I think both you and @anovikov are on to something. A decline in crime is not incompatible with increasing law enforcement expenditures and the general militari

I think both you and @anovikov are on to something. A decline in crime is not incompatible with increasing law enforcement expenditures and the general militarization of civilian police forces that been much lamented here and elsewhere. Nor is a decline in crime in the recent past incompatible with an uptick in crime rates in the present and near future. (Some reference to recent national crime statistics -- especially property crime -- might be in order here but I can't find a reliable one offhand.) As far as societal adjustment, this episode of This American Life, a couple years old already, takes a detailed look at how a de facto pilot program in Guaranteed Basic Income is already being "implemented piece-meal" in the U.S.: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/490/trends-with-benefits http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/490/t... I've seen this linked here before and it really is a great eye-opening journalistic investigation of the issue. Will this scale? Would a more transparent implementation be politically palatable in the US? I think this is one of the fundamental issues starting to get worked out in the current US presidential election with Sanders millenials tending to support an implementation of lifestyles standards like those found in European social democracies and Trump boomers seeming to suggest that protectionism and a re-assertion of vague nativistic principles will restore the lifestyle standards that well-paying blue collar jobs provided for them and their parents in the past.