Ugh. There has to be a happy medium somewhere between serfdom and welfare-dom. In my mind, both extremes involve leaches wanting money for nothing, whether its

Ugh. There has to be a happy medium somewhere between serfdom and welfare-dom. In my mind, both extremes involve leaches wanting money for nothing, whether its because there are a few aristocrats, er, capitalists collecting "rent" for assets they inherited, or many people (I believe by Kiwi friend calls them "dole bludges") who simply expect a monthly welfare payout for nothing. I'm so old, I remember a period in this country's time when we rejected the idea of an aristocracy, taxed the hell out of the well off, and used it to pay for maintenance of the commons. This maintenance involved people in many walks of life, whether it was filling pot holes in roads, or researching rocket science and brain surgery. This made work that paid well enough for many people to do things that were helpful to society as a whole, but that which it was hard to get a single person to pay for. Forcing those who benefitted most from the structure of society to contribute to its continuation is NOT the same as expecting a free ride. OTOH, I'm pretty sure that handing out "basic income" to everybody would greatly stagnate society, as 60 to 90% of the population would do nothing :-(