An alternative that I prefer is a welfare system such as in Australia. Australian welfare is very similar to basic income, the main differences being that you have to look for work (but enforcement is not strict) and the way welfare decreases as your income increases, makes your effective marginal tax rate about 50%.
I'm not sure what the optimal tax schedule (pre-tax vs post-tax and welfare) should look like, but my intuition is that a high effective marginal tax rate for people on welfare is not bad, as the disincentive to work that it produces affects fewer people, than if we had a flat tax (e.g. VAT) plus basic income.
The disincentive to work produced by a higher effective marginal tax rate is also offset by the fact that welfare isn't a lot of money, and the longer you are on welfare the stricter enforcement becomes.
I also don't see the moral reason for a true basic income, except perhaps for men, who should be compensated for the possibility of being conscripted.
> the main differences being that you have to look for work
This is a bad idea in the long term. The whole reason basic income is being seriously looked at is because we know automation is eliminating the need for labor and that trend will continue until work simply isn't available for a large percentage of the population. People need to get over the idea that work will be necessary to live or the idea that work is how one contributes to society.
We don't know what the full impact of technology would be, so a basic income is premature at best.
When you say "People need to get over the idea that work will be necessary to live" you are just insulting people's intelligence. Of course I am aware that if you got paid for doing nothing, then work would no longer be necessary for (an individual) to live.
Also, the theory of technological unemployment is that technology will render labor less productive. Basic income might be a kinder and more efficient way to deliver money to people without jobs, but it won't magically make them more productive.
I'm not sure what the optimal tax schedule (pre-tax vs post-tax and welfare) should look like, but my intuition is that a high effective marginal tax rate for people on welfare is not bad, as the disincentive to work that it produces affects fewer people, than if we had a flat tax (e.g. VAT) plus basic income.
The disincentive to work produced by a higher effective marginal tax rate is also offset by the fact that welfare isn't a lot of money, and the longer you are on welfare the stricter enforcement becomes.
I also don't see the moral reason for a true basic income, except perhaps for men, who should be compensated for the possibility of being conscripted.