Is this wrong?

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sidious

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A University classmate of mine told me the other day that he was performing music (singing with his guitar) at a street corner for money. This surprised me because I thought that only homeless or people in severe financial trouble did that. Yet my classmate, I KNOW, is not one of those people.

Is what he did right?
 
NO.

Unless he is lying to people that he is homeless or that his finances are worse than they are.

There is no moral law saying that only a homeless or broke person is allowed to perform music in the street in the hope that appreciative passers-by will drop money in his hat.
 
I see nothing wrong with this in the least. As long as he is not deceiving people, in fact, I think it is a good thing. He’s bringing music to the streets (hopefully something of quality) and hopefully brightening somebody’s day. There is a LONG tradition of performers doing this kind of things–performers of all types. If you go to Europe, you see street musicians all the time–many of them make a great deal of their support money from doing this. It helps them and helps make our own travels more pleasant.
 
Depends. Is he performing to entertain and hopefully get some cash out of it, or is he pretending to be homeless so he can get free money?
 
Busking for money is totally acceptable and has a long tradition – think about the wandering minstrels of old. It’s a form of work and one I don’t hesitate to pay for if I’ve enjoyed the performance. I know of cities that have Busker Festivals and I’ve discovered some great performers on street corners during that time. Some artists make their living that way and some simply use busking as a means of reaching a larger audience and getting their name out to the public.
 
Busking is no bed of roses. Here is a story from the Washington Post about how one of the world’s top violinists played some of the greatest music ever on a Stradivarius at a subway stop in DC – and made $32.

I can’t see anything wrong with busking, it is the purest form of transaction; the musician offers his art and the listeners are feree to chip in or not.
If anyone is in the wrong I’d say it is those who habitually listen with means to chip in who don’t do so.
 
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