Scaling this back up to the real economy, this means that UBI as transfer payments of cash from rich to poor will never have the intended effect. If the intent

Scaling this back up to the real economy, this means that UBI as transfer payments of cash from rich to poor will never have the intended effect. If the intent is to provide everyone with a guaranteed floor of necessary goods and services, the only way to do it is to take production capacity from the rich and produce the necessary quantities directly. If the U.S. collectively consumes 300 million metric tons of food per year, the federals tax Monsanto, ADM, et al. the 100 million metric tons of that Americans actually need to eat to survive, and tax Kroger, Walmart, et al. some of their distribution network to get it into stores, then issues everyone their ration coupons and tracks the redemption locations Kanban-style, so they can fine-tune the distribution. You get your one bag of cornmeal for free, but if you want a second bag, you have to get a job and pay for it. That is considerably more administrative overhead than just cutting everyone a check. But it is the only feasible way to accomplish the intended purpose on a permanent basis without forcibly changing property ownership. If you're going to be socialist, even in part, you have to control the means of production outside of the normal market price system. Otherwise, the free market eventually routes around your mandates as damage to the business network. If you're not going to nationalize it like a communist, you have to give the existing owners binding production orders, like a fascist. It just so happens that America hates communism, is at least passably friendly with fascism, and saddled with loads of debt, so mandatory production orders would be how to implement UBI there. Countries with big sovereign wealth funds from state-owned natural resources can go the semi-communist route, buy shares in the necessary companies, vote as necessary to guarantee their supply, and take their dividends as a share of the production. I can't say which would be better for India, but I think fascist-style UBI would be more likely to work there.