This seems like a strange objection, relying as it does on "the gain" made by those who control what the "minimum" is. Postulates A2 and A3, which are assumed t

This seems like a strange objection, relying as it does on "the gain" made by those who control what the "minimum" is. Postulates A2 and A3, which are assumed to hold for this question, make any savings from the cut "costs and expenses" seem a bit ridiculous. The state can control who can access the Internet even now, via the courts, should it decide someone needs to get b&. I'm not sure why a surfeit of every possible resource is going to make the government get more totalitarian. If the unrolled form of this argument is "human social competitiveness is impossible to extinguish, and even in the presence of historically unprecedented AI-based plenty, those who desire power will subjugate those they deem lesser, for the hell of it", then this makes a whole lot more sense.