Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists

https://www.reuters.com/world/ireland-rolls-out-pioneering-basic-income-scheme-artists-2026-02-10/

by abe94 • 5 months ago

507 648 5 months ago

Ireland's Culture Minister Patrick O'Donovan said the scheme was the first permanent one of its kind in the world [...] The randomly selected applicants will receive the payments for three years, after which they would not be eligible for the next three-year cycle.

So it's permanent, but the recipients don't get it permanently?

close04• 5 months ago

The randomly selected applicants will receive the payments for three years

Budgets are limited so they can't give to everyone all the time. They give each batch of artists money for 3 years and then move to the next batch. Interesting to see if there's a chance they start looping over.

Jtsummers3• 5 months ago

The program was run as a trial (time limited, not permanent). They've now made it a permanent program (no time limit, not temporary).

So to answer your question: Yes, it's permanent (or as permanent as any gov't program can be), but the recipients don't get the money for an indefinite span of time (permanently).

ericmcer• 5 months ago

Won't this kind of shaft their employment prospects as well?

Other industries don't move as fast but a 3 year layoff in tech could be a career death sentence.

nemomarx• 5 months ago

Do they have to be unemployed during the grant period? They could still find commissions and other stuff during that time or sell their art. And I guess for an artist either way you have a lot of new portfolio entries?

shevy-java• 5 months ago

That's an interesting idea. One has to test things to see if they can be made to work.

I think the amount is something that can be disputed, but the underlying idea is, IMO, a sound one. Similar to the "unconditional basic income" idea - again, the amount can be contemplated, but the idea is sound, even more so as there are more and more superrich ignoring regular laws or buying legislation in a democracy. That means the old model simply does not work. Something has to change - which path to pick can be debated, but something has to be done.

Legend24404• 5 months ago

pledging to pay 2,000 creative workers 325 euros ($387) per week
The randomly selected applicants will receive the payments for three years, after which they would not be eligible for the next three-year cycle.

Is it really correct to call this UBI? It is hardly universal if it applies to only 2000 selected artists.

Seems more like a 3-year grant, similar to the art grants awarded by the national endowment for the arts.

sejje• 5 months ago

The term universal isn't used in the article.

EGreg• 5 months ago

All these places use the word UNCONDITIONAL instead of UNIVERSAL because they are scared of printing money and paying all their citizens, while jacking up pigovian taxes on the other side.

Here is how to do it properly without waiting for the federal government and currency: https://community.intercoin.app/t/rolling-out-voluntary-basi...

SPICLK2• 5 months ago

They've re-branded for the release, and removed "Universal".

oulipo23• 5 months ago

And? that's what "rolling out" is about, to test and gradually use the scheme if it works

Legend24404• 5 months ago

The trouble is that paying a few people to not work is very very different from paying everyone to not work.

We need people to work to produce the things they need to live. As long as this remains true, UBI can never happen. This fantasy of being able to live without working is out of touch with the cold hard reality.

jillesvangurp• 5 months ago

It's not universal if only selected individuals get it. And you can't live on 325 euros in a place like Ireland. So it's not even basic income. But it's a nice temporary subsidy.

Proper basic income has never really been tried. It would have to be universal (for the entire population) and be enough to live on.

Most countries have non universal basic income in the form of benefits, state pensions, food stamps, and various social security insurance programs. One way or another people that can't or won't work still get enough to survive. Mostly, countries don't let their citizens starve. They mostly don't put them out on the streets. And if people get sick, generally hospitals/doctors will help. You won't necessarily get a very nice version of all that in most countries.

If you think of basic income like that, UBI is actually not that much of a departure from that status quo. It just establishes that as a bare minimum that everybody gets one way or another. The reason that the idea gets a lot of push back is that people have a lot of morals about having to earn stuff which then results in complex rules to qualify for things only if you are unable to earn a living. Which then turns into a lot of complex schemes to establish non universal income that comes into a variety of forms and shapes. But it adds up to the same result: everybody is taken care off.

A proper UBI would have to award it to anyone. That's what universal means. It would be a simplification of what we have now. If you are employed, you would get a chunk of income from UBI and the rest from your employer. Basically, you work to add income on top of your UBI and it's between you and your employer to sort out how much you work and how much you earn. If you get unemployed, you fall back to UBI. UBI would be untaxed. But if you work or earn income you pay taxes. Company earnings are taxed as well. And you pay VAT when you buy stuff. Those revenue streams are what already fund things today.

People think of UBI as extra cost but it could actually be a cost saving if done properly. There's a lot of bureaucracy that's no longer needed. You could still layer insurances and benefits on top of course. But that would be more optional. And you could incentivize people to work that are currently actively incentivized to not work (e.g. to not lose benefits or get penalized on their pensions).

People forget that the status quo is not free either and that it requires an enormous, convoluted bureaucracy that also costs money. UBI could end up being simpler and cheaper.

The hard part with UBI is balancing fairness and financial viability and implementing it in a way that isn't massively disruptive and complicated. You'd need to incentivize most people to still want to work while making the system generous enough that people can opt not to. That's not a solved problem and the key show stopper. Many people that work object against anyone getting anything for free. But if you consider the status quo, we already have a lot of people not working anyway. And we all pay for that already. That is actually a rather large percentage of people that are allowed to vote in many countries.

Mostly the moral arguments against UBI are what perpetuates the very inefficient and costly status quo. We just keep on making that harsher, more complicated, and more expensive. Effectively if you work, you are paying extra for all that inefficiency. Worse, you can work your ass off your whole life and still have to worry about having enough to retire, the affordability of housing, or being able to afford essential health care.

nradov4• 5 months ago

And "proper" UBI will never actually be tried, at least not on any significant scale. Because if you actually run the numbers you'll see that the level of taxation required plus the inflationary effects make the whole scheme unworkable.

fedeb955• 5 months ago

Every time UBI or some variant of it are presented, it is always presented as a benefit, so ti seems really nive. What I don't ever see addressed, is how it will work from a cost perspective. UBI is a cost: a Universal Basic Cost. Who will pay basic incomes? Businesses? The tax payers? In both of this cases, why resort to an inefficient method (the state setting prices) instead on relying on price formation as (roughly) it is today? I too don't care about moral, and I'm also sad that both supporters and detractors talk about morals. I'm honestly curious in how it could ever work: because money doesn't grow on trees, that is, value is not extracted from the Earth without labor (and innovation of technologies to work less for the same extraction work). So, in the end, it's a way of redistributing resources.

This is setting morals aside. Moral and ethics could be considered, but it's a far wider topic than a HN comment allows. An hint: nobody asks why a moral phenomenon came up in the first place. It must have had a function in society... maybe it still has today.

abe94• 5 months ago

here is the government report - https://assets.gov.ie/static/documents/b87d2659/20250929_BIA...

The cost benefit analysis includes a euro value to attribute to better wellbeing, using the WELLBY framework and apply £13,000 per WELLBY

yesfitz• 5 months ago

Previous discussions:

3 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45590900

4 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29977176

People have seemed critical of the presentation, scope, and goal of this program. (e.g. It's not "universal" basic income, the number of recipients is limited to 2,000, and why are artists being subsidized instead of essential workers?)

Now it seems that we'll get some real world answer to those questions/concerns.

bell-cot6• 5 months ago

and why are artists being subsidized instead of essential workers?

There are far more than 2,000 real, paying jobs for schoolteachers. And for grocery clerks. And for nurses. And for fire fighters. And for drivers of rubbish lorries. And for ...

Not so much for the folks who hope to be the next James Joyce or Louis le Brocquy.

sam_lowry_• 5 months ago

I hope to be the next Rothshild, give me a trillion!

mantas6• 5 months ago

Those can go and do normal jobs like grocery clerks. While doing their art in free time. Like many famous artists were doing.

AlexandrB• 5 months ago

Many people who work as schoolteachers, grocery clerks, etc. at one point might have had ambition to be the next James Joyce.

bawolff3• 5 months ago

I dont see how we are getting "answers". Disagreeing with program design is not a question.

Tbh though, that doesn't sound that special. Many countries subsidize artists.

ergocoder5• 5 months ago

There's no good way to evaluate the result anyway.

Grants like this at a small scale is generally inconsequential to the country.

paul79864• 5 months ago

Dublin's Grafton Street with it's buskers is and was so unique to this American. I wondered if anywhere else in the world matches the musicianship heard on that street and in Dublin's bars? Music is engrained in it's culture in a way I have not experienced before(tho the weird looks I received wearing my baseball cap in Dublin was off putting as I had not experienced that in Berlin, Paris, Reykjavik, Amsterdamn, etc).

Overall It's a bit sad going to American bars and not hearing the whole bar singing along to the musician up on stage. Amercia's culture I feel is way more focused on celebrity then musicianship.

colmmacc• 5 months ago

Grafton St buskers at their best are really really good, but there are also some very average buskers there every day too. New Orleans is a stand-out in the US where you can find world-class jazz bands playing on the streets.

Nashville has plenty in the evenings, and then you can find hot spots in some cities. I've seen regular buskers in Boston, Seattle, Sarasota, and Boulder - usually in pedestrianized touristy quarters.

paul79864• 5 months ago

Guess it's Dublin's bar culture and vibe that really stood out to me. I've been to the French Quarter yet don't recall almost everyone in each bar there singing along to their local musicians. Musicians who are really good to great like in Dublin's bars I experienced in December.

KittenInABox• 5 months ago

Busking and live music is definitely still around. Especially in larger cities. I agree that the neighborhood bar scene sucks but that's more an issue that everyone has to drive home. Once you get to a place with good transportation or a downtown hub it all comes roaring back.

badc0ffee• 5 months ago

I need to hear more about the baseball cap thing.

mikkupikku4• 5 months ago

Europeans don't really play baseball, presumably they all wear football and cricket hats instead.

paul79864• 5 months ago

I heard Emily Blunt say on Graham Norton, "We know your American with your baseball cap." I know that's the UK but maybe it holds true for Dublin too.

The looks were strange and from women in their 20s as I walked around Dublin. Im not much to look at yet do not receive such looks or rude behavior (one purposely did not hold the bathroom door at starbucks as I waited my turn 25 feet away waiting to get in rather she purposely pushed the door to close) at home in the DC region or my travels throughout the US and Europe. Another American mentioned a similar experience too. My friend traveling with me he was not wearing a hat & did not experience any such thing.

CalRobert5• 5 months ago

Especially since Yankees hats are EXTREMELY common in Dublin.

rorytbyrne• 5 months ago

Why is "singing along" a relevant metric?

In Dublin's best music venues, nobody is singing along because it's brand new material from brand new artists. If you're singing along to well known songs in Temple Bar then I'm afraid you're missing some of the best music the city has to offer, in venues like Whelan's, Workmans, Sin É, The Grand Social etc.

paul79864• 5 months ago

Because in America we do not appreciate local musicians as i experienced in Dublin nor do we sing alongs in majority of our bars (maybe there are a few but none ive been to throughout the US & its not apart of our culture). We are a more subdued culture in this regards and as I believe worship/appreciate celebrity musicians over local musicians.

jancsika• 5 months ago

Overall It's a bit sad going to American bars and not hearing the whole bar singing along to the musician up on stage.

What's far worse is hearing a sing along in the original release. Listen to Strumpella's "Spirits"-- those are paid crises singers!

Edit: clarification

TitaRusell• 5 months ago

They had something like this in the Netherlands during the 80s. Basically everyone was out of a job back then so it didn't really matter. Worst recession since 1929.

