I predict that implementing a universal basic income will be a loosing battle if it is based on income redistribution via income taxation. A universal entitlement to an income, if it is to succeed, must be based upon that which is held in common by all human beings just because they were born into the world. One of these "commons" is the good Earth herself, and the cultural inheritance (including property) handed down to our generation from past generations now gone before us. A rational expression of the common benefits drawn from the land and from the cultural inheritance could take the shape of a distribution of a land value tax and displacing the present system of bank creation of money with a more direct way of monetising our cultural inheritance in wealth.

Alan, I agree, the fact is that as long as we have private capture of location rents, any impact a Basic Income has on general income will simply flow through to location rent, meaning that land owners will pocket it, not the intended beneficiaries. That said, the same is true of means-tested welfare programs which are far more demeaning and inefficient than a Basic Income, thus there are peripheral reasons to support a Basic Income instead of means-tested welfare programs, however only a "Citizen's Dividend" derived from a land tax can make any significant change in wealth level. Or even better, direct, co-operative community sharing of location rent income.

Cheers,
Dmytri,
Venture Communist.