[claudiawerner]

I'm not necessarily an advocate of planned economy (or actually, economy in general; the system I'm looking for has been aptly described as "the end of economy") but what you're saying completely misses the point of what GP was trying to say.

These people are responsible for themselves, and they want to follow a passion, to pursue it, despite there not being very much money in it. The money is constantly telling them to do something else, you are correct. But do we really want a society structured around what money tells people to do? Doesn't that seem even a little dystopian? I heard the phrase a while ago: "a dystopia without a despot".

You say that they have nobody to blame - but that's exactly what's wrong. Why should they have to blame themselves for following their scientific, artistic, philosophical or religious passions? Should they have to "choose to risk it all"? These are the questions that need answering, because I'm not convinced that people need to be considering artistic passions as a risk at all.

I don't think there's a solution to this problem so long as the market decides whether your passion is worthy of you being allowed to survive or not.

[slededit]

Money is societies way of telling people what they want. A person need not serve society, and society need not always be rational. However just with personal transactions if you want something you have to give something in return.

A person can eschew the pursuit of money but aside from basic support I don't think society needs to reward them for expressly disavowing its desires.