> It seems fair to ask for a minimum level of work contributing back to society
I think BI proponents argue that specifying what counts as a contribution leads to economic inefficiencies, in the broadest sense. Does taking care of your own children count as a contribution? Or sitting in the pub and making other visitors happy by your presence? What about writing software and putting it on Github? And for the latter, should you get a minimum number of stars to make it count? How long should the list of "useful activities" be, that the Department of Civil Contributions would maintain? And how much money would we spend on civil servants who determine whether your edge case qualifies?
The result would be that people end up doing artificially much of what counts as "contributing", and too little of some things that aren't specified as "contributing", but that society actually still benefits from.
Would some people just sit on the couch all day, and really contribute nothing, by any standard? Yes, probably. So the premise here is that the number of true freeloaders is small enough, that it would be inefficient to worry about them. I personally don't know any true freeloaders, which leads me to think that that's probably a fair assumption.
I imagine to appease anyone with doubt to the benefits of basic income some sort of "basic work credits" type system would need to be in place for anyone without a normal job to contribute something noteworthy back to society.
The matter of what is acceptable as "basic work" may already be in place as court ordered community services, peace corps, or local public works projects. Maybe even a new variation of non-profit organization [1] that has specific structural rules for "basic work" credits?
It's a noble attempt at compromise, but at that point, you're not talking about UBI anymore. The entire point of UBI is a rejection of the notion that a person must contribute before they have permission to live. It's a statement that the right to life is inherent to every individual, details on the morality of suicide or abortion aside, and that if we can't simply provide those necessities, then we can at least provide the means to get them through guaranteed income.
Basic Income is, by itself, already a compromise. To compromise again is to no longer be a separate concept.
At the point you're talking about, it's not actually different from the situation as it stands now: what you're really saying is that the minimum wage needs to be sufficient for living expenses. Nothing more.
I think BI proponents argue that specifying what counts as a contribution leads to economic inefficiencies, in the broadest sense. Does taking care of your own children count as a contribution? Or sitting in the pub and making other visitors happy by your presence? What about writing software and putting it on Github? And for the latter, should you get a minimum number of stars to make it count? How long should the list of "useful activities" be, that the Department of Civil Contributions would maintain? And how much money would we spend on civil servants who determine whether your edge case qualifies?
The result would be that people end up doing artificially much of what counts as "contributing", and too little of some things that aren't specified as "contributing", but that society actually still benefits from.
Would some people just sit on the couch all day, and really contribute nothing, by any standard? Yes, probably. So the premise here is that the number of true freeloaders is small enough, that it would be inefficient to worry about them. I personally don't know any true freeloaders, which leads me to think that that's probably a fair assumption.