For the past three years, Ireland has invested in 2,000 artists, paying them around $1,500 per month in basic income. Some may argue that it would be a waste of taxpayer money. However, after the three-year trial ended, the endeavor was a net positive for the Irish economy, so the government made the program permanent.
TreadOnMe [none/use name] - 2mon
Damn who would have thought that an increased ability to satisfy demand would increase economic growth?
32
kristina [she/her] - 2mon
this seems like a genuinely awful policy, 36 mill a year can be used for a lot of social housing that you can simply dictate as free. and why exactly are artists so worthy of the money over some homeless person or something?
13
MayoPete [he/him, comrade/them] - 2mon
Maybe they should do both of these things?
26
kristina [she/her] - 2mon
maybe, im not convinced a basic income is really consistent with socialist policy. if its a quick way to help homeless people im down for it, but i think the reality is eventually some landleech somewhere will simply raise prices without strong controls on pricing. artists in particular would be easy to target for pricing
13
ufcwthrowaway [none/use name] - 2mon
UBI is going to be neccesary for any socialist project since its a really simple way to de-commodify labor
8
Collatz_problem [comrade/them] - 2mon
USSR had something vaguely similar with things like The Union of Writers, granting stipends to writers. The result was that writers were thinking that they get too little and became more anticommunist.
11
7bicycles [he/him] - 2mon
36 mill a year can be used for a lot of social housing
do you mean like to make it nicer again or to build it
8
kristina [she/her] - 2mon
build it, in usa you can build a whole mid rise complex for 7 mill in most places
7
7bicycles [he/him] - 2mon
how many housing units does that have
5
kristina [she/her] - 2mon
i actually did a calculation on this at one point and posted it somewhere on hexbear, i dont recall the specific numbers. it is actually quite cheap to scale building many housing blocks, and the biggest benefit is you prevent landowners from raising prices. i'll do a quick search to see if i can find it.
edit: if you compare market prices, and this may be significantly different from 3ish years ago, you can build a single apartment for 20k usd
6
kristina [she/her] - 2mon
if you compare market prices, and this may be significantly different from 3ish years ago, you can build a single apartment for 20k usd
added the edit
4
7bicycles [he/him] - 2mon
Can I get a source here because 20k for an apartment is the kind of number that I don't think would cover material cost in a socialist country
10
kristina [she/her] - 2mon
i dug through a bunch of sources and came to the number that it was 2500 rubles per 320 sqr feet according to some soviet docs in the 80s, i then compared their material costs to ours
id link more but im on mobile and busy rn
4
7bicycles [he/him] - 2mon
That's fine, nae worry, but I have to say I don't think 80s rubles per sq feet transliterate to a 2025 world all that great
5
ufcwthrowaway [none/use name] - 2mon
36 million is not a lot of money for a government. Individual cities in the US have budgets in the billions. There are 1000 millions in a billion.
Champoloo in politics
Ireland paid artists a basic income and it was a boost for the economy.
https://www.good.is/ireland-basic-income-artists-permanentDamn who would have thought that an increased ability to satisfy demand would increase economic growth?
this seems like a genuinely awful policy, 36 mill a year can be used for a lot of social housing that you can simply dictate as free. and why exactly are artists so worthy of the money over some homeless person or something?
Maybe they should do both of these things?
maybe, im not convinced a basic income is really consistent with socialist policy. if its a quick way to help homeless people im down for it, but i think the reality is eventually some landleech somewhere will simply raise prices without strong controls on pricing. artists in particular would be easy to target for pricing
UBI is going to be neccesary for any socialist project since its a really simple way to de-commodify labor
USSR had something vaguely similar with things like The Union of Writers, granting stipends to writers. The result was that writers were thinking that they get too little and became more anticommunist.
do you mean like to make it nicer again or to build it
build it, in usa you can build a whole mid rise complex for 7 mill in most places
how many housing units does that have
i actually did a calculation on this at one point and posted it somewhere on hexbear, i dont recall the specific numbers. it is actually quite cheap to scale building many housing blocks, and the biggest benefit is you prevent landowners from raising prices. i'll do a quick search to see if i can find it.
edit: if you compare market prices, and this may be significantly different from 3ish years ago, you can build a single apartment for 20k usd
added the edit
Can I get a source here because 20k for an apartment is the kind of number that I don't think would cover material cost in a socialist country
i dug through a bunch of sources and came to the number that it was 2500 rubles per 320 sqr feet according to some soviet docs in the 80s, i then compared their material costs to ours
id link more but im on mobile and busy rn
That's fine, nae worry, but I have to say I don't think 80s rubles per sq feet transliterate to a 2025 world all that great
36 million is not a lot of money for a government. Individual cities in the US have budgets in the billions. There are 1000 millions in a billion.