Because the interests of the majority in consuming does not align with the interests of the minority in producing. In a widely-diverse economy, it's impossible

Because the interests of the majority in consuming does not align with the interests of the minority in producing. In a widely-diverse economy, it's impossible to have huge voting blocks like that. There's just too many vastly different economic models represented. But if you start heading down the road of UBI, you're basically splitting the population into two groups. Something's gotta give somewhere. You either get debt default or oligarchy. It currently works in the U.S. -- assuming you believe the U.S. is not dysfunctional -- because while we have retired folks, they're just a small part of a vastly more diverse electorate. And even then, you'd imagine they would bring some of their experience in the economy to bear on their current decisions. A nation full of people who have never economically participated would have no data to decide or discuss which voting decisions to make. It'd all just be about more consumption. In fact, assuming you could make it work, it would end up with folks voting in short-term bumps in UBI increases at the expense of long-term budgets, for much the same reasons as corporate boards vote in CEOs who can increase the share price short-term at the expense of long-term strategy. Only way out of that is tyranny/oligarchy. Note that I'm not saying it won't work. I want to see more experiments and real data instead of all of this arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Real data beats this kinda stuff hands-down. I'm simply saying it's an interesting argument that deserves some attention -- especially when looking at the results of the experiments when they roll in. The last thing I would want to see is something like YC doing an experiment where the only people looking at results were folks who were already true believers. That's total crap. You want results you can throw rocks at.