Post-Growth Capitalism on a burning planet needs a Universal Artist Income
New Zealand nil, Ireland 325. A progressive new arts wage policy in Ireland, which pays €325 per week to artists over a three-year period with no strings attached, has the support and admiration of Opposition parties in New Zealand—but no firm plans to commit to a similar model.
Ireland’s new Basic Income for the Arts (BIA) initiative will give artists a weekly income in the hope of reducing their need for alternative work. A pilot scheme has become permanent, with 2000 artists being selected at random—no hoops, no criteria—to receive the weekly €325 wage. Irish author Caelainn Hogan was among those whose name was drawn from a hat in the pilot scheme; she wrote in the Guardian, “I am a freelance writer who, like most artists, has always had to work outside my creative focus to afford to live, constantly worrying I will never be able to afford a home myself or to start a family. As such, the basic income was life-changing.”
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I believe we need to pivot to a 100% renewable energy, sustainability focused circular post-growth economy.
Part of that post-growth economy is supporting artists with a Universal Arts Income so that the can produce the art that helps us grieve the world we are about to lost thanks to climate change.
We need more Left Universalism.
We need to lift the tax yoke off working people, beneficiaries and the middle classes and we need to put it on the Banks, the Corporations, the Billionaires and the mega wealthy.
We need more Democratic Infrastructure, not less!
Why do we need these things?
Because the climate is shutting down and we face a bleak future where Billions will suffer and die thanks to catastrophic climate change.
This change will be forced upon us whether we like it or not.
This demands more connections, more bonds that bind us together to emotionally, socially, economically and politically survive what is coming.
Māori communalism is going to teach us a lot.
Here are some thoughts:
Iwi backed new Supermarket: Bring in a 3rd player into the supermarket duopoly that is Iwi backed with a focus on cheap prices for consumers, best prices for producers and high wages and work conditions for workers. Take 30% of the Supermarket Industry by force (allowed under the Commerce Commission powers) and use this as the backbone for a new food security system.
Mārae Civil Defence: Use Marae as the backbone of Civil Defence throughout NZ with resources based there alongside new building grants to strengthen those Marae.
Ministry of Green Works: We need to be able to build our own infrastructure.
New Mental Health First Responders: A whole new branch of first responders to deal specifically with mental health issues to talk people down and seek help rather than calling then Police and arresting people.
Artist Benefit: As part of a degrowth Capitalism model, pay Artists to make public art, use that art as a means to deal with the wondrous grief caused by the destruction of the planet.
Māori Parliament: An indigenous Parliament that amplifies Māori political voices.
Universal Student Union: Allow Student Unions to be the incubators for tomorrows politicians and stop students simply being cash cows for corporate education.
Universal Migrant Union: Stop migrant worker exploitation with universal student membership.
Retirement Village Unions: These scumbag retirement villages abuse their elderly and sick clients, universal Retirement Village Unions would stop them being exploited.
Pensioner Unions: Give our elderly a voice!
We don’t comprehend how bad things are going to get environmentally, the speed of heat that is happening right now shocks scientists and with research suggesting AMOC will shut down BEFORE 2050, we are in a a realm of violent change whether we want to acknowledge that or not.
Humanity heating planet faster than ever before, study finds
Researchers identify sharp rise to about 0.35C every decade, after excluding natural fluctuations such as El Niño
…that’s right.
Catastrophic Climate Change is speeding up and getting more intense.
The disconnect between news stories on the extreme weather events we are seeing and their connection with the global warming future we are locked into thanks to human pollution continuing the warm the planet beyond tipping points that once breached can’t return from – is a chasm.
The reality vs our weaponised apathy.
The distance between what is actually happening in an age of consequences vs deliberate ignorance.
Human pollution since the steam age has spiralled global temperatures beyond points that the biosphere can come back from.
We are seeing the reality of that in real time.
In 1980, the time between billion dollar climate destruction events was 3 months.
It’s now 18 days.
There is a point where the next destructive weather event strikes before you can rebuild from the last one.
We are meeting an Age of Consequences with a culture of wilful blindness.
These heatwaves are going to become the normal background of an ever warming planet, Climate Change is here and now, the ramifications of our denial only exacerbates the damage.
The realities of that changes everything and will become impossible to gloss over.
Change is coming to us whether we want it or not.
The failed neoliberal experiment of the last 40 years has ill prepared us for the realities of today.
The political spectrum will shatter once the sleepy hobbits of muddle NuZilind realise what is happening.