Artists had to make a buch of art which was then given to the government. The state ended up with entire warehouses filled with crap.

codingdave• 5 months ago

There was also the WPA program in the USA:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_Progress_Administration

The work also included infrastructure projects, and often would create public art to decorate the infrastructure. That is why you'll see far more decorative work when looking at bridges from that era, for example.

chao-• 5 months ago

I remember learning about this in high school, but grew up in a part of a large city that only really developed after the 1940's, I didn't think much of it. However, the name was catchy so I had it stashed in my memory somewhere.

As I've gone on to live in a few older cities, I have been surprised the number of times that I have (for example) come across a bridge or tunnel or whatnot and seen a big serif "WORKS PROGRESS ADMINISTRATION 1936" plaque on one side of it. It always feels like stepping into an alternate reality where history is more present and real.

It feels like a silly way to phrase it, but growing up where only a handful of buildings were older than 40 years, encountering history in a more banal form, like a simple bridge with some engravings, always feels more impactful than seeing some 500-year-old castle, monument or other touristy site.

calvinmorrison4• 5 months ago

they hired artists and builders, they had a nice run of building domestic concentration camps that would make Nancy Pelosi scream ice faster than you could blink

vintermann4• 5 months ago

There's a lot of weird and wonderful stuff from that era which came out of the WPA, like the American Guide series. I think we understand that period of time in the US on a deeper level thanks to it.

cjbgkagh• 5 months ago

I have a feeling that this art will end up all over the walls.

Daub3• 5 months ago

Oddly enough I have just finished making the same observation and used the word 'crap' to describe the result, without even seeing your comment.

Towaway69• 5 months ago

Sounds a bit like if the state invested in startups … hm wait.

extraduder_ire3• 5 months ago

Enterprise Ireland is the largest VC firm in the world by amount paid and number of clients.

Due to EU rules on state aid though, it's technically a quango and not part of the government despite being spun off of the then privatised national sugar company.

They also pay Ireland's contributions toward ESA, so the Irish flags you see printed on the side of Ariane rockets aren't a direct result of what the government is doing.

thenthenthen• 5 months ago

Is this something als than the (former) 1% rule? Every new state owned buildings budget was to be spend on art.

Imnimo• 5 months ago

The randomly selected applicants

Why would you want to randomly select here?

mikkupikku4• 5 months ago

That's the best way to do it. Otherwise all the money will go to the rich brat children of politicians/etc who are socially connected to whoever they put on the selection committees.

gus_massa• 5 months ago

I agree that it's a problem. But how do you prevent it from been overflowed by people like me that can't draw a circle with the bottom of a bottle?

digiown• 5 months ago

I'm not sure that's true. What kind of rich brat will go through the trouble of all that for a couple hundred euros a month?

Random isn't a bad way of doing it in any case though.

left-struck• 5 months ago

Random selection is possibly the fairest way to select almost anything, depending on your definition of fair.

energy123• 5 months ago

To not have selection bias so you can measure the effects

seneca• 5 months ago

Mostly because the kind of people who run and advocate for programs like this are actively hostile to the idea of merit. Prioritizing talented people would be antithetical to them.

mikkupikku4• 5 months ago

Prioritizing merit would be fine if there was some way to measure merit empirically, and if that measure couldn't be gamed by anybody with money and/or connections. But this is for artists, so...

anigbrowl• 5 months ago

I bet you also think government shouldn't be picking winners and losers.

AngryData• 5 months ago

Why wouldn't you? How do you define merit to artists? Many of the greatest artists of all time lived their entire lives in poverty and desperation.

oulipo23• 5 months ago

Really cool! Looking forward to the findings of that study!

yawboakye2• 5 months ago

<rant>

the irish government is adept at misplaced priorities, (very) short-term thinking, pursuers of feel-good vibes, basically everything besides running a state. incompetence here has bred the need for more and varied welfare programs just so we can have a variety of careers that cater to the needs of life. of course, necessity of the arts is undisputed. but can the artist make a career here when the money you make from a show, including tips, can’t pay your utility bills? when your income can’t afford you decent accommodation?

</rant>

arexxbifs2• 5 months ago

Sweden introduced a similar scheme in 1964, in which artists (broadly defined, having since come to include one clown and one chess player) have been given a basic income, supplementing their other incomes up to a specific level.

Artists couldn't apply for this, but were officially selected. The program was stopped in 2010, meaning no new recipients have been selected since. As far as I know, there's been no studies surrounding any measurable increase in artistic quality or artistic output.

It is of course easy to point out how deeply unfair such programs are on multiple levels. Unsurprisingly, many recipients have utilized loopholes in order to receive the grant despite having incomes and wealth well above the threshold.

Edit to clarify: Sweden still grants long-term stipends to various artists, sometimes up to a decade. What's described above is a guaranteed, life-long, basic income.

ergocoder5• 5 months ago

I'd bet what happens is that it just funded a bunch of children of upper middle class families.

Scholarships and this kind of funds happen elsewhere and are based on merits. They end up funding a bunch of upper middle class's children because it turns out those children are well-equipped to perform higher on merits.

If you are too rich, then you wouldn't need this kind of fund.

If you are below upper middle class, then you would have a hard time competing with children from that class.

The upper middle class isn't rich enough to fund the kid but is good enough to accumulate a lot of merits.

RobotToaster• 5 months ago

They end up funding a bunch of upper middle class's children because it turns out those children are well-equipped to perform higher on merits.

I'd argue they are well equipped to give the appearance of merit, rather than performing higher on actual merit.

arexxbifs2• 5 months ago

You're sort of right. This particular grant is extra curious because it's typically been given to already highly accomplished artists. Sweden is a small pond and although there are a few fun outliers in this crowd, most of them make out the upper echelons of the Swedish cultural societé. Some were born straight into it. Others, no doubt, had parents who could put them there and knew someone who knew someone. One, for example, is Swedish nobility and the son of a diplomat. Another was the son of a Swedish secretary of state.

While I'm sure there are some wholly self-made virtuosos on the list, it does give off an air of apparent nepotism.

kdheiwns• 5 months ago

Sweden punches far above its weight in game development (allegedly up to 20% of Steam revenue all goes to Swedish teams [1]), so if any people on any Swedish game developers have ever benefited from that program, I'd say the whole country has. That's surely been a huge benefit in terms of tax revenue, plus the gaming industry brings a lot of great minds to Sweden as well as improving their cultural soft power.

[1] https://www.gamereactor.eu/report-20-of-steams-revenue-goes-...

lysace• 5 months ago

They have not, afaik. Here's the list of recipients:

https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statlig_inkomstgaranti_f%C3%B6...

jl62• 5 months ago

Ireland began the three-year trial in 2022

Did anyone take a note of what kind of output the artists produced? Was any of it any good?

Schmerika7• 5 months ago

Is art subjective?

pessimizer2• 5 months ago

Is cash?

inglor_cz9• 5 months ago

A similar program in the Netherlands once ran for decades. It produced about quarter a million uh, tangible units of art, which not even government institutions wanted anymore, not even for free. The warehouses became full and dusty.

This was later one of the motivations to cancel the program.

jamesbelchamber2• 5 months ago

If they think this is good/important then fine but what they've created is a grant programme, not a UBI.

Personally I would have thought this money would have been better spent getting people on the margins the stability to retrain into in-demand skilled careers (e.g. single, unskilled parents training as electricians or plumbers). That feels like it would be a more durable, multi-generational benefit.

But again, this is just a grant programme.

Jtsummers3• 5 months ago

not a UBI

Who said it is a UBI that this "rebuttal" even makes sense to appear here? The Irish government isn't calling it a UBI. The article doesn't call it a UBI. Even the FAQ for the program says it is not UBI:

> Why this is not a Universal Basic Income
> It is important to note that that the Basic Income for the Arts Pilot is not a Universal Basic Income. This is a sectoral intervention to support practicing artists and creative arts workers to focus on their creative practice. This policy is separate to the Universal Basic income as outlined in the Programme for Government.

https://www.gov.ie/en/department-of-culture-communications-a... - C-f for "universal"

jamesbelchamber2• 5 months ago

Basic Income and UBI are colloquially synonyms, people use them interchangeably, and the Irish government are almost certainly using it to endear themselves to supporters of UBI and to get more coverage for their policy than media would give them if they just called it a grant.

This happens all the time. For example, in the UK there was a push for a "living wage" in the 2010s, which the government responded to by rebranding the minimum wage the "National Living Wage" and bumping it a little for over-25s.

This seems to be the same thing.

sollewitt• 5 months ago

Society needs art. Artists produce art. There a pantheon of greats that had no commercial success in their lives but moved our culture, we’d be so much more culturally impoverished if we’d insisted they become shit plumbers.

deadbabe• 5 months ago

It is not a grant. It is UBI. People who advocated for UBI always said they will spend time creating art, etc. if they didn’t have to work for income. So here it is, the dream come true.

booleandilemma• 5 months ago

It's not UBI unless they respect the U.

RupertSalt4• 5 months ago

Ireland currently has a population of approximately 5,501,000 people. There is great news: Bono and the rest of his band have agreed to provide subsidies for the 5,499,000 citizens who aren't receiving the BIA funds, and they'll brand this supplemental program as U2BI.

The website will be established shortly as https://ww2.u2bi.ie:212/ as soon as the registrars can correct the typos.

/s

csense• 5 months ago

Does the government get equity in the artist's work? If one of the recipients turns out to be the next Picasso, and makes say $1 million selling a painting (either as an NFT or a traditional art auction), does he have to give the $1 million to the government?

hippich• 5 months ago

State will tax it. And the tax amount from 1M is infinitely bigger than the tax from 0

ElevenLathe• 5 months ago

This is admittedly a tangent, but I love that British (and apparently Irish) government programs are commonly called "schemes". To American ears, it always sounds like some grand confidence trick is being pulled.

rorylawless• 5 months ago

Growing up in the UK, we would be sent to a “play scheme” during the school holidays. Weird phrase.

esperent• 5 months ago

As an Irish person, in normal speech the word "scheme" has exactly the same shady connotations as it does for Americans. Calling someone a "schemer" is a common insult. I've always assumed the government started using the word in a rare moment of honesty and it stuck.

TrainedMonkey• 5 months ago

Or perchance it is the other way around. The word started as official term and over time got shady connotation because can't trust Big Government.

nv2156• 5 months ago

In India too, discounts and promotional policies are commonly called 'schemes.' I learned the hard way that in the US, the word has a negative connotation when I asked my rental office about any 'schemes,' they looked at me with total shock.

jerbearito• 5 months ago

That's hilarious! I hope y'all cleared up the confusion quickly.

acuozzo• 5 months ago

Similarly, "doubt" has a negative connotation in the US, but I see it often used as a synonym for "question" by Indian speakers of English.

extraduder_ire3• 5 months ago

Various variants of english diverted quite a bit since the US became its own country. Like how the US constitution mentions "freedom of speech", which includes many things that aren't just speech as we'd call it, whereas many other countries call the same concept "freedom of expression" because they committed it to writing later.

