Towards equal creative freedom: Universal Basic Income and the socioeconomic conditions of artistic work

This article explores the implications of Universal Basic Income (UBI) in the artistic sector. Firstly, it presents the tensions between artistic autonomy and the market. Secondly, it showcases some demands that have been put forward by artists responding to neoliberal precarization. Thirdly, it focuses on competing understandings of human action, artistic creation and what effectively contributing to society is, and explores the potentiality of public policy in terms of promotion of freer forms of creativity. Finally, it embraces an idea of “equal creative freedom” and makes the case for UBI as a means to universalize substantively equal socioeconomic conditions for free artistic creation.