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Comment by arexxbifs | Hacker News Reader

Sweden introduced a similar scheme in 1964, in which artists (broadly defined, having since come to include one clown and one chess player) have been given a basic income, supplementing their other incomes up to a specific level.

Artists couldn't apply for this, but were officially selected. The program was stopped in 2010, meaning no new recipients have been selected since. As far as I know, there's been no studies surrounding any measurable increase in artistic quality or artistic output.

It is of course easy to point out how deeply unfair such programs are on multiple levels. Unsurprisingly, many recipients have utilized loopholes in order to receive the grant despite having incomes and wealth well above the threshold.

Edit to clarify: Sweden still grants long-term stipends to various artists, sometimes up to a decade. What's described above is a guaranteed, life-long, basic income.

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I'd bet what happens is that it just funded a bunch of children of upper middle class families.

Scholarships and this kind of funds happen elsewhere and are based on merits. They end up funding a bunch of upper middle class's children because it turns out those children are well-equipped to perform higher on merits.

If you are too rich, then you wouldn't need this kind of fund.

If you are below upper middle class, then you would have a hard time competing with children from that class.

The upper middle class isn't rich enough to fund the kid but is good enough to accumulate a lot of merits.

>They end up funding a bunch of upper middle class's children because it turns out those children are well-equipped to perform higher on merits.

I'd argue they are well equipped to give the appearance of merit, rather than performing higher on actual merit.

That's not true.

We can easily look at countries like Vietnam and Thailand where the merit is basically exam-based. Extremely difficult to cheat or "give the appearance".

The upper middle class's children perform very well. The top universities are full of these children. They are the top of the country. They are math/computer/science olympiads

If you are too rich, then the children are too spoiled. If you are too poor, then you don't have time and space to study nor access to private tutors.

You're sort of right. This particular grant is extra curious because it's typically been given to already highly accomplished artists. Sweden is a small pond and although there are a few fun outliers in this crowd, most of them make out the upper echelons of the Swedish cultural societé. Some were born straight into it. Others, no doubt, had parents who could put them there and knew someone who knew someone. One, for example, is Swedish nobility and the son of a diplomat. Another was the son of a Swedish secretary of state.

While I'm sure there are some wholly self-made virtuosos on the list, it does give off an air of apparent nepotism.

Sweden punches far above its weight in game development (allegedly up to 20% of Steam revenue all goes to Swedish teams [1]), so if any people on any Swedish game developers have ever benefited from that program, I'd say the whole country has. That's surely been a huge benefit in terms of tax revenue, plus the gaming industry brings a lot of great minds to Sweden as well as improving their cultural soft power.

[1] https://www.gamereactor.eu/report-20-of-steams-revenue-goes-...

They have not, afaik. Here's the list of recipients:

https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statlig_inkomstgaranti_f%C3%B6...

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