Swifties, this one’s for you. It seems like Taylor Swift's Eras Tour has lasted eons. Yet somehow, there’s always something to talk about. Just thinking about how much she’s accomplished while on tour makes me want to buckle down, lock in, and channel my inner girlboss. But while I can’t even be bothered to cook dinner at home after a long day of work, Taylor is accomplishing milestones most musicians can only dream of. Let’s recap.
The Eras Tour began in March 2023 with its North American leg. It’s set to go until December 2024, with dates in Europe, Australia, Asia, and South America— spanning 152 shows across five continents.
As the queen of multitasking, Swift hasn’t stopped at just selling out stadiums. Since the Eras tour began, she’s released multiple albums — both new and old — and shaken up the tour setlist with each new release. Her list of new releases started on the first day of her tour with “All Of The Girls You Loved Before,” which was quickly followed up by “The Alcott,” a feature on The National’s album — reciprocity for their work on her pandemic era albums, Folklore and Evermore.
She also released Midnights: Late Night Edition (including the iconic collab with Ice Spice), as well as not one but two album re-releases — Speak Now Taylor's Version and 1989 Taylor's Version. As if that wasn’t enough, she announced her latest album, The Tortured Poet’s Department, in a GRAMMY’s acceptance speech. Talk about legendary. Since its release, she’s also been churning out deluxe versions and remixes to keep us on our toes. The Eras Tour was even made into a Blockbuster film that brought Beyonce to its premiere. Star power: confirmed.
But that’s just her work life. Her personal life is just as eventful. She ended her 7-year relationship with Joe Alwyn in April 2023. Then entered into a brief but controversial fling with 1975 frontman Matty Healy. Though it didn’t last long, the relationship was enough to inspire a whole album and catapult her into her current romance with Travis Kelce, aka Amerca’s first nepo boyfriend. Now they’re the American Royal couple — and she somehow had time to fly from tour to his Super Bowl performance.
We all have the same hours in the day as Taylor Swift, but how she uses them will always be a mystery to me. I work eight hours a day and can barely manage a social life. Meanwhile, Taylor has it all — though conservatives are turning on her for daring to be a woman in her 30s who’s not married with kids. If that’s not proof that women can’t do anything right, I don’t know what is.
Clearly, she’s working late because she’s a singer. No wonder Taylor Swift became a billionaire months into her tour in October 2023. Her net worth is currently around 1.3 billion dollars, making her the only female musician to become a billionaire from her music.
Other entertainment billionaires like Rihanna, Kylie Jenner, Kim Kardashian, Jay-Z, and Kanye West have joined the three-comma club thanks to ventures like clothing brands, beauty products, and other entrepreneurial pursuits. Rihanna has her FENTY Empire. Kim has her award-winning SKIMS. Ye had Yeezy. But Taylor has an unbeatable catalog of publishing.
But Taylor isn’t just different from other Billionaires because of how she earned her money. She’s the Taylor we know and love because of how she spends it. Her rollercoaster Eras Tour is how she’s made much of her fortune. And she’s using it to give back in monumental degrees. From individual donations to investing in local infrastructure, Taylor is changing lives on a macro and micro scale. And teaching us what to expect from all billionaires in the process.
The Eras Tour Bonuses — Talk About Workplace Benefits
First to make headlines were the Eras Tour crew bonuses. While some of us get rewarded with a pizza party or a $10 gift card to Starbucks, Taylor casually dropped $55 million in bonuses for her tour crew. The massive sum was paid out to everyone who makes the Eras Tour go around, from truck drivers to dancers and sound technicians.
In fairness, these bonuses are so well-deserved. Taylor’s shows are over three hours long. Imagine dancing for that long — because Swift certainly isn’t the one with the impressive moves — for hundreds of tour dates. Or remembering countless combinations of light cues to go with a setlist that changes daily. Yeah, they’re clocking in. And if my boss had millions to blow, I’d be expecting a comfortable bonus too. But $55 Million? That’s a testament to Swift’s generosity. It's like she's Oprah, but instead of cars, she's giving out life-changing amounts of cash. "You get a bonus! You get a bonus! Everybody gets a bonus!"
