I really like the idea of basic income, as an idea. It is difficult for me to imagine it working given the various existing levers we use for motivation today. This is one of those, I think it could work, but I also think the implementation requires many things to happen which probably won't happen overnight.
I think it's probably worth considering the whole cultural evolution aspect of this. This is where I'm coming from:
I have two degrees in engineering from top schools, I am a licensed engineer with a half dozen other credentials and certs. I've been working since 2001 or 2007 depending on how you count certain types of work (I don't count work I did prior to the second degree as my career, but for this discussion it should be part of it).
I work hard, 90 hour weeks not out of the question if needed. I'll work weekends, holidays, whatever. The work I do is important and satisfying. I protect people, I save lives. All of this was deliberate. I wanted a job where my contribution was significant. I knew early on I was smarter than many, maybe most, so I knew I had a duty to pursue something intellectually difficult. Had I been stronger I like to think I would have felt the same satisfaction pursuing something that made use of that. Or beautiful, or musically talented, etc.
All of that, is, to the extent I needed a job in the first place.
If it were up to me, given unlimited resources, I wouldn't work at all. I wouldn't have pursued the degrees and I would never have worked a day in my life. The most satisfying day for me is sitting outside, sipping an ice cold beverage, watching the day pass by.
There was never a summer day of my youth, a holiday since, or a weekend, where I've ever been bored. I neither need nor actively seek any active stimulation. I am content to just be.
And I am not alone.
Without the need to work in order to provide food, I don't have the need to find better work because to the extent I work I want to make as much as possible.
So don't think that "those who can or want will" because there are tons of us who won't. I don't feel bad about it either. I would have no problem cashing that check every month either. For me it was never about any other motivation.
I was raised, and the culture I grew up in right here in the USA, is that you work hard because you have to. Nobody will hire you if you don't. Most won't hire you either way, so you also need to get educated. If you want to eat and have a place to stay you need to work. That's just how it is son! Everything else was tacked on, not as a reason to work at all, but as a way of thinking about the need to work so it didn't seem so bad. The whole status, prestige, contribution, honor part of it. All secondary, to mitigate the awfulness of work (and therefore unnecessary, if work is out of the picture).
So along with basic income, the culture has to evolve to the point where working and making a contribution is enough to motivate capable people like me to go ahead and work.
I don't see that ever happening. I'm trying to find the words to describe how utterly uninterested I am in trading my time for money once I have enough money to survive. I don't think you believe how deep seated it is, and I'm not sure you really grasp how widespread it is.
We are the 99% [citation needed].
The idea of basic income, particularly in place of all other programs, has a simplicity that is appealing. And it certainly has a structural advantage in that. I have a voyeuristic joy at another country trying it out, these types of experiments are expensive. I'm hopeful any problems that arise people are able to come up with a solution (like making it illegal to lend money to someone who's only source of income is that basic income, or making it super easy for people to discharge debts like that in bankruptcy).
But if you need my contribution, then it's probably a bad idea. So before the civilization goes down that road, make sure the robots are ready, because a bunch of us are going to drop out of the workforce.
I think the transition might not be as painful, because at this point I have so much sunk cost built into my credentials I probably would keep going until I could afford the particular lifestyle I've already worked so hard for, but the equivalent of 800 euro a month combined with my current savings would let me instantly FIRE now. And if it had been on the table from the beginning I never would have even gone to high school, much less finished.
Just sayin'