It's a very capitalist solution to a post-labor world.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/08/why-aren...

(meant to post this on parent comment, but it works just as well here as an illustration.)

I'd say that a significant fraction of all libertarians don't want to admit that their fantasyland and the real world are so far apart that they will never meet in any living human's natural lifespan, and therefore resist any idea which would tend to empower government to a greater extent in the long run.

By my personal estimation, UBI is necessary to avoid the accelerating concentration of more economic power into fewer hands, until the common man again becomes a "useless eater" that must be disposed of for the sake of efficiency. I fear that without it, or something like it, class-based warfare is inevitable, and war is more damaging to liberty than the welfare state. Given the choice between backing a step away from the way I wish the world could work, and running ten steps in any direction in a blind panic, I choose the one controlled step.

The better solution is to try to decouple capital ownership from individuals, corporations, or states. I'm not sure how that can be best achieved but honestly I think automating the economy itself may be the best approach. It can be done in a piecemeal fashion, but it's a question of whether the capital owners will give up the reigns of power to machines to decide how best to fulfill demands of people. I'm not so much arguing for the nonsensical approach of Jacque Fresco because his notion requires engineering wants of people and the abolition of money. For me, money and prices are good aggregators for demand, they just need to be adjusted in their use cases (probably away from capital speculation), but even an automated economy would need something akin to a price and a unit for which the price is measured in. Otherwise, how are goods created? I don't see happy thoughts and wishing being viable means to ration in any economy.

  Capitalism:  Hey, Socialism.  Remember how you worked your ass off
    trying to make Communism happen?  From each according to ability,
    to each according to need?
  Socialism:  Ahhhh.  Don't remind me.
  Cap:  Check out what I did, as a hobby, after going home from work.
  Soc:  You... bastard.
  Cap:  To each according to need, from each according to how awesome I am.
  Soc:  I hate you.  You are literally the worst.  Most of those
    people aren't even *working*.
  Cap:  I'd love to talk more, but I need to be on Mars soon,
    on a rocket built without taxes.
  Soc:  Yeah, you'd better run!  Jerk.

I doubt that very much considering that most of the western world is in some form of social democracy (Fabian-like socialism). If anything, capitalism is on it's last legs due to the fact it's unable to continue to exist without turning humans into the hover-pod marshmallow people from Wall-E. A species that has to consume everything in sight without any natural check to its growth will inevitably be constrained by the physical limitations of its environment and it's technologies.

Inserting the word "social" into "social democracy" is the greatest propaganda trick socialists have ever pulled. It lets them take credit for an existing, functional system that they want to destroy. It's classic bait and switch.

If anything, "capitalist democracy" is a far more accurate term.

That is subjecting ourselves from total control of the machines from the bare start.

Not saying this automation is inherently bad - it may be much better than any alternative - but simply automating away throws away all the diversity that can help us get into a good system.