This is, for better or worse, where every Western country is going. Its being legitimised as a participation income, but basic income is a more popular term.

In other words its a basic income for people who participate in society without being supported by the market.

Its not permanent in the sense that the people receiving the payment permanently get the payment, they have to continue being artists, and when they are added to a list its a lottery system for 2000 artists.

Some people are not included, like comedians (thank God, because government funded comedy would be the worst).

Its terrible because it means artists can't express any political opinions that deviate from the deep state line.

Carer's allowance is another kind of participation income that is seen as legitimate, although the state doesn't want to go there because it would bankrupt it, there are too many kids with autism that cannot function without full-time care. Their parents get almost no support, its a life sentence. But to give them an income that they could use to pay for care would open the door to a wide variety of carers, including those who are only nominally carers but in fact live off the pensions of the people who are supposedly being cared for, such as elderly people.

Really the schemes should be devolved to local communities, distributed to the greatest extent possible, and experiments conducted in narrow districts before rolling them out to "all artists" which just breeds resentment.

We do need a revolution in the idea of a welfare state, if jobs are decimated, and if money has to be printed for redistribution then I'll happily buy bitcoin and leave the system entirely, but I would like to see that money distributed in a decentralised way to people who participate in communities in positive ways.

But our society and elites are just too stupid for this kind of careful exploration of the problem.