a so-called basic income for the arts.
The idea comes from Ireland, where a no-strings-attached scheme paying 1,300 euro per month (about £1,134) to some musicians and artists was recently made permanent.
Leading Scottish artists and music industry figures - including the national poet and the head of Celtic Connections festival - are calling on the Scottish government to introduce a similar scheme or risk a cultural “desert”.
Culture Secretary Angus Robertson told the BBC he’s “looking into it”.
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Ireland introduced the ‘Basic Income for the Arts’ pilot scheme in the aftermath of Covid-19 in 2022.
The trial saw 2,000 individual artists - musicians, painters, comedians, poets and others - drawn from a lottery system to take part in the experimental arts funding scheme.
Brían Ó Súilleabháin quit his day job in a wine and spirits shop when he found out he was one of the lucky 2,000, now able to take a risk on acting work.
“It was life-changing,” the actor, 29, says.
"Without the Basic Income, I would have had to go back to the day job, but because I had the Basic Income, I didn’t have to do that.
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I’m all for whatever redistributes wealth from the rich to the poor.
Everyone should get a basic income.
Yes, but if we start with jobs that don’t always pay well and benefit us all, that’s a good start. We can add more over time. Then we can stop calling them jobs.
we start with jobs that don’t always pay well and benefit us all, that’s a good start.
Every MAGA’s head just exploded, LOL.
Your idea means a SCOTUS battle at every step of the process of deciding who gets UBI. No unemployed, no gays, no Muslims, no atheists, no whatever, it will always be something.
You forgot the mandatory drug testing! Can’t help people who haven’t already solved all of their problems.
It will need to be an absolute necessity once AI and robotics takes more and more jobs. This should be something thats been in the works for years now so that its in place in time, but sadly no one seems to be doing anything regarding it. Personally it should still fall on those companies to pay more if they decide to go with AI and automation so they can cover the expense of the people who no longer have jobs. If the profits are not as high due to this then maybe the push towards it won’t be so high.
Do it for everyone. But artists are a good place to start.
Everyone should get a basic income. If we create a world where you cannot hunt and gather for sustenance and it’s all money all the time then of course the three basics should be free (food, shelter, warmth).
It is a position not to be controverted that the earth, in its natural, uncultivated state was, and ever would have continued to he, the common property of the human race. In that state every man would have been born to property. He would have been a joint life proprietor with the rest in the property of the soil, and in all its natural productions, vegetable and animal.
But the earth in its natural state, as before said, is capable of supporting but a small number of inhabitants compared with what it is capable of doing in a cultivated state. And as it is impossible to separate the improvement made by cultivation from the earth itself, upon which that improvement is made, the idea of landed property arose from that inseparable connection; but it is nevertheless true, that it is the value of the improvement, only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property.
Every proprietor, therefore, of cultivated lands, owes to the community a ground-rent (for I know of no better term to express the idea) for the land which he holds; and it is from this ground-rent that the fund proposed in this plan is to issue.
— Thomas Paine, Agrarian Justice
Those old guys knew the score.
Yes,of course.
Hmmm.
Yes but with conditions?
Part of their art is public (so like, installed in public places- city/town halls, parks. Libraries.)
This might look like just paying commissions.
Just spit balling here.
And we’d need to talk about some practical limits of who is an artist. All I know, is that there are artists, and then there are people who think they are. And then there’s the genuinely offensive people, and the people getting rejected because of pearl clutching.
Standing by for the standard “loicense” joke…
While we wait for that, it might be worth discussing that bit about public art. You could definitely do that, but it might make more sense to simply require that any artistic output be released in a free (within the UK) format with attribution, and have them put some smart looking crest on it saying it was partly funded by this program. Then each submission could be tagged and added to a public art bank, which is then usable (with attribution) by anyone in the country for public works or private usage. And maybe businesses too, if they pay enough into the UBI scheme? Feels risky.
that would make a lot of sense for digital formats.
I was thinking for more physical media- possibly including bits and bobs that don’t survive for very long (Like the banksy self-shredding painting, or the one I saw somewhere with an ax that chopped it’s leg. or something more performative/experiential.)
it would suck for the public to basically fund art, and not get to experience it, is all that idea was getting to. It would also suck for the artist if they weren’t allowed to take commissions or sell off high-value pieces.
edit: imagine if you will, libraries with reading nooks and paintings or whatever in them. or for there to be a sort of public museum. that puts things on display. And after a while, you could probably just sell some of the art (particularly if they get famous, lol. kinda like how venture capitalists shotgun start ups looking for the golden ticket.)
I would be absolutely against hindering artist income. There should definitely be the chance to sell tickets to performances and to sell any physical media.
And perhaps the art bank idea would benefit from increasing your monthly UBI if a lot of people are documented using your work. Like, a bottom tier starting artist should still get a massive boost to give them time to work, but maybe they’d still have a job on the side - but an artist doing highly valuable work should be getting a thriving wage from it, one way or another between tickets, sales, and a higher monthly income from the art fund.
Still just spit balling, just trying to imagine a world where culture becomes a top priority again.
It’s art whenever the creator intended it (the piece) to be art. That’s what we learned in college(I went to an “arts” school).
Better parameters will be required 🙂
Sure, might be a good pilot scheme for work that is societally enriching, but not necessarily profitable.
The article doesn’t really go into detail about this, but what’s the criteria to be considered an artist? If they extend this program, what’s the cutoff?
Eligibility criteria for the Irish version have not yet been announced, so at this point it’d just be speculation.
The Irish version is already happening. However not everyone will get it.
Short answer: Yes.
Long answer: Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeessssssssssssssssssssss.
No without tons of conditions.
Here in the US we call it Only Fans.
