You might have too high of an expectation what it means to lead a good life given your own drive. That itself is a part of "work or other productive endeavors define worth of people" culture I think. This is a good stance (consequentially) to have in society when unproductive members are a drag on everybody else.
But the main premise of UBI is that you just don't need economic output from all the people you have. So the only question remaining is how it would affect those people, the ones lacking the drive and ability to become useful. That is not the question of societal judgment -- if UBI ends up funding lots of mindless candy crashing it is only bad insofar as it affects the person. If they are satisfied, that's the end of the question.
I agree that a sudden transition for people who worked whole life and are finding themselves in effective retirement might be harsh, but the alternative here is sudden job loss and poverty, which is more immediately dire.
Might be a question to be resolved with data and studies I suppose. But my expectation (given that you don't need people to be economically productive anymore) is that benefit of having free time will be positive on balance, and the negative outcomes would be just another logistical challenge of education and motivation.
Consider also all the people in golden chains, who had ability and drive (which is arguably just another form of ability) to get good jobs, but who would rather apply those talents to something else.
Interesting. I don't think in the current society unproductive people are necessarily more of a drag on everyone else than they would be under UBI. We still have to fund UBI. And if UBI doesn't fund good things, that's a lot of other people's work that's being wasted paying out UBI. Also, who knows how much of the workforce we'd lose without the necessity to hold jobs, and how much economic output would be damaged, which in turn could make UBI untenable.
Keep in mind that (quoting a random UBI plan that seems fairly representative), a universal payment of $12,000 per year to each adult U.S. resident over age 18 would cost roughly $3 trillion per year... And according to the IRS, in 2016 people payed a total of $1.4 trillion in taxes[1] meaning we'd have to triple current taxes. Even taxing the top 1% at 100% income tax wouldn't pay for that.
Also, there are some studies recently started concerning UBI, so we'll see.
The other thing is that that money isn't free, it has to be taken from someone, and given to someone else... So the question is, why do the people receiving that money deserve it? If UBI is an almost entirely good force, and isn't mostly just wasted, then maybe it's worth considering, but even then the amount of money needed and morality of it is iffy. Without the garuntee that it would do anything good, I'm even more dubious of it.
But the main premise of UBI is that you just don't need economic output from all the people you have. So the only question remaining is how it would affect those people, the ones lacking the drive and ability to become useful. That is not the question of societal judgment -- if UBI ends up funding lots of mindless candy crashing it is only bad insofar as it affects the person. If they are satisfied, that's the end of the question.
I agree that a sudden transition for people who worked whole life and are finding themselves in effective retirement might be harsh, but the alternative here is sudden job loss and poverty, which is more immediately dire.
Might be a question to be resolved with data and studies I suppose. But my expectation (given that you don't need people to be economically productive anymore) is that benefit of having free time will be positive on balance, and the negative outcomes would be just another logistical challenge of education and motivation.
Consider also all the people in golden chains, who had ability and drive (which is arguably just another form of ability) to get good jobs, but who would rather apply those talents to something else.