It’s similar to how Zendaya gave film equity to every member of the crew that worked on her controversial black-and-white drama, Malcolm & Marie. Filmed in a few days with a bare-bones crew during the peak of the pandemic, the film was Zendaya’s passion project with Sam Levinson, in which she starred alongside John David Washington. Though the film got mixed reviews, it captured the audience’s attention all the same. After all, it was Zendaya — and we’ll watch her in anything. So since the film sold to Netflix for a hefty sum, all the crew members got payouts from the deal on top of their salaries to reward their hard work.
Bonuses and equity payouts are common in many industries, but not entertainment. Even though it’s one of the most lucrative and recognizable American industries, most entertainers don’t make enough to survive. The SAG and WGA strikes last year were proof that there needs to be systemic change in the industry. LA County has even identified show businesses as risk factors for being unhoused — after all, how many stories do we hear of actors who were living in their cars before their big break? And for many, their big break never comes. For even more, they get hired on amazing gigs with giant performers … then go right back to the grind afterward. While individual actions from our favorite stars won’t fix everything, Zendaya and Taylor are providing models for how Hollywood should treat the people who make this town go round.
And in this economy, even a little bit could go a long way. Inflation and the cost of living are not a joke. Especially when, like with many creative careers, you often have to invest in lessons or equipment for your craft. With all this considered, the impact of Swirt’s donations can’t be overstated. Imagine getting a lump sum of cash for dancing to your favorite Taylor Swift tracks? Talk about a dream job.
The Economic Impact of Swift - Swiftonomics, if you will
Like Barbie and Beyonce last year, Swift is still on a tear to boost the economy of the cities she’s in just by traveling there — ad inspiring others to make the trek, too.
The Barbie movie proved that by marketing to women (instead of just making Marvel flops like Madame Web that aren’t really targeted to women at all), the entertainment industry can make giant profits. Barbie fever went beyond the theater. Thanks to a plethora of product collabs, the phenomenon rippled through retail.
Similarly, Beyonce’s Renaissance Tour tour generated an estimated $4.5 billion for the American economy. According to NPR, that’s almost as much as the entire 2008 Olympics earned for Beijing. People were taking money out of their 401ks to pay for Beyonce tickets and the glittery, silver-hues outfits to rock at her shows. Cities even started calling her effect the “Beyonce Bump.”
Swift has the same effect. She’s not just proving her generosity on a micro-scale for the people close to her, she’s having actual, tangible effects on the economy. It's like she's leaving a trail of dollar bills in her wake, and cities are scrambling to catch them like it's a country-pop, capitalist version of musical chairs.
The US Travel Association called it the Taylor Swift Impact after she generated over $5 Billion in just the first 5 months of the Eras Tour. But how does this work? It’s not like Taylor is printing more money at those shows, but it almost is. Her tour dates are pretty much economic steroid shots for local businesses. Hotels are booked solid, restaurants are packed, and let's not even get started on the surge in friendship bracelet supplies.
“Swifties averaged $1,300 of spending in local economies on travel, hotel stays, food, as well as merchandise and costumes,” say the US Travel Association. “That amount of spending is on par with the Super Bowl, but this time it happened on 53 different nights in 20 different locations over the course of five months.” That’s not to say one word about her effect on the actual Super Bowl and the entire NFL season thanks to her ball-throwing boyfriend.
It's like she's created her own micro-economy, and everyone's invited to the party. And unlike some economic theories that rely on wealth trickling down (spoiler alert: it doesn't), Taylor's wealth is more like a t-shirt cannon or the confetti at her shows — showering everyone around.
Donations that truly do good
Taylor isn’t just stepping into cities and calling it a night. She’s also not just throwing pennies at problems - she's making significant contributions that are changing lives. And more importantly, she's using her platform to encourage her fans to do the same.
