i don't actually want an artist's grant, though. i've looked into this, and it's just state coercion, in the end; we don't really want the government deciding what is and isn't art, either.

we need to look at the gai, more generally. what i'm providing is an argument in favour of guaranteed income, explicitly from an artists' perspective.

so, don't tell me that the value of what i do is determined by how much i sell; i'll take the exact opposite position, and argue that any art that can be commodified to the point of being successful in this economy isn't worth the cost to produce it.

the only art worth bothering with in this culture is that which is permanently and inherently unmarketable.

as zappa would say, it would necessarily have "no commercial potential" to be worthwhile.

look at the type of musicians that do well in this society. how many of them are talented? like, at all, in any way?

they tend to be attractive, yes. talented? no...

now, spend some time in the underground looking for actually talented musicians, and tell me how many of them are able to survive without an alternate source of income. in case after case you'll find that they come from wealthy families and don't have to work, or they have some other job that pays the bills.

the connection between talent and income is non-existent - it's a scatter-plot, with no discernible relationship in any direction at all, except maybe a weak inverse relationship.

and, that holds for virtually every other art form, as well, with the possible exception of film, which requires massive startup costs to exist.

if everybody loves you, and you're able to make lots of money on the free market as an artist, you're not challenging the status quo very much are you?

art is impossible in a market society, because it has to be commodified to exist.

so, you'll hear people say things like "well, if people agreed with them, and liked their art, they'd be able to survive." - and they think that's an argument against the artist, rather than an argument against the market. and, to an extent they're right - it's an anti-artist position, one that is roughly in line with somebody like ayn rand and that rejects the concept of art on it's face.

artists need a way to escape the market, by definition - because if they're actually able to survive in the market without any sort of subsidies, they're not producing anything substantive.

in years past, we solved this problem by having artists seek commissions from the aristocracy. you can imagine i don't like that much, but it's at least better than telling me to go sell a product in order to survive.

i don't need or want wealth, i want enough stability to exist to create. and, we'll let the future determine the value of the product - because the market is incompetent.