[mntmoss]

Money is intrinsically related to debt and ability to pay one's debts. This has several meanings when you look at different scales of money.

An individual's debts are related to near-term life needs: making rent, putting food on the table, paying bills, paying for an education, and paying to assist friends and loved ones with each of those same things.

A local government has to use taxation and debt to take on major infrastructure projects and provide ongoing public services. The money represents some mix of the will of the taxpayers and creditors, plus any private interests brought on to finance a project.

At an international level, money represents the trade and economic competitiveness of the nation and is a mode of diplomatic influence and trust in the nation's stability and internal control. A country that wishes to import more goods will seek a stronger currency; one that wishes to pay off debts will probably inflate their way out. The spending of the nation is reflective of the size of the government relative to the private market, and so high public spending may "crowd out" private, but it can also bolster markets by giving them confidence in demand for goods or availability of labor.

And at each scale you can make cases for earmarking some things, pushing them up or down a level, or letting them be resolved through a general fund. That's the incentivization that drives the specifics of an economy. Most countries now agree that fire protection should be financed as a public good, for example, rather than having each resident contract for fire services. But with health care there is disagreement, with employment benefits there are disagreements, with education there are disagreements and so on.

Basically, UBI is a statement that some amount of the public trust should be redistributed as money rather than as a specific good. This puts a lot of flexibility into the hands of the taxpayer. The arguments against whether UBI at all tend to be either "save the little people from themselves" (while wealthy investors get a pass), or "we cannot afford it" (while larger organizations are bailed out on the regular) - and topics at this scale get entangled with national character too.

If in the USA one would ultimately want to evaluate the idea of UBI according to the Constitutional Framers' "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness." Life - yes. Pursuit of happiness - yes. Liberty - up to interpretation, given the "money is debt" premise. In another country other principles would structure the test.