... I'm not a fan... First... a lot depends on how you do it. ...Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek were supportive of universal basic income. .… - Ha-Joon Chang

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... I'm not a fan... First... a lot depends on how you do it. ...Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek were supportive of universal basic income. ...[T]hese are people who say, "Yea, give everyone £9,000" or whatever, and they can do whatever... with that money. They wouldn't starve to death, but everything about that is not society's problem. ...[I]f it is that kind of universal basic income which is... supported by some of the Silicon Valley billionaires, I'm 200% against it. If it is the more progressive form, I still have a problem because... having income is one thing, but... you need affordable high quality services. ...Unfortunately the supporters of universal basic income do not address this aspect... very clearly... So you convert all the... welfare entitlement... in Britain, so... your NHS service... your , the amount of childhood housing benefits, convert them only to cash... then how are people going to buy these? ...[I]s the government then going to wash ...its hands and say now you can go into the private market and buy it? ...[T]hat will be a disaster, because... many of these services are... provided by the government, which is not seeking profit. Of course, a lot of it has become privatized by stealth, but at least in theory... these, NHS and other bodies that provide these social services... are not out to make money, and... they pool the customers and... get the big discounts. There's a scale of economy provision. Instead of single hospitals going to a pharmaceutical company... to buy diabetes drugs for 5,000 people, the NHS can go to these companies... for 17 million people. ...[T]he kind of discount you get.... it's a totally different planet. So... these services are going to be very expensive... even when you give them the same amount of money, they will be able to buy less.