mkempe has written a very false description of Marx&#x27;s work.   It is a poor basis for a discussion of basic income programs in relation to Marxian thought.<p>Furthermore, mkempe has pointed to six historic nations as example of &quot;basic income&quot; gone wrong.   None of the six examples he chose offered a basic income guarantee.<p>I won&#x27;t dwell on this much but take for example this falsehood:<p>&quot;This &quot;research&quot; proposal is merely a technocratic rehash of Marxism: the inexorable forces of materialism and technological improvements entail endless progress driven by a Hegelian spirit.&quot;<p>Marx made fun of the idea that history was driven by something like a &quot;Hegelian spirit&quot; (see Critique of the German Ideology).<p>Although Marx did use the word &quot;materialism&quot; in the phrase &quot;historic materialism&quot;, it has no real relation to what mkempe describes here.   (See Socialism: Utopian and Scientific)<p>Marx argued that competition among capitalists, not &quot;spirit&quot; was driving technological improvement in the productivity of labor.  (Many places but Capital  for example.)<p>One might say that &quot;Marxism&quot; is not &quot;Marx&quot; and that&#x27;s fair enough.    But Marxist thought, though it often wanders away from Marx, does not involve &quot;Hegelian spirit&quot; or &quot;inexorable forces of materialism&quot;.  The opposite, actually.<p>Realizing that the &quot;forces of materialism&quot; DID NOT entail &quot;endless progress&quot;, both the Soviet Union and China set out to raise their level of development from agrarian to industrial.   Both did so, and quickly.