Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%<\/a><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\nIt cites the now well-circulated, but not well-circulated enough, statistics that the top 1% of Americans make almost a quarter of the income and that this same 1% controls 40% of the wealth.\u00c2\u00a0 You know it.\u00c2\u00a0 Because you want to be just like Bill.\u00c2\u00a0 Or Warren.\u00c2\u00a0 Or Lloyd. You too want to be rich.\u00c2\u00a0 But statistics say it’s not going to happen.<\/p>\n
At least if you’re well educated, you’ve got a change of getting a gig at Goldman Sachs, or at a Silicon Valley titan.\u00c2\u00a0 If you’re not, if you haven’t got a highfalutin’ CV, you become a musician.\u00c2\u00a0 You want to be a star.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s your road to riches.<\/p>\n
Think about this.<\/p>\n
Did Ahmet want to become rich?\u00c2\u00a0 Actually, he came from a well-to-do family.\u00c2\u00a0 The pioneers were all about the music.<\/p>\n
If it’s still about the music would Jimmy Iovine be mentoring lame wannabes on "American Idol"?\u00c2\u00a0 Come on, Jimmy knows talent.\u00c2\u00a0 And those acts ain’t got it.\u00c2\u00a0 But marry the exposure with one of Jimmy’s producers and you might end up with some money.\u00c2\u00a0 Ironically, less than there was in the pre-MTV era.<\/p>\n
And all the businessmen are bitching about it.<\/p>\n
Have you thought about this?\u00c2\u00a0 Didn’t the labels say that Napster would kill all incentive to make music?\u00c2\u00a0 There’s more music than ever before.\u00c2\u00a0 It may be an indecipherable landscape, but the main flaw in the sphere is not monetization, but content.\u00c2\u00a0 Who wants to follow people kissing the ass of corporations who are beholden to bucks themselves?<\/p>\n
Think about that.<\/p>\n
A hit means less than ever before.\u00c2\u00a0 Britney Spears couldn’t even sell 300,000 albums.\u00c2\u00a0 Radio’s a joke, going on the Cee-Lo track months after it’s a hit online.\u00c2\u00a0 But Rebecca Black illustrates that you can achieve national consciousness overnight.\u00c2\u00a0 She did it with train-wreck.\u00c2\u00a0 Could you do it with quality?<\/p>\n
It really comes down to power.\u00c2\u00a0 The rich use their money to gain power and keep it.\u00c2\u00a0 But their power pales in comparison to that of music.\u00c2\u00a0 Music can reach more people and make more change than a dollar ever will.<\/p>\n
Yes, we’re ripe for revolution.<\/p>\n
Because no one’s got anything.<\/p>\n
Talk to recent college graduates.\u00c2\u00a0 You can’t get a job.\u00c2\u00a0 Stiglitz asks if what happened in the Middle East can happen here…\u00c2\u00a0 OF COURSE IT CAN!\u00c2\u00a0 If a fruit vendor can topple monarchs in the Middle East, imagine the power of a musician, tapping into this same distress and unrest of the proletariat.<\/p>\n
In other words, don’t tie in with brands, RAIL AGAINST THEM!<\/p>\n
Take a stand.\u00c2\u00a0 About moral injustice, about financial inequality.\u00c2\u00a0 Don’t worry about pissing people off.\u00c2\u00a0 If you’re not pissing people off, you’re not doing it right.<\/p>\n
Look at it this way…\u00c2\u00a0 You can get musicians to fundraise for Japanese tsunami relief, but you can’t get these same people to lower their ticket prices so the poor can see them perform.\u00c2\u00a0 You can’t get these so-called artists to take a stand for health care reform or education improvement or just about anything that might piss a section of the public off.\u00c2\u00a0 Come on…\u00c2\u00a0 Do we really live in a completely homogenous society, when Britney reaches 275,000 people in a land of THREE HUNDRED MILLION?<\/p>\n
This is the issue of today.<\/p>\n
Don’t get confused and line up with the Republicans.\u00c2\u00a0 Because they’re owned by the corporations.\u00c2\u00a0 Can you say KOCH?\u00c2\u00a0 They get people to vote contrary to their economic interests by focusing on social issues like gay marriage and religion.\u00c2\u00a0 They’ll have you believe the economy has been toasted by TEACHERS!<\/p>\n
Only independent voices resonate.\u00c2\u00a0 Only people not beholden to special interests.\u00c2\u00a0 That used to be musicians.\u00c2\u00a0 It can be again.<\/p>\n
Take a stand.\u00c2\u00a0 Against the baby boomers who remember Woodstock but want to relive it on DVD in mansions behind locked gates. Against college graduates who go into finance for the money.\u00c2\u00a0 Against rich people who spew disinformation about taxation of the rich hurting the poor.<\/p>\n
In the sixties, music blew up because it was on the right side of the Vietnam War.\u00c2\u00a0 I.e. against it.<\/p>\n
Music will triumph once again when it’s on the right side of economic injustice.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s the unifying issue of America today.\u00c2\u00a0 What’s all this hogwash about needing personal guns to combat a wayward Administration?\u00c2\u00a0 Guns played no part in Egypt’s revolution.\u00c2\u00a0 It all took place in the mind.\u00c2\u00a0 Where music exerts its greatest power.<\/p>\n
We don’t have great music because there’s not enough money in it.\u00c2\u00a0 Study economics, you’ll get it.\u00c2\u00a0 And it’s not about finding more ways to make musicians rich, it’s about righting the injustice of economic inequality so that the best and the brightest will see music as a viable career path.<\/p>\n
All it takes is a few talented figures with motivation.\u00c2\u00a0 Just like that fruit vendor in Tunisia<\/p>\n
Are you with me?<\/p>\n
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
How do I get paid? That’s the number one e-mail I get.\u00c2\u00a0 From both wannabes and stars.\u00c2\u00a0 Could it be that they’ve been duped, that they’re part of the problem instead of part of the solution? I just read an article entitled "Of The 1%, By The 1%, For The 1%", by Joseph E. Stiglitz […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-12R","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4021"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4021\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4026,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4021\/revisions\/4026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}