There's an ultimate end-game here, but we're not culturally ready for it yet.

Right now, we attach income to work. You get job, you get paid. The two are bound at the hip.

For over 100 years we've been watching as machines take over doing the work. Society is more productive than ever, but with far fewer people. Right now we kinda gloss over this by creating "bullshit jobs". We have some social safety nets, but we scorn those who use them.

Fast forward another 100 years. Machines now produce everything. 1% of people have (necessary) jobs. 99% collect a "basic income", machines do all the productive work, all "income" flows back around as taxes to become redistributed as basic income.

Right now this sounds very dystopic. Culturally we still bind "job" to "worth" in a very visceral way. If I suggest "everyone gets paid, even if they dont have a job", that provokes a very intense response in some countries and a less intense response in others.

As mechanization increases, actual jobs decrease. This trend is obvious. As a whole the idea of creating a "bottom level" of society is quietly becoming mainstream. Generally pushing that "bottom level" upwards is happening.

It's not hard to forsee a future where production is sufficient, energy is cheap, the "bottom" is quite high, where we tax production (not people), where we dispense with the fiction of bullshit jobs.

Some cultures are more ready for it than others. And there will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth along the way. Societal change has always been thus. But the end result is inevitable.

The UBI will never come. The plebs need to suffer and keep their heads down, or they'll look up and realize.