>After all, if you believe their rhetoric, giving someone $500/mo should be the same as giving them free bread, eggs, milk, some clothes and some movie tickets.
It's not "funny", it's the core part of basic income that separates it from state-run socialism. Not making a determination about what is or isn't basic is one of the key points. You give a person their $500 each month and let them determine what it should be spent on. What is basic for one person may not be for another.
Now take your $500 a month and project forward another 50-60 years. What do you think it'll buy you then and why?
By picking a monetary amount - be it $50, $500 or $1000 it IS absolutely making a determination about what's basic. And its doing it based on the living standards and cost of living of today. That's a large part of why its so flawed.
We do need a better way to measure value people create. For example, many geniuses (inventors, thinkers, etc) who do not have business skills live poor while creating more value than many CEOs that can manage, negotiate, raise funds, have connections, etc.
Business people do create value too by connecting people, making things happen, etc., but often their value output is overrated.
Many actors and musicians and sport peopl are overrated too vs doctors who save lives. They worth a lot only because of economy of scale. Everyone knows them and they monetize their followers.
In some way it is a fair world, because we all put in nearly about the same conditions. Well, except our place of birth and genetics, which we have no choice over. But everything else is up to us, which kind of makes it fair because we compete in the same conditions. However, maybe it is a time for a new system. Why not?
As far as the education, the nature will do its miracle. New generations will change everything, they will know what to do because they born in new world.
Everything will work out on its own as it should. It is happening.
The moral/civil question is what is the role of government in an unfair world?
Most governments opt to head down the justice route predominately (e.g. the US's Justice System holding 1/3 of our government powers) while creating a myriad of "fairness" regulations (e.g. welfare programs). The ultimate problem with this approach is people will rarely agree on what is fair. There is no set definition and wants/desires change over time -- even needs do to (like needing a cell phone now vs 20 years ago). This ever evolving definition of fairness is what ensures this debate will rage on indefinitely.
There's an entire philosophy based on the work of John Rawls [0] that codifies the conflation of these ideas [1]. It's not at all a simple matter to strive for justice in an unfair world. Some libertarian folks elsewhere in this discussion have brought up the idea that taxes are theft. On the opposite end of that spectrum, I've heard it argued that property rights are a form of violence. What does it mean for the rights of an individual if, in a hypothetical future, all arable land is owned, fenced off, tended by drones, and guarded with extreme prejudice? A Mad Max-style dystopia sprinkled with little walled gardens.
If you give people basic items for free this will go bad. You know the horror stories in development aid how people sell away the stuff they got for free.
And what's even worse: many people turn violent if you don't give them whatever they ask for. So they had to put policemen there all day because they had hit the state workers many times.
You know, I'm a socialist, but these kinds of stories really make me turn libertarian there for a moment.
(This in Europe)
After all, if you believe their rhetoric, giving someone $500/mo should be the same as giving them free bread, eggs, milk, some clothes and some movie tickets.
I wonder why... Maybe, the reality is that over time our 'Basic' needs increase. In certain parts of the world shoes are still considered a luxury whereas in others, Nikes and Adidas are considered 'basic'. 50 years ago car ownership was a luxury even in most 'developed' nations, as were televisions. Now they're considered 'Basic'.
The reality is, the people touting UBI as a way forward suffer from having a thoroughly static and isolated view of the world. They fail to see that value creation is what's important, and drives society to further itself. As value creation goes up, the definition of 'basic' increases with it. I'm not for a minute advocating that the current system is anywhere near perfect - the wealthiest in our population are questionable value creators while at the same time there are value creators scraping by in the world so the way we reward people needs a rethink.
I don't profess to know how to solve the poverty crisis and I very much want it to be solved as a citizen of the world. What I do know is that the only way to do it will involve reforming education so that future generations are inspired to advance humankind and create value in the process.