That was the reason even Milton Friedman, otherwise pretty much the opposite of a socialist, though that a basic income was a good option even in western countries. His view was that just giving people unrestricted cash would cut out much of the corruption, inefficiency, and market distortion that creeps in once you start giving intermediaries the power to put conditions and restrictions on support. For example, with food stamps, he was skeptical that the restrictions requiring people to buy "proper" food with them produced better results overall than just giving people the equivalent amount in cash and letting them decide. For one thing, if individual recipients are choosing their food, rather than picking it from a list of food-stamp-approved choices, it completely removes the whole business of lobbying to be on the approved list, plus the bureaucracy of administering the list.