I'm not misunderstanding the basic idea so much as rejecting it. Isn't one of the supposed benefits of UBI that people, once no longer occupied by work in orde

I'm not misunderstanding the basic idea so much as rejecting it. Isn't one of the supposed benefits of UBI that people, once no longer occupied by work in order to provide for themselves, will be free to pursue other interests? That it would enrich our lives to be free from labor prescribed by others? Burying and digging up money is not productive; that's exactly the point. To the extent that scare resources are allocated to unproductive work, actual productive use of resources (time being one) suffers. If money-digging is more lucrative than producing food, people eventually begin to starve, increasing the demand for money-digging. If a person spends his time digging for money instead of learning something (or, indeed, planting his own garden) society is immeasurably worse-off.