She kicked off her tour with quiet donations to food banks in Glendale, Ariz., and Las Vegas ahead of the Eras Tour. Once the tour was in full swing, she continued this practice. In Seattle, she donated to Food Lifeline, a local hunger relief organization. In Santa Clara, she showed some love to Second Harvest of Silicon Valley. And let's not forget about her $100,000 donation to the Hawkins County School Nutrition Program in Tennessee.
She’s been making similar donations overseas. Taylor Swift donated enough money to cover the food bills for an entire year across 11 food banks and & community pantries in Liverpool. Swift also covered 10,800 meals for Cardiff Foodbank and many more banks across the UK and EU. Her impact is so profound that her numbers are doing more to combat issues like hunger than the government.
Can billionaires actually be good?
One thing about me, I’m always ready and willing — knife and fork in hand — to eat the rich. Because fundamentally, can any billionaire really be good? In our late-stage capitalist horror story, the answer is usually no. Look how many of them are supporting the Trump campaign just to get some tax breaks.
But here's the thing - Taylor Swift might just be the exception that proves the rule. She's not perfect, sure. She still flies private jets and probably has a carbon footprint bigger than Bigfoot. But unlike most of the others in her tax bracket, she's not flaunting her wealth like it's a personality trait.
Take a look around. We've got billionaires trying to colonize Mars instead of, I don't know, helping people on Earth. In this context, Taylor's approach is more like Mackenzie Scott’s — Bezos’s ex-wife. She's not trying to escape to another planet - she's trying to make this one better.
And look, I'm not saying we should stop critiquing billionaires or the system that creates them. But she's just setting the bar for what we should expect from all billionaires. She's showing us that our collective power as fans can translate into real-world change. That our love for catchy choruses and bridge drops can somehow, improbably, lead to food banks getting funded and crew members getting life-changing bonuses.
So sorry to my neighbors who hear me belting “Cruel Summer” and “right where you left me” at the top of my lungs (and range). Just know it’s for the greater good.
How to Improve America's Broken Prison System: Create a World Without Free Will and Moral Responsibility
How responsible are you for your actions?
The debate over free will, and whether we as humans possess such a thing, has been ongoing since Aristotelian times. When discussing free will, philosophers commonly mean the kind that means humans are ultimately responsible for their actions. The assumption of this kind of free will's existence, and the kind of ultimate responsibility that is inherent in it, is the basis of many religions, justice systems, and cultural structures.
As philosophers continue to debate whether free will exists, another question arises: what are the implications if we let go of the concept of free will and the kind of moral responsibility that accompanies it? How would our institutions, behaviors, and individual operations change if we allowed the idea of a causally determined universe without free will to become a part of public consciousness? Based on the work, of Samuel Harris, Daniel Dennet, Robert Kane and Bruce Waller, one can conclude that the world would be a more productive, compassionate place if society were to generally let go of this concept and embrace a hard determinist viewpoint.
First, it's vital that we elucidate what hard determinism looks like in the context of other philosophical viewpoints regarding free will. At present, the debate regarding the existence of free will revolves around the idea of determinism, it's validity as a concept, and, if valid, how that affects free will and responsibility. Determinism is the idea that everything that occurs and will ever occur is an inevitable product of all that has occurred before.
Or as Robert Kane puts it in his book Free Will, "…we say that a determined event is inevitable or necessary, (it cannot but occur), given the determining conditions." (Kane, 6) This idea calls into question the validity of the concept of free will. In this debate, when referring to "free will," one means the kind of freedom that goes beyond surface freedoms (choosing what to eat, where to travel etc.) and extends to the power to control why one desires what they desire and chooses what they choose. Kane refers to this deeper kind of free will as, "…the ultimate power over what it is that we willed." (Kane, 2) Another way to think about it is the power to be the author of one's own character.
Today, for the purpose of this article, the debate can be reasonably divided into two large categories: compatibilism and incompatibilism. The first group is made up of those who believe free will is compatible with the idea of determinism, that is, that free will can exist, on some level, in a causally determined world. The classical compatibilist believes that, "…our natural belief in the incompatibility of free will and determinism rests on confusions of two kinds—confusions about the nature of freedom and confusions about the nature of determinism." (Kane, 21) In brief, classical compatibilists believe that the kind of free will worth having is essentially merely an accumulation of exercising surface freedoms, something very possible in a causally determined world.