Another funny difference is the word "corporation" meaning the government in some cases. Like someone living in Belfast could go home from their corporation job to their corporation flat, if they lived in public housing and were employed by Stormont.

thegrim000• 5 months ago

Ok, let me guess, without looking at the article .... is it a "pilot" that's rolled out to a small number of people, for a limited period of time, and its success is judged by surveying those people on whether they were happy to get free money? I bet it was.

tgrowazay• 5 months ago

Ireland rolled out a permanent basic income scheme for the arts on Tuesday, pledging to pay 2,000 creative workers 325 euros ($387) per week following a trial that participants said eased financial strain and allowed them to spend more time on projects.
The randomly selected applicants will receive the payments for three years, after which they would not be eligible for the next three-year cycle. O'Donovan said he would like to increase the number of recipients over time.
Over 8,000 applicants applied for the 2,000 places in the pilot scheme.
A report on the trial found it lowered the likelihood of artists experiencing enforced deprivation, and reduced their levels of anxiety and reliance on supplementary income.

themafia3• 5 months ago

It also recouped more than the trial's net cost of 72 million euros ($86 million) through [...] and reduced reliance on other social welfare payments,

Which sounds quite a bit like "we spent more on one type of welfare so we ended up spending less on a different type of welfare." Which, okay, good, but I don't think you can say you "recouped" anything.

Schmerika7• 5 months ago

If you want to criticize the study, it would be best to actually read the method rather than make assumptions.

hoppp• 5 months ago

So good for Ireland!!

PunchyHamster• 5 months ago

That seems like... insane discrimination ?

thomassmith65• 5 months ago

Yes, most of us are programmers. The government should support us, too, since we'll soon be less useful than trad musicians.

Schmerika7• 5 months ago

It... isn't?

lkrubner• 5 months ago

“Ireland offers long-term grants for artists” is how this would have been written 50 years ago.

The idea is not new, only the rhetoric.

stubish• 5 months ago

Grants operate differently over here. You have to write a submission, proposing works and budget and generally justifying. It is assessed by a committee. Politics gets involved. And a few people get larger chunks of money and the people holding the purse strings retain control on what is produced. It is essentially work on commission for the government, except you rarely get 100% of your costs covered.

Whereas in this Irish program, it is less money for more people chosen by lottery. The only editorial control is who is qualified to enter the lottery. It is also subsidizing the artist and not the art work, with artists working in cheap mediums receiving the same as artists dealing with high costs. So you are still going to need a grant or commission if you work in monumental bronze.

appreciatorBus2• 5 months ago

Since only people with a wealthy family safety net have the wherewithal to call themselves artists, these schemes just end up as a transfer from poor to rich (kids)

miladyincontrol• 5 months ago

iirc from previous criticism I saw on this a majority of the trial recipients were retirement age adults, but all the same people much wealthier with the privilege to have time/money to spend doing art. Younger artists? Not established enough.

ghiculescu• 5 months ago

Deeply ironic that those who claim to support socialism are so okay with taking from the poor to give to the rich.

appreciatorBus2• 5 months ago

A story as old as time, unfortunately.

tomcam2• 5 months ago

I don’t get it. Why are artists more deserving than unemployed insurance salespeople or carpet installers?

socalgal2• 5 months ago

Agreed. Can just all myself an artist to get other people's tax money?

crossbody2• 5 months ago

there is art in getting other people's tax money, so yes

rpdillon• 5 months ago

It seems there are 2000 positions and 8000 applicants. The program cost $74M, but more than paid for itself:

It also recouped more than the trial's net cost of 72 million euros ($86 million) through increases in arts-related expenditure, productivity gains and reduced reliance on other social welfare payments, according to a government-commissioned cost-benefit analysis.

crossbody2• 5 months ago

Anyone can become an artist with no skill and minimal effort while being a carpet installer requires skill and effort. If you are a carpet installer just call it art and get the money

t0lo• 5 months ago

the irony in this statement is palpable

uoaei3• 5 months ago

Ok so why don't carpet installers just find jobs?

hn_throwaway_99• 5 months ago

It's not like Ireland is getting rid of unemployment insurance. And insurance sales and carpet installation are professions where there are jobs that actually pay a living wage.

A lot of societies have realized there is value in supporting art and culture. For thousands of years that activity was sponsored by monarchs, royalty and other nobility. Up until actually quite recently, most first world countries without monarchs and nobles also provided substantial support for the arts.

calvinmorrison4• 5 months ago

A lot of societies have realized there is value in supporting art and culture.

Basically outlandishly rich and gaudy benefactors have always had so much money they could employ OTHERS to do trivial pursuits. Now - the average taxpayer will bear that cost.

cousinbryce• 5 months ago

Unemployed artist still make art

garbagewoman• 5 months ago

They should get basic income too, good idea

uoaei3• 5 months ago

What kind of undervalued labor do unemployed salespeople and carpet installers perform during unemployment?

hackable_sand3• 5 months ago

Enjoying art

assaddayinh• 5 months ago

These guys are less stubborn when it comes to ruining your life for some vision?

m3kw9• 5 months ago

they do deserve, but looks like this is a pilot for UBI.

spankibalt• 5 months ago

"[...] looks like this is a pilot for UBI."

Did you have to be the party pooper? People were trying to indulge one of the most noble and timeless of pursuits: pissing on the poor! >(

vintermann4• 5 months ago

If anything, it's a pilot to confuse people about UBI and hopefully make it unpopular. It's not basic, and it's not universal.

GaryNumanVevo3• 5 months ago

Because any modern unemployment insurance program (which Ireland has) will be a percentage based on salary. Struggling artist aren't exactly making regular money like a formerly employed salesperson or carpet installer would be.

lan3212• 5 months ago

Note that many carpet installers and other handyman also do work (partially) under the table so their salary isn't representative of their regular income either. This also fluctuates a lot based on season. It's the cost of being (partially) self employed.

albedoa• 5 months ago

I don’t get it.

Your bio says:

I'm not trolling. I actually want to know the answer, although my comment may feel less than diplomatic.

And so here is the real test. After reading the numerous responses to your question, do you get it?

s_dev4• 5 months ago

Irish here. It's a cultural thing. Ireland is the only country in the world whose national symbol is a musical instrument.

Art is seen as a worthwhile endeavour even if it can't necessarily support itself as a private endeavour. It's for the same reason galleries and museums are subsidised by the government.

Anyone can call themselves an artist but to receive this money you would have to have a portfolio of work that is approved by the application programme.

Ireland already has a competitive economy. There is more to a country than economics and that includes promoting things like art to foster a sense of identity and promote Ireland on a world stage.

Milton Friedman wouldn't approve and we're okay with that.

tjwebbnorfolk• 5 months ago

Soon: everyone is an artist.

Swizec• 5 months ago

We have a similar scheme in Slovenia. Don't know the details but there's the concept of a "free artist".

At a minimum you need a registered business, regular exhibitions or performances in your field, you have to register with the ministry of culture, and can't have a job. Contract work is allowed and encouraged. Also you are expected to apply when the government issues a Call For Creatives.

I think you get paid minimum wage as long as you continue fulfilling criteria.

pash• 5 months ago

Milton Friedman wouldn’t have approved of a basic-income scheme restricted to artists. He would have argued that restricting the benefit to artists would distort incentives for choosing a profession in a way likely to reduce social welfare, and that eligibility by profession is a “welfare trap”: it’s hard to stop being an artist and start being something else when it means losing your guaranteed income.

But Friedman would have supported a broad basic-income scheme. We know this because he did support one. It was his proposal in 1962 of a “negative income tax” [0] (in Capitalism and Freedom) that gave rise to the movement to replace traditional social welfare programs with simple schemes that just give money to poor people. (This movement led to the Earned Income Tax Credit [1] in the United States.)

Friedman’s negative income tax is equivalent to the contemporary notion of a guaranteed basic income (but not to a universal basic income, as only people earning below some threshold would receive it). Like most economists, Friedman believed that people (even poor people) can typically make their own economic choices better than a government program can make those choices for them. (He was likewise not opposed to redistributive policies per se.) That was the root of his advocacy for market-based mechanisms of organizing the economy.

0. The idea dates to at least the 1940’s, but Friedman’s book is typically credited with popularizing it. See, e.g, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earned_income_tax_credit

CalRobert5• 5 months ago

This seems like it mostly funnels money to rich kids, to be honest. Nobody else can afford to already be an artist.

inglor_cz9• 5 months ago

Is there a tradition of rich Irish people supporting Irish artists privately?

In other places (like Italy) there is.

mike_hearn2• 5 months ago

Ireland already has a competitive economy

Ireland's economic statistics are so badly distorted by US companies routing money there that there is an entire subfield of economics dedicated to trying to figure out what Ireland's real economic state is, called "Leprechaun economics". A common adjustment made by economics researchers when studying the EU is to just subtract Ireland entirely.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leprechaun_economics

https://www.cfr.org/articles/leprechaun-adjusted-euro-area-g...

https://democracychallenged.com/2025/05/14/irelands-phantom-...

The key to understanding this disconnect is a number few outside Ireland pay attention to: Modified Gross National Income, or GNI*. Unlike GDP, which counts all activity happening within Ireland’s borders, GNI* adjusts for the distortions caused by the huge presence of foreign multinationals. And the gap is enormous. In 2023, GNI* was just €291 billion — meaning more than €219 billion of Ireland’s reported output never truly flowed into the Irish economy at all.

When looking at Ireland's own economy without the influence of US tax transactions, the economy shrinks by nearly half.

haritha-j• 5 months ago

Ireland already has a competitive economy

Well it has a competitive tax haven.

bagacrap7• 5 months ago

To need to already have a portfolio of work kind of defeats the purpose, no? It kind of proves you didn't need this money to make art. I would have thought the point was to unlock potential artists who hadn't the time to develop their practice.

tomcam2• 5 months ago

Can you name a government-subsidized Irish artist who has been successfully promoted on the world stage?

I don't give a shit about Milton Friedman. I do give a shit about wage earners in Ireland who are being forced to pay for an artist welfare program. Ireland has a competitive economy.

RupertSalt4• 5 months ago

Now look at them yo-yos,

that's the way you do it

You play the guitar on the MTV

That ain't workin',

that's the way you do it

Money for nothin'

and your chicks for free

We got to install microwave ovens,

custom kitchen delivery

We got to move these refrigerators,

we got to move these Color TVs...

Dire Straits, Money for Nothing, 1985

Guest artist: Sting

https://www.musixmatch.com/lyrics/Dire-Straits/Money-for-Not...

osener• 5 months ago

I understand your perspective. However, those trades, and most work in general, differ from art. Art is vital to our society, yet the current reward system optimizes for the worst art and the worst people.

We need more art that pushes boundaries and remains controversial. Instead, we favor the type of artist who attracts the most attention through their personality, whether because of their looks or a manufactured edgy image, while producing mundane, lowest-common-denominator work. We must support contemporary artists who move us forward rather than remaining stuck in popularity contests or constant nostalgia.

Under the current system, it is almost inevitable that influencers use their status to promote gambling ads and NFTs, ruining the lives of their fans. We need to break this cycle of rewarding increasingly poor behavior while making it harder for independent artists to earn a living.

smcleod• 5 months ago

I suspect it's a mix of trying to keep the arts (including music) alive, especially with all the big streaming services taking what would have been some of their profits in the past and - the likes of sales people don't directly do good for society (or at least, not all/most of them) - the world has more than enough sales people trying to get people to spend money, where as there's good research to show the value of investing in the arts.

padjo3• 5 months ago

A single well made piece of art can have a profound impact on society for generations. A well laid carpet is... Just a well laid carpet.

lbreakjai3• 5 months ago

None of these 2000 artists will create anything close to a single piece of art having any sort of effect on society. I can guarantee it.

I worked in "culture" for a while when I was younger. 90% of it is just disguised unemployment benefits for those that consider it a dirty word barely good enough for the hoi polloi.

qsera3• 5 months ago

If you find yourself alone in an Island, who would you want with you among the trades you listed?

