> There are so many knee-jerk reactions and hot takes about the really simple idea that people should be assured the means to subsist. The two most entrenched and, dare I say, ridiculous ones being:

> 1. "No one will ever work anymore!"

> Really? People do not care about material well-being, leisure goods or the feeling of usefulness? What does it say about our current labor market if, given a poverty line subsistence (!), the majority will choose to forego any superior value good? Maybe that we are forced to work, against our will? Where's freedom in that? If this is the case, we clearly have an economic efficiency problem here and now.

> 2. "Inflation will eat any gain, prices will skyrocket!"

> Simple. As for price increases, well we already have something to counter these and it's called the market. As in the price increase signals to actual & would-be producers that there's money to be made by producing more potatoes, lodging, clothes, etc. This is textbook economics.

bro, are you even Canadian? You never heard of our famous oligopolies?

oligopoly. An oligopoly is a market structure in which there are a few firms producing a product, and they may collude to set a price or output level for the market in order to maximize industry profits1. As a result, price will be higher than the market-clearing price, and output is likely to be lower1

we have them in every major economic sector and their lobbyists have regulatory capture preventing any meaningful reform