This isn't about any one industry failing, it's about a system designed to funnel value upwards while pretending the rest of us are just not hustling hard enough
For example, lotteries are inherently unjust, making random people wealthy for no reason, and hardly anyone cares. They just hope to win themselves.
Taylor Swift fans don’t care that she makes far more money than other talented musicians who languish in obscurity. They’re going to keep giving her more money. If you told them they shouldn’t because it perpetuates inequality, they wouldn’t get it.
It’s the opposite effect of insurance, where society works to undo the results of bad luck.
My point being, yes insurance obviously decreases risk for owners, but since insurance companies are the ones inheriting that financial risk, they also inherit the incentive to ensure that things are being done the right way.
They're very different visions of what "justice" means: one focused on snapshots of distribution, one focused on processes.
An example was that Miles Davis grew up in a middle class family -- his dad was a dentist -- who thought that becoming a musician was an OK career.
Sure, there were stars -- for instance in sheet music publishing -- but since then the working-class musician jobs have nearly vanished.
it's exactly the right word. Taylor Swift herself is a product. No less artificial than Boy bands and Kpop idol groups. These aren't hit or miss businesses, they're scientifically engineered performances, the music industry is literally that, an industry. Taylor Swift doesn't wake up in her bedroom with disheveled hair writing songs and people just flock around her, every piece of song writing, merch, marketing, and performance is micro-managed by an entire team of people.
And for that reason you can actually design the opposite. You can break up platforms that produce megastars, you can promote local music, local venues and artists, you can make people care and design what kind of artistic culture you want to be in.
It's true that when they find something that works, it will be exploited.
> every piece of song writing […] is micro-managed by an entire team of people
No doubt this is true for many many pop artists, where there are literally teams of people with song writing credits, but for Taylor Swift, it is almost always just her and Jack Antonoff credited with songwriting and composition, and not uncommonly just her alone. Say what you will about her, but she writes her own songs.
The subhed spells it out. It's a supply and demand world. If it's easy to do things, the supply increases. It's that simple.
That's not to say that the larger system isn't doing what you claim. Just that music is just too easy to make to be valuable.
The answer might be then to disallow capital from buying artists so easily. One option, which Canada does partially have on the books, is a concept of non-divestible "artist rights". If fully implemented, Taylor Swift would be incapable of selling away her works fully, always retaining a degree of control. This would no doubt reduce the value of art but would keep control in the hands of artists. So when the artist feels dissatisfied, they can always walk away no matter what contact they have signed earlier in their career.
NerdCubed did a video recently about similar experiences when publishing a book.
They actually don't. Water is contaminated at various levels in many places.
They have light and television because of the ordinary working people who work at and maintain electricity plants and design, sell, assemble electrical products.
These things exist despite the billionaire leeches not because of them.
I didn't get your point, but we certainly need more competition, not less.