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The European cultural sector, pandemic precarity, and Universal Basic Income
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The COVID pandemic revealed and exacerbated structural problems and inequalities that were already present at many levels of our societies and economies. One of the fundamental institutions that was severely shaken was that of work itself, both through the cessation of activities, the rapid shift to telematic work and the increase in digital services, often provided through online platforms.

The EU and its member states were obliged to intervene in ways that might have seemed impossible only months ago, in what resembles a nationalisation of salaries. It also became evident that the process of regulating the platform economy had to be speeded up. All this seems to suggest that we are in a period of re-thinking what work is in our societies today, something reflected in the current high-level discussion around the 'social EU'.

One of the hardest hit sectors was that of the cultural and creative industries (CCIs). Apart from the major problems caused by closures, cancellations, and staggering drops in revenue (up to 90% for the performing arts), the unsustainability of the sector’s work model became glaringly obvious. Work in the sector involves higher than average rates of self-employment, part-time work, and transnational mobility. All these do not always easily fit the norms that regulate most work in relation to social security, remuneration, or taxation. Furthermore, EU statistics on the workforce do not capture the significant contribution to culture made by temporary or intermittent workers, those who volunteer or have cultural work as a second occupation.

Rather than simply trying to patch up the system, it could be time for a radical re-thinking of work in general, its relation to the creation of value and to remuneration. Such insights might also support powerful arguments in favour of a Universal Basic Income (UBI). This is the background framing to our conversation.

Christos Carras (CC): Culture is perceived (including in EU policies) as being of great benefit for society as a whole in many direct and indirect ways. However, work in the cultural sector is usually precarious, often subsidized, and we have got used to not paying for digital content. Does this set it apart from the market?

Philippe Van Parijs (PP): The cultural sector is extremely diverse. There is little in common between the life prospects and aspirations of a film director or an opera manager and those of an occasional aquarellist or slammer. But one widespread feature is that a cultural job, whether very part-time or more than full-time, whether directly or only very indirectly creative, is in itself meaningful to those who perform it.

For most, cultural creation is a vocation. Pecuniary reward is not the main driver. And this pecuniary reward is very uncertainly and unequally distributed, today even perhaps more unequally than ever. Like in sport, there is a winner-take-all dynamic at work, persistently amplified by technology and globalization, and also, more than in sport by the sticky grip of intellectual property rights. Thus, the vagaries of the market generate stunning wealth for a few and uncomfortable precariousness for most. Unfortunately, there is no alternative to the market mechanism that could remunerate each cultural activity according to some objective standard of valuable contribution to society or civilization.

CC: Does this suggest that people contribute to the overall wealth of society in many essential ways that are not directly related to the market and to salaried employment and that this wealth should rather be held in common and redistributed?

PP: Certainly, those who make a lot of money in the cultural sector as in any other must realize how much of this money they owe to a technological context and an institutional framework which they did nothing to create and to a lucky matching between market demand and the skills they happen to possess. Taxing their earnings more vigorously than is currently the case, including, thanks to far more effective international cooperation, is therefore more than justified. And if this money is used, for example thanks to a UBI, to provide greater economic security to precarious workers, it will give more people longing for a cultural career a chance to pursue their vocation.

[1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/can-europe-make-it/european-cultural-sector-pandemic-precarity-and-universal-basic-income/