Contrastingly, incompatibilists are those people who believe that free will and determinism can't both be true. This leaves incompatibilists with the burden of proving that free will and determinism cannot exist simultaneously, which once accomplished, leaves them to decide which of the two (determinism and free will) is then true. Meaning this group is much more starkly divided than the compatibilists.
The first group in this division, libertarians, are as Kane puts it, those "…who affirm free will and deny determinism…" (Kane, 32) This leaves the libertarian to prove how free will can exist in an indeterminist world, which creates arguments that rely largely on luck or other vague, metaphysical concepts that critics argue, even if true, won't necessarily make a person more free. This view agrees the most with the intuitive sense of free will many common "folk" have, but is not accepted by the majority of philosophers of merit.
The other view an incompatibilist can reasonably take is that of hard determinism, the belief that because determinism is true, free will cannot exist. As Kane puts it, those who hold this view, "…believe that if you look more deeply into the psychological and other springs of action, you will see that all of us are determined to do what we do, whether it be good or evil; and so none of us is ultimately responsible." (Kane, 68) It is this view, as we will explore, that removes the burden of free will and moral responsibility from the world, and creates space for a more compassionate, productive world. Essentially, if we were always going to do what we do because of a combination of our experiences and biology, how can our actions truly be our fault?
According to Kane, "Hard Determinism is defined by three theses: (1) Free will is incompatible with determinism and (2) free will does not exist because (3) determinism is true." (Kane, 70) The basic argument, that philosopher Galen Strawson lays out, seems to make this thesis appear logically sound. The argument is made up of five parts that are as follows: (1) Nothing can be causa sui - nothing can be the cause of itself. (2) In order to be truly morally responsible for one's actions one would have to be causa sui, at least in certain crucial mental respects. (3) Therefore nothing can be truly morally responsible (Strawson,1)This seems to be a difficult argument to reason ones way out of, as at every step one is tempted to refer to an earlier moment of self-authorship, only to be foiled by Strawson's unavoidable logic that such a moment simply cannot have existed.
Those who oppose this view, argue that though we may be affected by our environment and biology, we still have the power to decide to change who we are. (Kane, 73) To this, Kane says that Strawson argues that, "…neither compatibilists nor libertarians give us an adequate account of how we could change our characters that accounts for true responsibility. If the way we change ourselves later in life is determined by how we already are, as compatibilists allow, then that kind of change would not amount to true responsibility. But if the way we change ourselves later in life is undetermined, as libertarians require, then it would amount to mere luck or chance and that would not be true responsibility either."(Kane, 73) Of course, it is important to note, as Sam Harris does in his book Free Will, "There is a distinction between voluntary and involuntary actions, of course, but it does nothing to support the common idea of free will (nor does it depend upon it). A voluntary action is accompanied by the felt intention to carry it out, whereas an involuntary action isn't." (Harris, 12) Meaning that just because we do not act with free will, does not mean we do not act voluntarily, it is merely the motivation behind our voluntary actions over which we have no control. Essentially, hard determinists argue that the only two things that influence what a person does are biology and circumstance, and if an individual doesn't have control over either of these things from their first moments on earth, how can they be held responsible for their actions? Indeed, when considering these arguments, hard determinism begins to feel inescapable.