Ekaros4• 5 months ago

Carpet installer? Most likely handy enough for building shelter and in general manual labour.

tgv3• 5 months ago

Because people hardly pay for art, yet many consider it worth keeping the arts alive.

Ekaros4• 5 months ago

Then those many should spend their own money. And not steal from the rest of society.

Maybe they could sing up for say extra 20-50% tax which then get distributed.

carlosjobim3• 5 months ago

If they're not paying for it, then they lie if they say it's worth keeping alive.

nicbou• 5 months ago

I come from Quebec, a cultural island in North America. You need to create infrastructure for your culture, so that it’s not swallowed by American culture. Funding culture protects our language, and to an extent our history and our perspective. There are books, art, movies and shows about us, in our language. It makes us a people.

altacc• 5 months ago

What you describe is not a real choice that is being made. The unemployed in Ireland get unemployment benefits, so this isn't favouring one over the other. The Artist's UBI is not enough to live on (neither are most countries' unemployment benefits to be fair) but in general a salesperson or carpet installer when in employment will make a decent living, whereas artists don't. Society tends to under value the arts and overvalue commerce (and any free market arguments about this consistently fail to reflect reality), and this address some of the balance. They did an analysis (probably generously) and found that there would actually be an ROI for this UBI.

whywhywhywhy5• 5 months ago

You’d be surprised what else is subsidized once you dig into it.

notepad0x90• 5 months ago

If the Irish truly want this, I'm glad for them.

But in my view, arts should be funded by people in private. Any spare resources the government can muster up should be invested in improving the security and quality of life for its people. If no one ever goes hungry, and their medical needs are met swiftly, and justice is swift and accessible to all. then I can see the appeal in funding arts. But even then, sciences can meaningfully and in the long-term improve humans' lives.

I don't even know if the arts would benefit from this. Will the government arbitrate whose art is better? Private persons would, they won't fund a terrible artist. and from what I know about artists, the rejection and failure is instrumental to revelations and breakthroughs in their art. Without that, will the state be funding or facilitating mediocrity in art?

Imagine if this was for entrepreneurs. If the government will provide income so long as you're starting businesses. If you didn't have much to begin with, it might prevent you from giving up businesses that are failing, hold on to that restaurant years after it's failed because you like the vibe, and your needs are met. But if you'll eventually be in danger of running out of money to support yourself, you'll be forced to shut doors early, learn lessons and move on to something better.

I'm just making a case against dreams being kept alive artificially on life-support. And of the consequence of not having adversity when needed. I don't know if it's true, but I remember an analogy of artificial biospheres failing to grow trees and plants early on, because they didn't simulate wind. the trees needed the resistance, push and adversity of wind to thrive.

But I'll digress, I'm not saying Ireland did wrong, just putting my thoughts on the subject out there. They know what they're doing, I'm sure. And this is sounding too much like damn linkedin post, and on HN too of all places, talking about entrepreneurship, shame on me! :)

bandrami• 5 months ago

"basic income scheme for a few selected artists"

reeddev42• 5 months ago

This is fascinating because it implicitly acknowledges that some valuable work does not have a clear market path. Artists create cultural value that is difficult to monetize directly.

The same is true for a lot of open source and indie software. I have been running a free AI companion bot on Telegram for months and the operating cost (5/month server) comes entirely out of pocket. The users get genuine value from it but there is no revenue model that does not compromise the experience. If I add ads or charge money, the thing that makes it feel like talking to a friend (no transactional friction) disappears.

Ireland is essentially saying: some things are worth publicly funding because the market undersupplies them. That is a healthier framing than trying to force everything into a subscription box.

Daub3• 5 months ago

Artist speaking. A similar scheme was employed by Holland for many years. The state committed to buy at least one artwork from each artist per year and predictably their warehouses became filled with crap art that no one wanted.

That being said, wise governments recognize the value of some kind of support of the arts. One reason for the incredible esteem that Korean culture is held in within Asia is the Korean government's active support of its filmmaking, TV and music industry. This was also true in Renaissance Italy (courtesy of the Medici family) and in 17th Century France (courtesy of Louis XIV). It was even true of the CIA's active support of abstract expressionism. The payoff of such support is soft power, which is a very real force.

sixo• 5 months ago

Even in the US we see cities becoming desirable place to live when they successfully cultivate a film scene, or an art school, and being dead when they don't. But this feels like a better approach than a basic income (which is an invitation to idleness)--make it easy to use the environs for film, streamline permitting, provide cheap capital, solicit locals for public installations.

GaryNumanVevo3• 5 months ago

crap art that no one wanted.

Through the kunstuitleen they leased and sold art to galleries and private homes. It was like a library for contemporary art which paid struggling artists and their families, while also exposing the public to more art.

To say that "no one wanted" is a massively overblown. Thousands of art pieces lived happily in many Dutch homes.

Daub3• 5 months ago

OK, maybe my use of that phrase was a bit ill-judged. However, aside from supporting artists, what did the initiative achieve? Keeping artists off the dole should not be, IMHO, a goal in itself. The reputation of Dutch culture at the time was not brilliant, though neither was it bad. A strategic attitude would have been more effective... maybe target one or two artists and promote them.

The Young British Artists (YBA) boom of the 80s was a product of the innovative teaching environment of Goldsmiths' college plus the drive of people like Damien Hirst, who organized the ground-breaking Freeze exhibition. The British Council did their best to capitalize on this.

seanieb• 5 months ago

Thats not similar in the slightest…

cyberjerkXX• 5 months ago

This is just the state contracting 2000 artists to do nothing...

falcor84• 5 months ago

The randomly selected applicants will receive the payments for three years, after which they would not be eligible for the next three-year cycle.

"Permanent", I don't think that word means what you think it means.

CalRobert5• 5 months ago

The frustrating thing about this program is that it is not possible to avail of this unless you are ALREADY an artist. So if you gave up art because you had bills and kids and needed to support yourself or a family, you're SOL.

The only person I know getting this money was already semi-retired after selling their house in London and retiring to the Irish countryside, and basically just noodles around on the guitar now and then.

krisoft• 5 months ago

The frustrating thing about this program is that it is not possible to avail of this unless you are ALREADY an artist.

Frankly we don’t know the selection criteria for the program this year. It will be only released in April.

But we know the selection criteria for the pilot program, and for that this was not true.

So if you gave up art because you had bills and kids and needed to support yourself or a family, you're SOL.

Again we don’t know the full program’s eligibility criteria yet. Under the pilot program there were two separate streams. Those who were recently trained, and those who were “practicing artist”.

Your hypothetical “artist who gave up art” might fall into the “recently trained” stream and thus be eligible.

Or if they gave up on art a long ago (more than 5 years), there are ways they can get back to it. They can start practicing their art on the side again, produce a portfolio of work and thus become eligible again. They don’t need to be full time artist for this.

The only person I know getting this money

In the pilot program they randomly selected 2000 participants from those who where eligible. So to get the money in the pilot program you both needed to be eligible, have applied for it, and be lucky enough in the lottery.

Because of this lottery whoever is getting it today is not representative of who is all eligible for it.

Azrael3000• 5 months ago

Additionally i would argue that in every such programm there will be people that abuse the system. Just because gp knows one such person, does not mean that everybody will be doing that.

The article also mentions that overall the program had a positive impact.

s_dev4• 5 months ago

The frustrating thing about this program is that it is not possible to avail of this unless you are ALREADY an artist.

Correct, the programme is FOR artists. How could this possibly work otherwise? By somebody stating they intend to become an talented artist?

How else would you gauge merit if not through their portfolio of prior work?

wooger2• 5 months ago

Everyone is capable of creating art.

We're not objectively deciding what is art and what isn't, up front. Who decides what counts? Who's to say an AI generated self-published vomit novels on Amazon aren't as valid as anything else.

PepperdineG• 5 months ago

If someone was in college this could be a way for them to get going right after they graduate without having to take some other non-art job instead.

keepamovin• 5 months ago

So if you gave up art because you had bills and kids and needed to support yourself or a family, you're SOL.

Lacks real courage. Not committed. Next!

george11119• 5 months ago

i swear I've seen this comment about a guy who sold his house and getting basic income before

edit: found it https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45590900#45591439

y7• 5 months ago

That's also CalRobert's post, so it refers to the same person.

fiftyacorn• 5 months ago

Id commented on reddit a few weeks back that this type of scheme sounds great - but ends up being taken up by middle/upper classes as a bit of pocket money, and doesnt widen the pool or access to arts

The UK has this with lottery funding for athletes - it started really positive - but is now a lottery funded gap year for private school kids

PakistaniDenzel• 5 months ago

If they didn't have this restriction everyone would suddenly be an "artist" and would claim the money.

shiandow• 5 months ago

Oh no!

Seriously though, having a basic income that is not basic was bound to give issues.

joe_mamba3• 5 months ago

If a system is based on a userbase pulling the ladder from under them in order to make sure only they can benefit from it, then it's not a good or fair system from the get go.

Maybe the issue is with the definition of the profession of artist, that's it's too vague and fluid allowing anyone to claim to be one without much hassle.

But then if you have a strict definition of the artist profession, everyone will rush to conform to the bare minimum of that in order to score those benefits.

So maybe then the core issue is with the welfare state that unfairly picks winners and losers instead of being "universal".

Artist have exited way before the welfare state has. They were poor and had patrons who supported them if they loved their work. So then why do we need the state to subsidize this now? Do we have proof this leads to higher quality art?

specialist2• 5 months ago

Becoming a working artist requires sacrifice and commitment.

Joshua Citarella (Doomscroll podcast) often talks about the practicalities of producing art.

In 1970's a (starving) artist worked part-time job (eg waiter), enabling them to focus on their craft most of the week.

Today, typical artist has to hustle, juggling 3 jobs, and can only focus once per week on their one day off work.

Further, "entry level" jobs are unpaid / underpaid. Such as internships at a museum or newspaper. Ditto teaching positions.

Consequently, only affluent persons are able to break into the creative disciplines (production of culture). Trust funds, nepotism, and other lottery winners.

I, for one, enthusiastically support heavily subsidizing both creative and caring work. All those "not-for-profit" gigs and unpaid labor. They're the grease that keeps society working. Despite not being tabulated in someone's payroll accounting system.

thepaulmcbride2• 5 months ago

It's wild to me how many people in the comments see any form of government doing anything as shady. It is doubly wild to me that using public funds to create art is seen as a bad thing.

skywalqer• 5 months ago

You know that tax money is taken from people who could buy art with it? Or, maybe buy food and other things that they need even more than art at the moment.

thepaulmcbride2• 5 months ago

In a society with a progressive tax system these things are overwhelmingly paid for by people who have vastly more money than they need to survive. Taxation when done correctly is a good thing.

erxam2• 5 months ago

You have to remember this is a site geared towards American techbros. Americans don't know what culture even means, much less why it's important. Cultural creations to Americans are shit like burger or Coke ads.

It's even worse for techbros. All techbros ever read are self-help books and Nick Land's meth-fueled ramblings. Peter Thiel is a head honcho techbro because he was able to finish The Lord of the Rings.

erxam2• 5 months ago

You ask an American what's the last painting he saw and what he thought about it and he'll bring up whatever random shit some vastly-underpaid and over-exploited immigrant will have been made to plaster over a McDonald's wall.

The "intellectual" Americans will bring up Thomas Kinkade and how his work embodies the true nature of what American society should be all about. His pieces make them long for the good old past where non-whites knew their place and segregation was a godly law.

baalimago• 5 months ago

But how will they ever create good art without suffering and poverty?

