There have been many casualties from the Covid Crisis, in Ireland one of the Industries that was severely affected was the Arts, Is Universal Basic Income part of the solution?
This post is about Universal Basic Income as a policy or movement and how it may be an unexpected winner of the Covid Crisis.
The Land of Saints and Scholars
Ireland has a long heritage of writers, poets, playwrights and musicians. It's sometimes even referred to as the land of Saints and Scholars. From literary greats like Joyce and Yeats to more contemporary musicians like U2 and Christy Moore. There is a strong tradition of the Arts in Ireland, and it's exported to the 4 corners of the world. In 2022, it’s hard to find a place in the world where you don’t hear an Irish Musician popping up on the radio.
Covid ...
Without a doubt today Music, The Arts & Live Performances are part of the fabric of Irish daily life but unfortunately the Industry has been massively overlooked and taken for granted in the last 2 years. It may never recover. This would be a tragedy and a huge loss for the Irish people.
The article that sparked this post was released by the World Econo mic Forum, and I came across it on LinkedIn today.
In Ireland, struggling artists might not have to struggle so hard.
Universal Basic Income (UBI)
In this post I wanted to share it with the Hive Community and a few thoughts more generally on UBI.
- The linked article provides a nice summary of UBI as well as the results of some recent trials.
Reading through the comments on the LinkedIn post there are certainly two very polarised schools of thought on the topic.
I would love to hear the Hive communities arguments for or against it.
The history of this social movement includes several trials, which have been accelerated due to Covid.
For example one of the policies of the Irish government during Covid has been to provide a support to working people who suffered unemployment due to covid. A temporary form of UBI called the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) was introduced.
The proposal for the Arts industry in Ireland, highlighted in the linked article, is even more interesting and we will see how that helps the Industry recover.
The results from other global trials to date also tell an interesting story and show positive results.
Social Safety Nets
Politics in my country, Ireland, since the foundation of the state has always veered on the Socialist side. The state has provided unemployment payment called the Dole to people who have not been able to find work.
This has acted as a social safety net for people, however it has been abused by many. Employed people that work 9-5 jobs, employers that pay employer tax and rates, give out about it all the time (including me) but having said that I have travelled to many other countries where such safety nets don’t exist and I have never liked what I have seen. My experience is that society benefits when people have some sort of Social Safety Net.
Recently I have had interesting conversations from people on the new more recent Government PUP payment and their views on returning to work. We will see how this plays out in Ireland, but I don’t think UBI in any form works unless there is some form of penalty for just milking the system.
Hive
Can Blockchain Communities provide Universal Basic Income,
- What if by being part of Hive you could get a living wage?
On the Steem blockchain I joined a community called @steembasicincome which was experimenting with this and since the hardfork now has evolved with the vision of “Social Experiment to provide every Hiver with Stake Based Income help us change the world”
It will be interesting to see what emerges out of the ashes of the Covid Crisis and how Blockchains like Hive can play their part. I am not sure leaving it up to Governments will get us very far.
- This post is my daily contribution to a challenge by @dragosroua to "publish a meaningful post every day of January"
Who's Up For A January Writing Streak?
During January I am visiting different communities virtually on Hive to see where I get the most engagement, and which inspire me most to write. Where I get the biggest welcome I might stick around :)
I hope you enjoyed this post to the Hive SBI Community about my observations on the Universal Basic Income and how Hive might be able to play a part in making this a reality.
If you would like to follow me to hear more I write mainly about Blockchain and Crypto but this month I am really going to explore different communities on Hive so my posts will be quite varied.