This brings up the question: How would internalizing a hard determinist viewpoint shape the way individuals view themselves? Hard determinism may at first appear to be a callous view, as one may assume that the absence of free will means that humans are veritable slaves to determinism, nothing but metaphorical puppets tied to the merciless hands of luck. But, just because ultimate moral responsibility is not an option, that does not mean individual responsibility is also invalid. In fact, Bruce Waller argues in his paramount work, Against Moral Responsibility, the absence of moral responsibility, "…would leave ample room for take charge responsibility and increase the likelihood of exercising it well, and when we look closely (and distinguish take charge from moral responsibility), take charge responsibility is the responsibility most of us really want. It enables us to exercise effective control, make our own decisions and choices, reflect carefully on what we deeply value, and manage our own lives." (Waller, 278) Waller maintains the optimistic viewpoint that, essentially, the idea that we are not causes unto ourselves, should be an idea that motivates and empowers individuals to consider what it is they desire and why, and begin to make choices that leads them in this direction. The elimination of free will and moral responsibility as valid concepts leaves room for people to inspect why they are the way they are, and use that as the motivating force to change their path. Indeed, the very knowledge that none of us are responsible for who we are could be a positive factor that shapes us unavoidably, "…it would promote stronger self control and nurture genuine self-respect." (Waller, 278)
We see now that it is in fact very possible that the loss of moral responsibility could actually positively affect an individual, but what of an individual's view of others? Here is where hard determinism most obviously improves the world. As Harris points out, "Once we recognize that even the most terrifying predators are, in a very real sense, unlucky to be who they are, the logic of hating (as opposed to fearing) them begins to unravel." (Harris, 53) An interesting way to think of this problem is with the following thought experiment: if you were to take the place of a murderer, moments before he commits the heinous act, and arrive in his body with his exact brain and past experiences, could you possibly say you would put down the knife and decide not to murder? Of course not. The things that led him to that place, his biology and experiences, are what have made him into who he is. He is not evil because he has decided to be evil, he does not have the impulse to kill because some deep part of him chose it, and there is no scrap of you that would be transferred to his body that is deeper or more in control of decision making than the murderers nervous system. So how can we hate him? Instead, it makes sense that instead of condemning the murderer as evil, we should seek to understand the factors that led him to murder, in order to create a society in which fewer people are led to act as such. As Waller puts it, "…the most salient feature of a world without moral responsibility is its openness to inquiry: its openness to recognizing and reporting and dealing with problems and flaws and mistakes." (Waller, 285)
This does lead to an obvious question: what is to be done with the murderer? As Harris states, "Certain criminals must be incarcerated to prevent them from harming other people. The moral justification for this is entirely straightforward: Everyone else will be better off this way. Dispensing with the illusion of free will allows us to focus on the things that matter—assessing risk, protecting innocent people, deterring crime, etc.." (Harris, 53) This idea, that incarceration would still be justified without free will, the same way quarantining sick people is justified, is known as the quarantine model. Kane cites philosopher Derek Pereboom, who argues that an upside of this idea, "…is that punishments would not be more severe than is needed to protect society and deter future crime, just as quarantine of the sick should not be more restrictive than is needed to protect society from diseases." (Kane, 75)
Additionally, without moral responsibility, the criminal justice system can be made to reform instead of punish. Waller cites Michael Cavadino and James Dignan, who point out that the American criminal justice system blames the individual instead of at least partially blaming the various factors that contributed to an individuals criminality, "…Crime is likewise seen as entirely the responsibility of the offending individual. The social soil is fertile ground for a harsh "law and order ideology." (Cavadino and Dignan in Waller, 285) But Waller points out that retributive law and order is not effective, in fact, in America's retributive system, a person going to jail once, raises their likelihood of doing so again. Waller goes on that, in some countries justice systems, "…when genuine efforts were made to develop effective rehabilitation programs, some achieved considerable success; it also became clear that those negative influences that shaped violent antisocial character." (Waller, 294) This positive effect does not just extend to criminal law, without moral responsibility fostering individual blaming; systems (such as medical teams, air traffic control, factories etc.) can be improved to work better and with less mistakes, as individuals will be more likely to admit their mistakes, and people will be more likely to analyze how systems can be redesigned to ensure less mistakes. Summarily, "The second positive feature of a world without moral responsibility is that it shifts the focus to systems and away from individuals." (Waller, 285)
This argument, that a world free of free will and moral responsibility would be a better world, can perhaps be deepened when one acknowledges that perhaps it is not an argument merely confined to hard determinist thinking. To illustrate this, let's investigate Daniel Dennet's response to Sam Harris' Free Will. It is important to note that Daniel Dennet is a compatibilist.