RupertSalt4• 5 months ago

In the United States, the National Endowment for the Arts has issued more than 128,000 grants, totaling more than $5 billion, to fund the projects of American artists. These subsidies have not lacked controversy, and were eventually challenged at the Supreme Court level, during the Clinton administration.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Endowment_for_the_Art...

If you or your parents would like to sample a NSFW taste of your tax dollars at work, try this deep cut from Plaintiff Karen Finley: https://youtu.be/5gk6JCeGExo?si=FEqZtLlDiQDr0_XI

What criteria of artistic merit, cultural relevance, and common decency will Irish artists need to meet, in order to qualify for their basic income?

vintermann4• 5 months ago

"Universal basic income" for artists: so radical and socialist even the US had it already.

RupertSalt4• 5 months ago

Neither nation promises universal income: 8,000 Irish artists applied, and 2,000 were accepted.

Likewise, with the NEA, since they offer grants, you'd need to qualify, apply, and justify your work, and probably renew on an annual basis.

Ireland selected the applicants randomly. I would suppose the 8,000 needed to meet qualifications first.

Ireland promises €325/week. The NEA grants seem to be on a project basis.

So neither of these programs are anything like UBI. UBI is the buzzword that sets us all atwitter with eager hopefulness and aspirations.

Artist grant programs are more like "publish or perish" research scholars. Most grant recipients view the application process as daunting and stressful, especially when it's not in their wheelhouse. "Grant writer" is a job title and a profession unto itself these days. Even charities and welfare organizations depend on grants themselves, so their recipients may be cut off if the grants don't come in on time and fill their budgets.

Ireland's program is like being on the dole. "Here's enough to subsist on while you do your art and try to establish yourself." After 3 years, they're cut off for 3 years, so the incentive exists to become self-sufficient in that time.

Subsidizing the arts has been the realm of religion, including Christianity, for thousands of years. Michelangelo and Bernini were among thousands and thousands of artists who were funded by the Church to create music, sculpture, architecture, images, and any other sacred object in their service. If socialism or communism are the first thing to spring to your mind, please rethink and consider that these philosophies sought to supplant the original collectives: religions; and the religious leaders and patrons were distributing wealth to every possible artisan and artist and composer and performer, in the service of truth, beauty, and goodness. Nobody knows the pain of shrinking churches like Ireland does, and so it really is incumbent on their secular government to pick up the tab here, lest the hands of artists become idle and restless.

geriC• 5 months ago

Good, thoughtful post. Excellent point re states taking over from the Church as patrons of the arts. Ironically Catholic commentators and conservatives in general are very critical of arts grants. It's most disingenous of the conservatives who support the business community to point out that these artists are "living off the taxpayers" when almost the entire business community is propped up by social welfare subsidies for their part-time staff.

cyberpunk• 5 months ago

Sorry unless i’m missing a /s here but in what world is that song deserving of our taxpayer money? What does it add to “culture”, personally i don’t even find it listenable. That’s more important than spending th money available on hunger and schools is it?

jjice2• 5 months ago

There was an interesting part of an episode of The West Wing where some politicians were trying to cut this budget to make room for something else (maybe National Parks?). It was neat to see the arguments on both sides, both for an against this. In general, it seems like it gets some poor uses, but also some culturally valuable ones.

Unfortunately I don't remember the references off hand.

I do think there's value in a society encouraging the arts. I don't know what that best implementation is (if at all), though.

elnatro• 5 months ago

Why only for artists?

raffraffraff2• 5 months ago

My wife is an artist and she absolutely hates this.

For a start, it's a lottery. 2000 randomers who call themselves artists will get no-questions-asked income regardless of their skill or importance as artists. We have people who are full time carers for family members who get less money in their allowance, and it's means-tested.

So you can be a millionaire heir / heiress, independently wealthy and still be eligible for it. One artist on Twitter bragged about getting it, and has been using the "extra money" to go on long holidays. It's basically free world travel for her.

Also, what is an artist? There's one guy on twitter who gets this income and really, he just seems to take bad semi pornographic photos. Like the world really needs more of that.

Another lady my wife knows personally is a terrible artist, never had any talent and doesn't make money. No sense of colour, no line skills, just paints awful blobs in awful colours. She's 100% in favour of this scheme and won't shut up about it on twitter.

My wife has been struggling to make an income from her art for decades, but has created a small business around it, wedding stationery, other print fits. Guess what? She probably doesn't qualify as "an artist" she "runs a small print business". She also thinks that the government could do a lot of practically things to make life easier for artists but it's easier to take your budget and just give it to random artists. No effort, no real benefit. It's laziness and incompetence.

I know exactly one "real" artist whose paintings will genuinely be hanging on walls for hundreds of years. He has no business around his art, he literally paints and holds exhibitions to sell his work. His name is famous in art circles and you can instantly recognise his style whenever you see it. His work is truly amazing. He has a wife and two kids and struggles sometimes. The long gaps between exhibitions, the worry that an exhibition won't go well. Anxiety, depression. Did he get this magic lottery? Did he fuck.

urschrei• 5 months ago

My partner is an artist and she absolutely loves this.

For a start, it's a lottery. 2000 people who meet very broad but generally fair eligibility criteria (https://www.gov.ie/en/department-of-culture-communications-a...) will get no-questions-asked income regardless of their skill or importance as artists, these being qualities that are both highly subjective and not fixed in time.

So you can be anyone – rich, poor, or something in between – and still be eligible for it. All you have to do is meet the criteria, which were created in consultation with artists.

Also, what is an artist? Thankfully that's not for me to say, because I have quite a narrow view of what art is, and that view would certainly exclude some people who were successful in the pilot.

My partner has been struggling to make an income from her art for over a decade. As she is a working artist under the pilot definition, she qualifies for the lottery even though she runs a small business (to be precise, she's self-employed – making and selling her art full time. There is a reasonable chance that you have seen it). She also thinks that the government could take many other practical steps steps to make life easier for artists, but that taking a small amount of money and giving it to random artists has a huge potential upside: practically no effort, many benefits.

I know several artists whose paintings will genuinely be hanging on walls for hundreds of years. Or prints. Or photographs. Most make ends meet, and one or two are comfortable. Their work ranges from truly amazing to decidedly mediocre (in my opinion). Did any of them get this magic lottery? Yes, some did. Others (including my partner) did not.

raffraffraff2• 5 months ago

Ask her if she would prefer the government actually spend the money in ways that make it easier for arts / crafts people to actually make their own living. You know, instead of a handout. My wife doesn't think her self esteem would improve if she could only survive on a handout.

Ask her how much it costs for a stall at Showcase every year. Why does the RDS have this whole area sewn up? Why don't the government sponsor events like this? Why is the craft council absolutely useless? They can't organise anything, they just wait for gougers to set up ultra expensive events and then tag along.

Ask her if she'd prefer subsidised rent for her business in a decent location, in a city or town? Remember before Templebar got gentrified, it was an absolute shithole, decaying buildings that should have been condemned and torn down, and yet because it was cheap, it became the place for artists, designers, jewellery makers, cooks to set up, and became the most interesting part of Dublin. Sky High rent drove away all but the big chains, and now it's soulless. What do the small makers have now? Nothing.

What about subsidised shipping? Right now An Post are massively increasing the cost of their flat rate small parcel shipping within the country. Why invest in that, and make it easier for makers to ship their products at a reasonable, predictable price?

What about actual help with the "running a business" part, that many artists suck at?

I dunno. Giving free money to a few people, without even checking whether or not they need it, strikes me as unfair, lazy and short sighted. Why bother doing anything at all if you're getting free money? But reduce the cost and difficulty of running a business... That actually encourages it.

Teach a man to fish vs give him a fish.

feverzsj• 5 months ago

Weird way to call homeless people.

abujazar• 5 months ago

This is not basic income, it’s a grant for artists.

Still a good idea though.

sgt3• 5 months ago

I know a guy in Norway who got the "statsstipendiat" fund which basically gives him a very decent salary for the rest of his life, no questions asked. All he need to do is just continue doing whatever he's doing, make art and so on.

That came as a big relief as he always struggled to make money, but it's still not a thing that a lot of people get.

Thlom• 5 months ago

That being said, it seems like this is being phased out. No new "statsstipendiat" has been awarded since 2019. Before that it was mostly 1-3 persons awarded each year.

sgt3• 5 months ago

That's silly, I think more should be handed out, to encourage art and culture and let it grow organically. But I guess with the Norske Krone doing so weak and the economy and all...

BryantD5• 5 months ago

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. Speculation and anecdotes are not terribly useful but my Irish author friend is not from a rich family, nor is she well-off, but she’s able to support her husband and child in a smaller Irish city by dint of writing several books a year and stressing a lot. I don’t think it would be possible without the tax exemption.

https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/money-and-tax/tax/inco...

qeternity4• 5 months 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• 5 months ago

There’s plenty of things that are valuable for society while still not having significant financial value.

halls-940• 5 months ago

It's naive to conflate income as a clear signal of what society needs.

tappio• 5 months 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

karolinepauls• 5 months ago

As demonstrated, crisps are more valuable to the society than art.

krige• 5 months 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.

crabmusket• 5 months 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.

BryantD5• 5 months 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• 5 months 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.

RHSeeger2• 5 months 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• 5 months 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.

closewith14• 5 months 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.

dgb233• 5 months ago

That's a problem with all tax havens. They drastically increase inequality and inflate assets, especially housing and rent.

BryantD5• 5 months 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.)

nilamo• 5 months ago

Why fix one problem, when another problem also exists?

Spooky233• 5 months ago

People get very high and mighty when it comes to other people’s getting of benefits or paying taxes.

bagacrap7• 5 months 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?

jcarrano2• 5 months ago

Society has not disintegrated.

Has art improved in any measure?

komali219• 5 months ago

Yes! Can you prove me wrong?

some_random6• 5 months 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.

fareesh• 5 months ago

im sure this will make their political art more popular with the working class

Guestmodinfo• 5 months ago

I feel Ireland has produced lots and lots of literary genius like James Joyce and others. Sometimes I wake up at 5am for a book club about his book for two hours and we only finish 1 page of his book. This is the reason that is in their culture to celebrate and perpetuate art. I'm looking forward to more and more Irish art

scandox• 5 months ago

Some instinct, waking at these memories, stronger than education or piety, quickened within him at every near approach to that life, an instinct subtle and hostile, and armed him against acquiescence. The chill and order of the life repelled him. He saw himself rising in the cold of the morning and filing down with the others to early mass and trying vainly to struggle with his prayers against the fainting sickness of his stomach.

michalu• 5 months ago

I know so many "artists" in Paris, London, Barcelona and Berlin and I can't name a single one who deserves this. In my opinion any other demographic is more deserving. But as long as we're going to pretend anyone who says they do art is an artist or "you just a lowly pleb who doesn't understand art" we're going to have to play this game and pay for it.

fedeb955• 5 months ago

this kind of reasoning will accumulate so much inefficiencies that it will eventually blow up. Or, in the best case scenario, create a proportional inflation that makes this subsidies useless.

Think about the big picture: your salary is a cost for someone else. In the case of "basic income" is a cost for the tax payers. Who decides what benefits the tax payers? The state can't possibly do it, if not for a limited extent. Today we don't have a method more efficient than free market and free prices. Planned economies have historically failed. It may work for now, we all love arts; but tomorrow it will be the artisans (were is the boundary between art and crafts?), then maybe small businesses?

