Tomlinson

What you say leaves me speechless. The chronicler in you is accurate, the analyst inexistent and the conclusion inconclusive.

To guarantee dignity to the end of life for the resident of this country or any other country, what you call “Basic Income” cannot be but utopian.

Unless some flash of fundamental honesty was to strike Humanity all of a sudden, life on this planet will go on as it has gone thanks to the determination of Politicians, Lawyers, Academics and assorted parasites.

Basic Income, yes! For everyone.
Then people can stop complaining that 'they get what I don't get'.
Automatic payment eliminates the hostile and degrading relationship people currently have with Centrelink.
No need to start, stop, start again, switch payments.

My superannuation account gets me 6% per annum.
Wow!
I can get that from my internet savings account!
Give me my money and let me manage it, thanks.

No to the Basics Card, though.
Nobody should have the right to tell you how to spend your own money.
If people mismanage theirs, tough.

Everyone has a basic human right to be able to live from the public purse at everyone else's expense without anyone having to suffer the indignity of work.

Certainly so, Peter!

Everyone has a basic human right to be able to live from the public purse at the expense of those who enjoy the use of money without anyone having to suffer the indignity of pretending to seek work.

Contemporary western society has made it impossible to survive without money. Anyone who attempted to conduct their life without that money-thing, which governments print and impose on us, would find themselves against an incredible wall of legislation and very soon in jail (or a mental-asylum equivalent).

Since society has robbed away our rights to live and sustain ourselves in any other way except by using money, it is only right that everyone ought to be compensated by being given that item without which life was made impossible, especially by those who impose those laws that make sustenance otherwise impossible on behalf of those who enjoy the use of money.

Telling someone that on the one hand they are not allowed to subsist without X (in this case X="money"), that if they try not to use it they would be incarcerated and then on the other hand that they must do Y (in this case Y="work") in order to get that X, amounts to slavery.

Can we agree that slavery is not on?

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Shockadelic, I totally agree.

Technically, the way to achieve this outcome where EVERYONE receives a basic income, where EVERYONE is equally and fairly compensated, and no degrading relationships that train ordinary people to become thieves occur, is called negative-income-tax.

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Skeptic,

Fundamental honesty is indeed an exalted target, but I believe that standard-level honesty where most of us are at, will suffice. Sure there will still be some crooks here and there who will abuse any system, and sure those will sometimes be caught and punished and sometimes escape punishment, but that is not the measure by which we should guide our life. The vast majority are basically honest.

I disagree about negative income.
I'm allergic to bureaucracy.
I'd rather just pay everyone money.

The current welfare system is based on the old school "full employment" fairytale.
Technically impossible, especially with constant immigration and mechanisation.

Many people do "work" for society and get no pay (mothers, carers, volunteers).
Centrelink excludes these people or *limits* just how much volunteering they can do (and who for).

People with fluctuating incomes (farmers, artists, self-employed) are also disadvantaged by the current welfare and tax bureaucracy.

Bury the bureaucracy.
Just pay everyone a basic monetary payment and leave them alone.