You're presenting communism for what it really is, but UBI for what it claims it will be.

Communists used to claim that communism would be effectively like a UBI. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs", etc. Marx never really elaborated on how this vision was meant to work in practice. It turned out the only way to get close was huge state control.

UBI is, let's be clear, a form of wealth redistribution. For the vast majority of workers it would not give them anything. It would take money away. Money would come in one pocket but go straight out the other in higher taxes, it must be so, because UBI removes the incentive to work for a lot of people who are comfortable being at the base level of subsistence it allows. That means they'd stop generating taxable income, increasing the burden on everyone else.

Thus for people like me, who work, UBI is not about giving me flexible resources. My work does that. UBI is about taking my resources to give them to other people. These people may feel freer or like they have more self-determination indeed, as they now have more money for less work than before. But for other people they are less free and have less self-determination, because previously they could have spent that money on themselves but now it's taken from them by the government.

Now UBI is a form of central planning. It must be because it posits a single variable that yields a "universal" income. Who decides what that income is and how it moves up and down? The government does, one might say, the government plans it. And who plans how it is funded? Same answer.

> UBI is, let's be clear, a form of wealth redistribution. For the vast majority of workers it would not give them anything. It would take money away.

That would only be true if you adopted a monumentally stupid funding model, so I'd recommend if you adopt UBI, you don't do that. The most sensible funding models involve new high-end taxes to fund basic income (wealth or property taxes with a broad exemption that would leave out most of the lower, working, and middle classes seem a popular idea recently, though I personally prefer, to give the short form, to at least start with equalizing taxes across forms of income to remove the preference for capital and other non-labor income).

> UBI removes the incentive to work for a lot of people who are comfortable being at the base level of subsistence it allows.

People are more than happy to put additional effort into increasing labor income when already working considerably and earning more than a subsistence level, so I find that argument specious ab initio, moreover, UBI, to the extent it replaces existing support programs that create disincentives to additional income, would actually increase the incentive to earn outside income, and reduce barriers to doing so.

> Now UBI is a form of central planning.

Even if you can stretch the definition of the latter so that's a sensible statement, its certainly less central planning than traditional means- and behaviorally-tested social welfare systems by any sane standard, so if it in anyway (even by simply counting as income against those systems qualifications) displaces such systems, it reduces the role of central planning in the economy.

It's really unclear why you argue paying for UBI with taxes is monumentally stupid and then go on to state it'd be funded by "high end taxes", clarifying that your preferred type of tax rise is equalising capital gains and income tax (i.e. a tax rise that'd affect huge numbers of people). That's exactly the point: it would be funded by tax rises. The fantasy that it can all be funded by just taxing a few people so that won't matter is risible: many countries (like the UK) already have problems with a tax base that's too narrow, yielding huge unpredictable swings in government income as a small number of rich people either move around or suffer changes in fortunes. The costs of UBI would be staggering, the idea that just a few rich people can be made to shoulder the burden is the same cop-out all socialist schemes always use. It doesn't work, there's a limited amount of blood squeezable from the stone. People leave or find ways to avoid the taxes.

People are more than happy to put additional effort into increasing labor income when already working considerably

And many other people don't give a crap and would happily live off of the level of income they get from benefits, if there weren't an enforcement bureaucracy prodding them to search for a job.

If you're trying to solve the problem of unintelligently set welfare thresholds, I have two questions for you:

1. Why not make that the issue you campaign on? Many people can get behind more intelligent formulas for withdrawing welfare, that's a bipartisan issue. UBI is not the easiest way to fix this.

2. Why do you think the current form of governments, that have totally failed to configure the current welfare system correctly, would set the variables in a UBI system better?

(2) is a huge one. UBI posits a single level of income that's right for everyone, but living costs vary wildly even across jurisdictions. The "universal" aspect of UBI would last about five minutes in the face of Marxist lobbying. Before you know it people with some kinds of lifestyles would be receiving more than others. Otherwise nobody in San Francisco or New York is gonna be living off it, right?

Even if you can stretch the definition of the latter so that's a sensible statement, its certainly less central planning than traditional means- and behaviorally-tested social welfare systems by any sane standard

Behavioural means testing is a tiny part of the administration of contemporary welfare systems, which are in any case dominated by pension provision (i.e. not behaviourally means tested). The vast majority of the central planning derives from:

1. How much do people get?

2. Who is forced to pay for it?

The mechanics of distribution are optimisable like any system of bureaucracy but not at all the primary or most important thing.