Each of this "tax exemptions" or subsidies eats the profits of someone else. Very rarely it's the richest luxuries that are taken away. Usually it's the middle-low class that doesn't receive exemptions and subsidies who's penalized. Ironically, that same class that most could consume art, crafts, and products in general. This way society spirals toward an halt.

philipallstar8• 5 months ago

People love to carve out little niches where certain special people can succeed more easily, or the pyramid of people in competition for the prize/money is smaller, so they have a better chance of getting something out of it. The trick is not to be working class and you have a good shot at someone somewhere being someone who has some influence to give you an easier ride.

graemep• 5 months ago

Art is not a free market. The art market is heavily manipulated by investors in art.

The subsidies and tax exemptions artists receive are small so if you are arguing for less state subsidy or its the least of the problems you should look at.

I am not convinced that this particular scheme is a good idea, but the alternative is not a free market.

then maybe small businesses?

Big business already receives both explicit exemptions and defacto ones. Ireland is part of the mechanism that lets they structure their businesses in ways that avoid tax that are not available to small businesses.

fedeb955• 5 months ago

you are citing distortions of a free market to invoke more distortions. This is the spiral I'm talking about.

danlitt5• 5 months ago

This argument has a lot of holes in it. Notably,

Planned economies have historically failed.

Very much false - the US war and post-war economy was very heavily planned, and was perhaps the most successful economy in history (precisely until it was gutted in the 70s/80s).

best case scenario, create a proportional inflation

You give no reason to expect that this inflation will at best be proportional. It is perfectly possible (in fact likely) that the inflation will be less than proportional, because the price-setters (companies) are being taxed to give money to people on low incomes, who are economically speaking mostly consumers.

Each of this "tax exemptions" or subsidies eats the profits of someone else. Very rarely it's the richest luxuries that are taken away.

Defeatist argument. It is obvious from history that taxation can be recouped from the rich, we just don't generally try to do that at the moment. We should start.

fedeb955• 5 months ago

Companies are the same that both give salaries to consumers and can up prices. More taxes on companies means higher prices, job cuts, less salary increases. It's not necessary to point out that your quote of the post-war economy is cherry-picking. Plus, after a war it's very easy to get a recovery, especially if you win it.

You talk about the US, but look at countries where the state is both heavy on taxes and inefficient. The point is that you delegate decisions on what do do and how to do it to very few people. They can be good, or be bad. Diversifying on an entire market is better.

The only thing that can save middle/low class consumers is the hope that the state won't increase taxes faster than we can save money. A culture of proper saving, of not falling for luxury items presented as necessary by our peers (or companies selling them), is the only way out. Focusing on what matters.

Most of us are instead living in the illusion that we can live a luxury life.

_heimdall8• 5 months ago

Price inflation isn't the only type of inflation. Monetary inflation was historically the "inflation" people focused on, and given that Ireland runs a deficit in their state budget this would be adding to the debt and inflating the money supply.

whiplash4513• 5 months ago

Countries benefit massively from art. First-grade art attracts wealthy people who pay local taxes and wealthy tourists who contribute to the economic cycle of the country. For some European countries, the numbers are mind-blowing.

fedeb955• 5 months ago

it is a short term benefit.

_heimdall8• 5 months ago

What you're describing then would only be a short term chicken and egg problem.

If, once established, a thriving art scene generates value by attracting tourism, wealthy individuals who want to patronize the arts, etc then the artists would be able to charge enough to fund themselves and potentially do very well for themselves.

In that scenario we'd only need to fully subsidize artists for a short period of time, the subsidy law should have an expiry date.

Schlagbohrer4• 5 months ago

** * libertarian

deaux2• 5 months ago

This is absolute peak irony given that Ireland is the number two valiant protector of US big tech - right behind the US itself - including the main AI corps. Shielding them from prosecution for all the laws they violate across a population of 450+ million. And then they give their own citizens this UBI from a sliver of the protection money they get paid. Fuck you, got mine.

It's despicable, they're as much as an insider threat as Hungary.

whiplash4513• 5 months ago

Not sure why they claim a “first in the world”.

France has had a similar scheme for a long time (“intermittent du spectacle”).

It is not perfect but does a great job at sustaining artists who work hard to live from their art.

everdrive• 5 months ago

I wonder if there's a lot of controversy here. I'm not Irish, but I would really hate to be subsidizing the guy who taped a banana to a wall, for instance. In the general sense, I think subsidizing the arts can be a smart move, but so much art these days is nothing of the sort.

jimnotgym14• 5 months ago

There are some pretty revealing comments here. People seem to think only money has value.

Then there are people who see art only as a rich person's pursuit. It can be, but it doesn't need to be.

I am reminded of Daniel James also known as Gwyrosydd, his bardic name. He was a Welsh language poet, who wrote probably the greatest Welsh language song, Calon Lân (means 'a pure heart'). People throughout Wales sing this song 130 years later. It is a proud continuation of a bardic tradition in Wales going back probably thousands of years. It also encompasses the Welsh culture of choral singing, noted in early recorded history.

Daniel James spent his life slaving away in an ironworks, making crucible steel. John Hughes, who wrote the tune worked in an office there.

I like to imagine what they could have done had they been at leisure to work and perform all day.

Go Ireland, great scheme. I wish we had it over here in the UK.

Schlagbohrer4• 5 months ago

When Nirvana first moved from their small Washington town to Seattle, they were able to pay their rent + everything else from working minimum wage jobs for 2 weeks a month. They had time to practice music and pursue their art.

In an era where working a full time job is not enough to pay the cost of living, arts and culture no longer exist except as hobbies for rich kids. Seattle successfully exterminated their entire arts, music, and culture scene by raising the cost of living sky high.

closewith14• 5 months ago

In an era where working a full time job is not enough to pay the cost of living, arts and culture no longer exist except as hobbies for rich kids.

In Ireland _today_, we are in an era where working as a nurse, paramedic, firefighter, teacher, etc have become unable to pay the cost of living, leaving them to exist only as hobbies for the rich kids who can be subsidised by their parents or immigrant labour willing to be exploited to avoid deportation.

Is health not wealth? Education? Safety? Or does only the arts deserve this subsidisation?

maccard2• 5 months ago

I live in a fairly expensive city in the UK. Working minimum wage for 2 weeks will pay for a room in a flat share, plus my households food and required bills.

It’s not much of a life but the same still stands in many cities.

CGMthrowaway• 5 months ago

Citation needed. "Cobain thought Seattle was too expensive a place to live. He couldn’t even afford his Olympia apartment, and was evicted for not paying rent while he was recording Nevermind.”[1] "They supported themselves through food stamps, sleeping on porches."[2]

[1]https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/music/that-magic-...

[2]https://www.livenirvana.com/interviews/9307rh/index.php

ap99• 5 months ago

You can only tax people so much before it's too much.

effective tax rates

0% ... not realistic outside very unique circumstances. 25% ... feels fair to me. 33% ... still fair but yeah 1 out of every 3 days worked you start to feel that. 50% ... the border of fair and unfair. if i keep less than half of what i make, that feeling of fairness wears thin.

Now, when you are near that border of fair and unfair and then you see John Q Artist getting his whole list comped using tax money that pushes the somewhat fair into unfair territory real fast.

Now, we already have situations similar to this in most countries either from subsidies, gov't spending you don't agree with, corruption, waste, etc.

All of that should be reduced but when you see your neighbor living free while you slave away you feel that differently.

TheSpiceIsLife6• 5 months ago

It has a tendency to lead societies to do things like round up all the artists and intellectuals and against-the-wall when-the-revolution-comes them.

jimnotgym14• 5 months ago

What has that got to do with my comment?

dgb233• 5 months ago

Ireland is a tax haven though?

dns_snek3• 5 months ago

Which tax rates? We have dozens. What determines fairness is how the resources in our society are allocated once all is said and done. Income, tax rates, and even money itself is just an abstraction.

if i keep less than half of what i make, that feeling of fairness wears thin.

How fairly you made that money in the first place and what you get in return in the form of government services makes all the difference.

nandomrumber4• 5 months ago

I like to imagine what they could have done had they been at leisure to work and perform all day.

Probably nothing.

The idle rich and trust fund kids aren’t exactly know for producing, well, anything of value, really.

Getting paid to sit around all day and do fuck-all isn’t exactly character building.

jimnotgym14• 5 months ago

He was in his 40s when he wrote his most famous work, that would qualify as a portfolio in Ireland and get the grant.

I reckon the 20 years as an iron puddler he had done by then had built his character already.

eucyclos2• 5 months ago

The majority of great works created by the ruling classes of Athens or London at the height of both cultures ascendency is a major counterexample. Maybe we just had bad luck as to today's ruling class.

jodrellblank3• 5 months ago

Yes they are.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Independent_scientist... - "An independent scientist (formerly called a gentlemen scientist) is a scientist with a private income who can pursue scientific study independently as they wish without excessive external financial pressures."

Including: Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin (Evolution), Ben Franklin, Robert Boyle (Boyle's gas law), Oliver Heaviside (electromagnetic theory, co-axial cables), Alexander von Humboldt (established modern Geography), Thomas Jefferson, Leopold Kronecker, Alessandro Volta (voltaic pile battery)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_scientist - "Self-funded scientists practiced more commonly from the Renaissance until the late 19th century, including the Victorian era, especially in England, before large-scale government and corporate funding was available. Many early fellows of the Royal Society in London were independent scientists. "

Including "Charles Babbage, Henry Cavendish (discovered Hydrogen), Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Thomas Young (Young's modulus of elasticity, eyeball focusing), Joseph Priestly (discovered oxygen)

Rene Decartes "arrived in La Haye in 1623, selling all of his property to invest in bonds, which provided a comfortable income for the rest of his life."

And basically any tenured professor paid to do whatever interests them, or academic or researcher, especially mathemticians, hired and paid for blue sky research, all the places like Bell Labs that HN loves.

BSDobelix8• 5 months ago

Go Ireland, great scheme. I wish we had it over here in the UK.

It's a bad scheme, it divide's your population into people who have to create "wealth", and people who create "art".

Yes creating art (or preserving rare potatoes[1]) should be supported by your government if it's not survivable in a capitalistic society, however having different rights because of your occupation is not better then the middle ages.

[1] https://irishpotatofederation.ie/varieties/

jimnotgym14• 5 months ago

Or it divides them into people that create cultural wealth and people who create mere monetary wealth.

So you do agree that art should be supported by government I see, so how would you do it?

lucideer3• 5 months ago

I agree with your sentiment but in practice that criticism only shows that this measure is insufficient, not that it's a net negative.

I think it should go a lot further than it does but it seems unambiguously positive even by your own framing.

the_gipsy2• 5 months ago

people who have to create "wealth"

most people don't "create wealth". They're forced to serve up half of their awake time to someone that is "wealthy", most likely through inheritance.

elxr• 5 months ago

You get different rewards, not different rights.

It's the same as cities/governments spending on free public basketball courts/tennis courts/running tracks. I come from a country with none of those things, and the difference that makes on the average fitness/skill level of the population is massive compared to places where those things exist.

Both basic income, and public sporting infrastructure have a significant (but not unreasonable) upfront cost, but the payoff in even 2 years time will be massive. Provided the economics check out, there's no reason to not give it a shot.

b1123• 5 months ago

All form of welfare should keep a person alive, but never comfortable.

Living in a one room dwelling, with a shared bathroom is unpleasant, but safe, warm, and has a bed. Having enough for basic food, but no luxuries.

My point is, welfare(not disability, welfare) should sustain. Keep safe. Alive. Free from elements. But absolutely be something a normal person wants to escape from.

