If we could afford to live in a world where everyone was given $5000/mth, would we want such a world? (where work was optional) I think yes.

...can we afford that? At this point, probably not. But is it something to strive for?

I think it is eventually possible to get the costs of providing basic needs to everyone (say, through automation) to the point where they can be easily covered by taxes on those who choose to work.

I fear though, that housing is an obstacle to this vision, because in many countries, people rely on housing to be an investment (ex. my parents house is the majority of their retirement), and so the politicians protect it as such, and developers have weird incentives... and so the prices don't go down.