Your premise that if people's needs are met they will do nothing I feel is plain wrong - people will be bored then, and there are other societal pressures that can drive people to do, to improve themselves, to be productive. Want to be an attractive mate? Want to be an interesting person? Want to be more attractive (not talking just physical of course) and a more interesting person than other contenders? People and animals through evolution get enough of what they need to perpetuate their species forward - humans with out abilities for creating machines to automate processes and make our own lives practically infinitely more productive (and for the whole world) really changes, and I'd argue, lowers what minimum amount of work each of us actually need to do in service of others (to take care of others) - though we might as well make and incentivize all of the work we do (including education) towards what is good and what is in service for others; If everyone's working towards taking care of everyone else, then you'll be taken care of very well. :)
Capitalism itself we now know and have learned is great for innovation, however not for sustainability - so that is its sickness. It's not difficult to change certain economic cycles to turn capitalism into incentivizing and directing resources into a positive cycle for everyone to benefit - it's a matter of identifying the leading metrics and affecting them through policy.
Land being given away got people being productive, so that's the leading metric there - we need to incentivize and help people be passionate about something, to enjoy doing things, so they do them - become productive. I don't think it's directly either that it giving people a basic income alone really breaks the 'stronghold' the capitalist has. The issue you have to watch out for is if you de-incentivize capitalistic behaviour then people might not do jobs that we need. You have to manage the ecosystem, and not control it - though what businesses do, is control, and that causes problems -- and by managing you allow natural cycles to show themselves, and then can guide them as you discover and need to direct them (if they indeed need some direction due to negative impact / a negative cycle for society exists).
Re: Citigroup Plutonomy paper - Neat. I knew these structures existed, though not the source. The way things got done was whoever has more resources amassed who then can leverage them for their own gain -- if that's what they want (and that's usually only time they'll spend their resources/money, though government should be leveraging resources for their own gain; giving land away initially was useful because it was a strong enough incentive to get activity happening). This is similarly what things like the stock market allows, companies to amass large sums of money. FTA, "But as yet, there seems little political fight being born out on this battleground." This is language of karma. The effects of karma takes time to happen sometimes, for organization to occur - and of course as they state, you're fighting compliance of a mass market who mostly have enough to just get by - and it's perpetuated this way and always floats around this because businesses will adjust their price points/profit level based on people's demands, and there are certain things people require; We'll really be in trouble when for-profit driven motives cause certain resources to be no longer available - one of which being a healthy environment that we're allowing to be polluted. Capitalistic cycles are in a controlled-negative cycle. It doesn't take a lot of policy to shift this to positive cycles to start being self-perpetuating, however there will be backlash/hate/fear from the status quo who want to maintain. I think the education and awareness required of society is such that it can happen relatively quickly - the internet is providing such a platform.
Also FTA, "To this end, the cleaning up of business practice, by high-profile champions of fair play, might actually prolong plutonomy." This is funny because they're not really doing this to the degree they should in the U.S. - so perhaps they're shooting themselves in the foot - which is good news for society that no one really seems at the wheel of this way of living, they may all be doing their part individually - but without a visionary leading then a plan in the opposite direction can occur with relatively little pushback.