And there will always be those happy with the above, and .. well, OK.

But whether artist or whomever, basic living in hard times should be there for you.

mjanx123• 5 months ago

Whip them to the hamster wheel...

komali219• 5 months ago

All form of welfare should keep a person alive, but never comfortable.

Why? We are well beyond the scarcity that would require this.

Xunjin2• 5 months ago

There are some pretty revealing comments here. People seem to think only money has value.

To be fair, the majority has been conditioned in thinking that only money should be your purpose, that's literally how capitalism works, even arts now is a product that need to be sold to the highest bidder, or manufactured in the millions to be sold.

lbreakjai3• 5 months ago

The problem is, how do you define "art"? How do you define which art is worth subsidizing?

Am I eligible if I doodle on a piece of paper once in a while? What about if I decided to expose a urinal? Or paint a can of soup?

stemlord• 5 months ago

you can't really fake the labor that goes into mastering a craft any more significantly than one can fake labor at a white collar job, let alone some level of institutional involvement that any professional pursuit would end up with (i.e., showing a work at the gallery on main st or giving workshops at the community center), so this isn't actually that challenging of a question in practice. even with highly conceptual work there's still an involved studio/research practice to audit

if your artistic practice is truly so abstract that you can't prove labor by any material means then you probably just won't get subsidized for it.

misja1112• 5 months ago

People seem to think only money has value.

Your either don't understand or don't want to understand what people are commenting about here. Of course nobody thinks that only money has value. If only money had value, why would anybody exchange money for, say, a bread?

What many people are wondering about, is whether the value of the money paid by tax payers to artists, equals the value of what they give to the tax payers in return. Because if it would be equal, then one might wonder why they apparently are not able to sell their art for the same amount of money.

picture• 5 months ago

There are many things that are valuable to people, but which they would rather not pay for. They include public goods and externalities, like infrastructure and education and a reasonable amount of military. It makes a lot of sense that people would rather enjoy art for free if they had the option, and since the majority of art experience can be easily duplicated and transmitted, why pay for it yourself? There is also another benefit of art stimulating further intellectual and creative development of a society, perhaps yielding second order benefits that are hard to quantify. Thus overall, it can make a lot of sense for government to pay for art as a society.

ryanjshaw5• 5 months ago

I also wonder why the tax payers who care can’t contribute directly to a fund, and keep government out of entirely.

komali219• 5 months ago

Nobody pays to view a mural, but a lot of people view it, and property values go up as a result. It cost the artist time, effort, and money to make it, and if you hire an artist specifically to make a mural, it's prohibitively expensive for an individual.

Better to amortize the cost across the population and have public works. Like we do for infrastructure. Seems to work just fine.

AdamConwayIE• 5 months ago

You don't have to wonder whether or not it returns value to the tax payer. The Irish government already monitored the pilot program for two years, publishing all of the details and findings. [1]

"The headline finding from this social CBA is that for every €1 of public money invested in the pilot, society received €1.39 in return"

This came about as a mixture of greater economic activity from participants, cultural impacts that saw public-facing artist activities increase, and improvements to wellbeing of participants that reduced their requirement for psychological interventions by the state. The state also predicts that the further roll-out of this program will benefit consumers with lower prices for artistic works, as there will be more supply overall.

The scheme has been quite popular here in Ireland. Given the history of Ireland when it comes to art (both in the sense of spoken and written word, and in other mediums), it makes sense to introduce a scheme like this to safeguard and uplift those who produce art.

[1] https://www.gov.ie/en/department-of-culture-communications-a...

YesBox• 5 months ago

Unlike baking bread, It can take decades for an artist to become experienced enough to create something of value.

Some art, like classical music composition, is and has been propped up by grants and wealthy donors since forever.

Whether that’s a good allocation of resources is of course entirely subjective :)

angiolillo3• 5 months ago

one might wonder why they apparently are not able to sell their art for the same amount of money

"Public goods" like parks, museums, bridges, roadways, transit, nature preserves, community spaces, and public safety services produce both direct value to their immediate users as well as substantial diffuse value to their community. Direct value can be captured by user fees, tolls, subscriptions, etc but capturing diffuse value is challenging. A park raises surrounding property values even for people who do not visit the park. Good transportation infrastructure increases the value of surrounding land and and productivity per capita even for nonusers. Relying solely on user fees may force some of these entities to close or fall into disrepair, thereby reducing overall value by substantially more than it would have cost to maintain them. And in some cases shifting the cost burden to direct users substantially lowers the diffuse value, for example back when fire fighting companies would let houses burn unless their owners paid them, ultimately resulting in more overall community fire damage.

In these cases, subsidizing these public services with taxes (optimally Georgist land-value taxes) is an economically rational decision.

One could plausibly argue that artists similarly produce diffuse value e.g., raising the profile of their nation or culture, making their neighborhood a more desirable place for people with money. Not only do artists typically struggle to collect a share of this diffuse value, as renters the very value they create often ends up pricing out of their community. I could imagine cases where it is a net benefit for a government to subsidize such entities if such subsidy is less than the fraction of the diffuse benefit that ends up being collected by taxes.

I have no insight as to whether this scheme in particular is net positive, please see sibling posts for that. I'm just explaining that such arrangements are both economically rational and extremely common in high-functioning societies.

lucideer3• 5 months ago

Your either don't understand or don't want to understand what people are commenting about here.

From reading your comment I think this observation applies to your own understanding, not the gp's.

whether the value of the money paid by tax payers to artists, equals the value of what they give to the tax payers in return. [...] one might wonder why they apparently are not able to sell their art for the same amount of money.

You might not see it but this is effectively equivalent to thinking only money has value, because you're describing a system whereby value is defined by money. Your dichotomy assumes anything that cannot be sold has no value, & anything that is sold is only as valuable as its price. The emergent conclusion from that formula is that only money has value.

It's worth noting that it also follows from this that value is defined by people with purchasing power. If for example the only cohort who value any given piece of art cannot afford to financially support the artist creating said art, not only is the art & the artist's work without value, but by extension so too are the perspectives, autonomy & - ultimately - the lives of that cohort without value.

TomasBM3• 5 months ago

one might wonder why they apparently are not able to sell their art for the same amount of money.

Because the skills and effort needed to market and sell your art to an audience are not equal to the skills and effort needed to produce good art [1].

I agree that there could be other complementary or better solutions compared to this scheme. But as long as the above premise is true, not every good artist will want or be able to sell well.

[1] However you define this. Supposedly, Van Gogh was a lousy salesman, but a good artist.

multiplegeorges• 5 months ago

Art is often only appreciated in retrospect, so it is typically undervalued at the time of its creation.

equals the value of what they give to the tax payers in return

This seems incredibly shortsighted.

GorbachevyChase• 5 months ago

There really is not an objective criteria to find who is and it’s not an artist. The proposed system makes a purely political decision out of who sits at a desk doing unsatisfying but necessary tasks, and who gets to sit at home and smoke dope all day and put out a painting or a song twice a year. Not very fair to the tax donkey fixing the plumbing.

kiba3• 5 months ago

Don't tax labor, or capital which helps assist labor with performing economic activity ,or at least tax as little as possible.

Instead, focus on taxing scarce resources, especially since we cannot make more of it. If it's natural resources coming out of the grounds such as minerals and oil, it becomes a severance tax.

If we're talking about occupying land, then it's a Land Value Tax.

You could also tax negative externalities like pollution or traffic congestion.This is known as a Piguovian tax.

JKCalhoun2• 5 months ago

Plenty of people get upset if they think there is someone, somewhere getting a "handout".

It's easy to channel indignation toward those people and not, say, their corporate masters that seem to hold everyone's strings.

whywhywhywhy5• 5 months ago

What’s “corporate masters” got to do with a transaction from taxes and inflation (stolen value on your savings and spending power) to a handout?

whywhywhywhy5• 5 months ago

Why would I ever do work if I can just do art? I mean I have worked in the creative industries so I have successfully done art for others but why would I do art to serve others if I can just do what I want and live comfortably.

Or is it more of have to apply to be subsidized and the government chooses what art is worth subsidizing, which won’t result in good art, more just government building lobby bad art.

dev_l1x_be• 5 months ago

Daniel James spent his life slaving away in an ironworks, making crucible steel. John Hughes, who wrote the tune worked in an office there.

Part of being an artist (at least it used to be) is struggle.

afavour• 5 months ago

I’d say that’s correlation, not causation. Just because past artists have struggled to make ends meet doesn’t mean it’s a requirement to make art.

badgersnake• 5 months ago

What did you expect from a forum for VC fanboys?

akudha2• 5 months ago

People throughout Wales sing this song 130 years later

I wonder how far are we from a song that is entirely generated by AI and becomes as loved as a song created by a human, and is still sung/played by people decades later? It feels weird to even think about it.

If AI does get as good as humans at creating art (I think it might), what happens then? Will human generated art be still as respected/valuable? Will humans even bother creating art at that stage?

On the topic of basic income - people seem to have strong opinions on both sides. I guess time will tell, but there isn't anything wrong in experimenting, at minimum. To those who strongly oppose UBI - don't we already give bailouts, huge tax breaks, subsidies to entire industries etc, to the extent of rewarding bad behavior (criminal behavior even) - like the one that caused 2008 crash? Why is corporate handouts okay but not UBI?

matthewkayin• 5 months ago

Will human generated art still be as respected/valuable?

I would hope that humans would always value human generated art, but these days it seems that many businessmen and AI bros do not. Perhaps they are not human.

amichal• 5 months ago

I wonder, can we not turn all threads into a "when will AI do this creative thing better than humans".

Humans need basic income (or at least resources) and to have culturally valuable work to do. Art and craft esp as a form of human expression seems like we should ASSUME that humans want to do this, that we as a society value the human energy that goes into it.

EQmWgw87pw7• 5 months ago

Corporations produce things (productive), while UBI rewards unproductive behavior (theoretically)

ecshafer• 5 months ago

Who gets to be an artist? I want to be an artist now. Is it people who go to certain universities with art degrees? Can any working class guy decide he wants to pursue art and get the basic income?

Another question is would Daniel James work have been as good if he wasn't working in an ironworks? In the 1800s most of the great literature was written by normal guys writing on the side, they need that experience to make great art. Heart of Darkness is never going to be written by an academic. Hemmingway doesn't write anything without his experiences in Italy, Spain and France in WWI, Civil War and WWII, if he was just a beat reporter forever, all of his great inspirations don't amount to much. Tolstoy and Doestoyevsky are notable exceptions.

boston_clone• 5 months ago

Heck yeah, go be an artist! If you want to be one and aren't, what's stopping you? Perhaps the lack of financial security? ;)

Here's a non-exhaustive list of eligible types:

https://www.gov.ie/en/department-of-culture-communications-a...

maleno2• 5 months ago

Just to answer the question in this specific case: yes, a working class guy can decide he wants to pursue art (in quite a broad range of forms), and he can apply for the basic income once he can show that he is working as an artist. The artists who ultimately receive the payment will be chosen randomly once they meet the criteria to apply in the first place (which, again, is simply that you are working as an artist—exhibiting, publishing, performing, whatever "work" might mean in your case). There is a fixed number of people who can receive it in each round (I think it's 2500 people, cycling every three years), and those people are picked by lottery; if you receive it in one round, you cannot apply for the next. This, and in fact no arts funding in Ireland, has anything to do with certain universities or art degrees. This scheme is far from perfect, but these vaguely leading questions (so common to all commentary on public funding for the arts) are clearly irrelevant.

