After Universal Basic Income, the Flood
The problem I have with UBI is - I lived in a country that had something very similar - communist Poland.<p>I&#x27;ve seen it personally - when you get money no matter if you do anything - A LOT of people just won&#x27;t. They will happily consume what little they have and focus on other things. You could go to jail for not working in these times, so people pretended to work, but they weren&#x27;t really working.<p>Efficiency was awful. One example - my country is one of the top food exporters in EU. 27 years ago we had food shortages and rationing system for many goods. Exports grew over 20 times. GDP grew around 10 times.<p>That&#x27;s the difference in output I&#x27;m talking about. And countries where they had full collectivization were even worse. We had &quot;communism lite&quot;.<p>Admittedly there are differences between communism and UBI -  the system was forced by USSR and they also did some very unpopular things (like persecuting people for religion, murdering WW2-era heroes, beating students and falsifying elections). Also - the chances to make any proper career were very small without at least some participation in the regime - for example signing &quot;I will spy on my colleagues&quot;, giving bribes (not money, money were worthless, but favours), etc.<p>So compared to capitalism the positive reinforcement to working was much weaker, and negative reinforcement wasn&#x27;t there.<p>With UBI negative reinforcement also disappears but positive reinforcement stays there. Maybe it will suffice. I don&#x27;t think so.