I had an idea for a way for a kind of basic income to work back in the 80's. Just never had the means to get it launched. I called my plan "Free Food".

The idea was to set up a network of private charities that cover the local region of its donors in kind of a splash effect. Where the area each region covers increases as the fund increases. Until all the regions overlap, at which point you would have 100% saturation of Free Food.

The idea to make this work is that every contribution made to the charity would go into an interest bearing account, where the principle of the account could never be diminished. Only the dividends the account generates are used for benefits and minimal operational expenses. Having the principle locked in place where it can only grow would ensure continued benefits levels (barring massive population growth), as well as still paying the farmers, grocers and transport workers who produce the food and bring it to market. As well as creating huge bank accounts that would prop up the banks where the accounts are held.

And once the fund had reached saturation in an area, it would then push the outer boundaries. Eventually to envelop whole continents and then the whole planet. And once we had food covered, we'd expand to basic housing costs. And then healthcare. Eventually to ensure everyone had the basic requirements for survival, and to free them to do the things they really wanted to do. Rather than what they had to do to earn a paycheck to survive.

It was a silly, naive, youthful idea, I know. It was vulnerable to exploitation and outright perversion of the basic idea unless you always had the exact right people there to control it. And basic human corruption would ruin it eventually. But, what if we all could have something nice for once that someone didn't feel the need to muck it up?