Waller's argument, that a world free of moral responsibility and the idea of free will is a better world, feel pretty sound and, at surface, Harris appears to agree with Waller. However, upon further inspection, one can find quite a few flaws within Harris' argument. Daniel Dennet helpfully illuminates these in his paper, "Reflections on Free Will." Dennet's major criticism of Harris focuses on the idea that Harris assumed an incompatibilist view (libertarian even). Harris argues that because free will requires that we somehow step outside the causally determined universe and such stepping is impossible, no one can have free will. Dennet asks us to look carefully at this kind of argument and realize that just because the world is causally determined, doesn't mean our choices, "come out of the darkness" (Harris, 34). Instead, Dennet argues, "Freedom involves the ability to have one's choices influenced by changes in the world that matter under the circumstances. Not a perfect ability, but a reliable ability." (Dennet, 14) Additionally, Dennet criticizes Harris' tendency in his work to define the kind of free will worth having as that which "common folk" feel they possess, "…he thinks 'free will' has to be given the incoherent sense that emerges from uncritical reflection by everyday folk. He sees quite well that compatibilism is "the only philosophically respectable way to endorse free will" (p16) but adds: However, the "'free will' that compatibilists defend is not the free will that most people feel they have. (p16)" (Dennet, 4) Dennet argues that just because the compatibilists version of free will is not the kind most people feel they have, does not mean it is invalid. Harris' biggest mistake is assuming that because we cannot be authors of ourselves, we cannot have any degree of free will at all. Interestingly, both Waller and Dennet disagree with him, despite supposedly maintaining radically different views.
Dennet argues that compatibilists, "…think we can articulate and defend a more sophisticated model of free will that is not only consistent with neuroscience and introspection but also grounds a (modified, toned-down, non-Absolute) variety of responsibility that justifies both praise and blame, reward and punishment. We don't think this variety of free will is an illusion at all, but rather a robust feature of our psychology and a reliable part of the foundations of morality, law and society." (Dennet, 1) The kind of free will Dennet allows for, is not Harris' kind (ultimate authorship) but rather what Waller might call, "take charge responsibility" (Waller, 278). Waller describes this kind of free will as, "It enables us to exercise effective control, make our own decisions and choices, reflect carefully on what we deeply value, and manage our own lives." (Waller, 278) It appears that the only thing that truly differs between the two men's view points is what they mean when they say "free will." They both assert that the power to respond differentially to stimuli in the environment exists. However, Waller does not see this as free will, and instead means ultimate authorship over ones character when referring to free will. Meanwhile, Dennet thinks ultimate authorship is an incoherent idea, and believes free will is this smaller thing mentioned above, and therefore compatible with determinism. What is important though, is that neither man believes that we have the kind of free will that requires ultimate responsibility for ones actions. This means that a hypothetical world improved by dispelling of free will and moral responsibility is a world possible as a compatibilist and hard determinist.
When inspected carefully, it becomes clear that ultimate free will is not seen as possible by either the compatibilists or the incompatibilists, and it is only the libertarians who believe such a freewill exists. In conclusion, moral responsibility is an incoherent idea because individuals are merely the product of a causal world, and therefore their actions are a product of this world as well. Embracing this idea would create a more compassionate and effective world because it would be a world open to inquiry into people's behavior, additionally such a world helpfully shifts focus to systems and away from individuals. Indeed, Waller says, "In the absence of moral responsibility, it is possible to look more deeply at the influences of social systems and situation and to move away from both the fundamental attribution error and the individualistic blindness that hides the forces that shaped our qualities of character." (Waller, 286)
Sources
The Impossibility of Moral Responsibility Author(s): Galen Strawson Reviewed work(s): Source: Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic Tradition, Vol. 75, No. 1/2, Free Will, Determinism, and Moral Responsibility (Aug., 1994), pp. 5-24
Kane, Robert. Free Will. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2009. Print.
Harris, Sam. Free Will. London: Simon & Schuster, 2012. Print.
Dennet, Daniel. "Reflections on Free Will." (n.d.): n. pag. Web. 1 May 2017.
Waller, Bruce N. Against Moral Responsibility. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2011. Print.