As for the second question ("would Daniel James work have been as good if he wasn't working in an ironworks"), well, life and art really are too varied to draw the kind of conclusions the following comment implies.

irishcoffee• 5 months ago

You're saying the quiet part out loud. Clearly we just need to pay people to "make art" all day long on the backs of taxpayers who will most likely never see the "art" or derive any value from it.

"Dad why are you working your hands off? Well... the government decided to pay people to "make art" instead of working. How come? Well... nope I have no fucking idea"

MisterTea• 5 months ago

Then there are people who see art only as a rich person's pursuit. It can be, but it doesn't need to be.

They don't care about the art, only the clout it brings them in terms of hoarding a limited thing people value.

Art is a medium that is used to convey and stir emotion in the viewer. It's not currency to anyone but shallow fools.

uyzstvqs• 5 months ago

Economics apply the same way to art. It can be one of the most profitable solo-endeavors, when your art is generally accepted as good or meaningful.

All the government-subsidized art that I've come across is straight up awful, and nobody ever actually cares for it. Typically it's weird abstract stuff.

By these standards, should I be paid an income from your tax money for my 5 side-projects on GitHub that nobody uses?

throwaway77385• 5 months ago

I'm reasonably sure funding for the arts is globally as low as can be.

If we applied the rule of "it has to be good to be worth it" and money is the main indicator for "good", then what about the myriad products and services that are low quality / terrible, yet make tons of money because they can afford to shove marketing down everyone's throats and thus stay relevant?

Most popular music is downright awful to me. Do I want to take their money away because I don't think they deserve it? No. On the other side of that coin I'd like to see some kind of counter balance. How many artists were considered awful until they suddenly became the biggest deal ever? Often posthumously.

This tiny sliver of funding for some people you may not like won't take anything away from you.

The early internet was so great because it was full of weird things. We've lost ALL of it, due to commercialisation. We stand to lose even more if we don't do something to fund the people who dare to be weird.

This goes right back to the thing Bezos said about how we need to become interplanetary so we can inhabit the galaxy, because if we inhabit the galaxy we could have a thousand Mozarts. I think we could already have a thousand Mozarts if they weren't busy slaving away in Amazon's warehouses.

Once there's a trillion humans in the galaxy and they're still all slaving away in warehouses, we still won't have any Mozarts.

Not everything can or should be quantified by money and economics.

Schlagbohrer4• 5 months ago

Nearly every great work of literature in the English canon was written by someone who was "on the dole" at the time.

k__• 5 months ago

Those programs make economic sense if the successful artists later pay for it with their taxes.

If they leave the country, then not so much.

BSDobelix8• 5 months ago

This is how you kill the idea of basic income, create rifts and factions.

_heimdall8• 5 months ago

Killing the idea of basic income would be a good thing. It will never work and would leave a society in much the same situation as other past attempts at Marxism.

pnut• 5 months ago

...and when your labour, and the labour of 90+% of all humans on the planet have no economic value, we'll do what?

Continue to avoid exploring obvious solutions because certain words have been made into epithets, or failed previously because they were solving future (now imminent) problems?

BSDobelix8• 5 months ago

Killing the idea of basic income would be a good thing.

Maybe we have a different look on basic income, for me it's like unemployment money with less steps and less overhead (less bureaucrats). I also dont know why you pull in marxism, but those systems normally starve because of bureaucrats (hello germany) where you have to fill out 10 papers to create one praline, and NO i dont say germany is "marxist", but they are really good at always taking the worst from both sides.

For giggles, lets say every work can be done by robots, every service by ai and energy is free (dyson sphere or whatever you want), who's left to spend money and for what? And tadaa StarTrek ;)

tokai2• 5 months ago

Basic income is not Marxism. Marxism is against basic income. Getting a basic income is almost the opposite to getting the actual value of your labor. I write this as someone against Marxism. You should read up on things, and not just let your biases dictate how you understand things.

Schlagbohrer4• 5 months ago

In Iceland, if a band can get an international tour scheduled, the Icelandic government will pay their tour costs. I believe Ireland has a similar plan of support for artists who can gain an audience abroad. Those nations know that the creativity of their people is a renewable resource and an economic engine as well as a source of cultural "soft power".

I absolutely do not expect sillycon valley libertarians to understand or appreciate any of this so probably a good idea to avoid the comment section here...

ricardobayes• 5 months ago

We should normalize this. Before, artists were able to live in hotel suites, something that would be impossible nowadays.

mdemare• 5 months ago

The Netherlands has had a similar scheme for decades:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artist_subsidy_(Netherlands). 1956-1987.

misja1112• 5 months ago

Yeah but then this was called a subsidy so it would never have made the HN frontpage.

benbojangles• 5 months ago

100 million euro project - that's around 1/4 of a salvator mundi

jcarrano2• 5 months ago

"If you need subsidies in order to live off art, you don't live off art but live off the state".

As part time artist I see many problems with these schemes:

- Decoupled from people's actual appreciation of the art being done: I feel better when I know people voluntarily gave up their hard-earned money for what I do. - Monopoly-style "winner takes all". The people who benefit from this are the ones already in a position to ask for the benefit. - No one bites the hand that feeds then. That will form a body of "artists" subservient to the state.

The human problem is that no artist is willing to acknowledge that the public is not willing to spend money on their product.

christkv2• 5 months ago

Thats whats happened in Norway, and even worse they gave the artists the decision making process of handing out grants leading to them self dealing or dealing to their friends.

kbelder• 5 months ago

Oh, wow. The absolute worst thing that could happen to this sort of program would be for artists to make the decisions about who qualifies.

JKCalhoun2• 5 months ago

The obvious conclusion is that artists should make the art that the wealthy want and are willing to pay for.

And in hard economic times artists ought to turn to gleaning.

bagacrap7• 5 months ago

Must feel pretty good when rich people get into a bidding war over your product!

I have a hobby and I don't get compensated for it (quite the opposite). It's not making art, but if art were my calling I could quite easily see myself making it without any hope of monetary reward. There are plenty of people who have the same hobby as me and don't have a job -- they pursue it as is it's a job, though most are not paid either. I view that as some combination of privilege and laziness.

If there's any problem here it's that people don't have enough time to pursue hobbies. I only have enough time because I work from home (no time wasted commuting). Perhaps the government should focus on where we as a society waste people's time and energy such that they have none left over for hobbies.

miroljub3• 5 months ago

Everyone is talking about basic income as an experiment and wondering about its impact on productivity and human behavior. And everyone talks about hypothetical scenarios and a need for massive tests, without realizing that we already have a massive test data about basic income.

There's a huge group of people in western countries that has received unconditional basic income for decades, without any requirements. No questions asked, no documents required, no forced work. They could basically use that free money to flourish and pursue whatever creative activity they could imagine, without fear of economic downsides.

And we know the results already. We see it in our cities daily. But as a society, we have decided not to talk about it so we are not called racists or far right. Instead, we keep ignoring this massive group with an equivalent of basic income and keep pretending we still require experiments on its effects.

But yeah, let's test a few dozen Irish artists and keep pretending everyone needs to work for a living.

danparsonson2• 5 months ago

You'd need to be more specific - who/what is this huge group of people you're referring to?

miroljub3• 5 months ago

You'd need to be more specific - who/what is this huge group of people you're referring to?

I already explained why I don't want to say it aloud in this context. Your guess is as good as anyone's.

... as a society, we have decided not to talk about it so we are not called racists or far right.

christkv2• 5 months ago

Countries like Norway that has this has lead to a scandal of the artists who decide who gets money, self dealing and giving grants to their friends. You are either in the group and get money or outside and get none.

Get rid of it. State sanctioned art is is probably worse than no art.

RegnisGnaw• 5 months ago

How is this basic income when it’s like a job? There is only 2000 spots. There was over 8000 applicants. The committe choose the most qualified applicants.

throwaway746282• 5 months ago

A novel treatment for the proverbial dying man. I understand that this program is currently assigned at random but it’s prudent to assume that they’ll shift to a “merit based” system before long i.e. sweetheart deals for members of the right clique, nepotism, and the occasional worthwhile project. For concrete examples, look no further than the content funded and produced by the national broadcaster, RTE. Aside from a few decent documentary shows, the dramas and comedies produced are extremely low quality, often with the same familiar faces who are well established in the clique. The occasional exception proves the rule.

relistan2• 5 months ago

Alternatively, it's successful and is expanded to support more artists in the future. Cynicism with governance not unjustified in Ireland, but here we are looking at some actual progress.

throwaway746282• 5 months ago

Artists picked at random will still be subject to existing conditions, those best able to maneuver within the social and political currents will inevitably outperform those who cannot. Those running the program are ill-equipped to define it’s success, being part of the same regime which routinely delivers bottom-of-the-barrel slop.

reliabilityguy• 5 months ago

Cynicism with governance not unjustified in Ireland

What do you mean?

forgotaccount32• 5 months ago

it’s prudent to assume that they’ll shift to a “merit based”

There is already a "Merit based" system that supports the arts. It's called the private market.

My initial gut reaction was akin to many responses here but a post that detailed the implementation mitigates many concerns I'd have if I were an Irish citizen. As long as the system has some required 'buy-in' from applicants to prove they are working towards being an artist, and the distribution is random so it's not a guaranteed payout, and possibly the odds of being selected are driven by the number of applicants and so no one could do a cost-benefit analysis of submitting the 'buy-in' purely with hope of receiving a payout, then this seems to be a more fair way of supporting up and coming 'arts' than the government paying some already established artist for a mural or to design a park or to create a sculpture.

the_wolo• 5 months ago

I am really fond of countries creating public wealth by supporting art like this. Imagine how beautiful everything around of us could be if more were to create art instead, e.g. denying people their cancer therapy at an insurance. I yearn for that future…

antisthenes• 5 months ago

We're going to need basic income for all people whose jobs have been absolutely gutted by LLMs.

luplex• 5 months ago

I think this is a great idea, and a good example of a government that's willing to experiment with creative policy ideas.

Maybe UBI works for some recipients when it's clearly time-limited and the recipients have a clear way to building a stable income, but are bottlenecked on time and capital. I think artists are a good fit for such a program.

some_random6• 5 months ago

Ireland redirecting some of the wealth they have parasitically stole from the rest of the world to reboot serfdom is a fascinating development

slibhb• 5 months ago

What's better? Artists competing for the mass public, artists trying to please individual rich patrons, or artists trying to placate some government commission?

I think a mix is fine. But there are disadvantages if you weigh too heavily on the latter two. In Europe, there's already quite a lot of government subsidies for art. Try finding a British or French movie that doesn't open by announcing its connection with some government subsidy program. While I quite like quite a lot of what Europe produces (especially cinema), in the long run I suspect it won't be sustainable. Whereas the free(r) market approach of e.g. the US and Japan will end up ahead.

johncoltrane• 5 months ago

Well, I don't depend on my art to sustain my livelihood. This allows me to do whatever I want without a care in the world for marketability.

Much better than all three choices combined if you ask me.

almosthere• 5 months ago

Bad idea

camgunz2• 5 months ago

HN: Don't worry about AI, UBI will fix it.

Also HN: UBI is a scam and no one will want to contribute to society.

jjice2• 5 months ago

But HN is thousands of people and not one hivemind.

camgunz2• 5 months ago

I don't see any pro-AI people in this thread heralding the toehold UBI is getting in Ireland.

ProllyInfamous• 5 months ago

"...go into the arts. I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something."
—Kurt Vonnegut

Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists

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