RE: Will universal basic income give too much power to whomever distributes it?
See this is how terms are manipulated in Orwellian ways to make otherwise traditionally horrible or deviant from the accepted norm, completely acceptable.
How is a program of Universal welfare for people who have lost their jobs to automation or, more commonly, to globalist corporations that lobby governments to ship jobs out of our first world countries, a 'free market' solution?
Let's step back and look at why 1st world countries are in this mess. Globalist corporations over decades have paid politicians to give them tax exceptions, regulation exemptions, etc.; all in an effort to squash competition and it worked. While global corporations try to convince everyone that they are 'just following the free market' and finding the cheapest labor pool, they openly kill the small to medium businesses that would work to replace them with domestically created goods and services. Instead of that outcome, the strangled western markets are left with only low paying service jobs. Those jobs are going to be replaced by robots via a normal free market embracing of new better processes. That is the problem UBI is trying to solve, right?
As for the 'traditional capitalist' who support these ideas, we are back to the theory vs practical issues again, right? You didn't address any of the 'practical problems' the current social democracies have with their 'social safety net' or do you believe in the "this time we will get it right" socialist mantra? Giving people money for nothing, under the assurance that it will not trap them in a 'welfare cycle' is putting a lot of faith in people who's past performance is awful. Why not try the only method that has a proven record of creating a huge middle class and prosperity; the fairly regulated free market? This does not depend on handing over huge amounts of money to a small number bureaucrats with the hope they will not act exactly like every other single group of people with concentrated power have acted -- corruptly try to retain power.
Watch this video for a quick example of what real capitalism is supposed to be
the money paradigm is over... in 10 years from now, we'll 50-70% unemployment, UBI will mean government rationing. Orwell was a genius.
the only solution: money-free with a non darwinian permise since it is darwinism that led us there. Man is simply not an animal. And we are going to learn it, that we like it or not.