It's absolutely warranted. I spent time in South Africa, specifically Johannesburg and Durban, and due to completely unrestricted immigration there is a massive unemployed population (there simply isn't enough work for all the people coming in to the country), and crime rates have gone through the roof.
"Idle hands are the Devil's workshop." Human beings do not naturally drift towards societally beneficial behaviour when lacking productive activities to engage in.
This puritanical belief makes the idea of Basic Income politically un-doable through most of the world, along with the belief that a living is something that must be earned through productive work.
> This puritanical belief makes the idea of Basic Income politically un-doable through most of the world, along with the belief that a living is something that must be earned through productive work.
It's just a framing problem.
For example, the Earned Income Tax Credit in the US is a small de facto UBI. If you eliminated all US welfare programs and used all the money to increase the amount of the EITC you will have effectively solved the problem.
In theory the EITC requires you to earn money, but if you eliminated the loss of welfare benefits that currently occurs if you report earning any amount of money, suddenly you'll discover that everybody everywhere has "income" from doing odd jobs for their friends and so on, most of which they've been doing the whole time in exchange for in-kind services but (illegally!) not reporting it as income because reporting it previously caused a net loss rather than a net gain.
Human nature isn't anywhere near as simplistic as economists tend to believe. That is why half the theories doesn't work in reality, people are far from the rational actors they're made out to be.
> immigration there is a massive unemployed population (there simply isn't enough work for all the people coming in to the country), and crime rates have gone through the roof.
The situation in South Africa is far more nuanced. Due to a sham government and a badly fractured education system, the immigrants to South Africa are generally more skilled and far more employable than many locals. The immigrants also open shops and are more entrepreneurial. There might be some crime from foreigners, but surely we don't need to go making blanket statements like this. This is the kind of thing said by mob leaders during buildup to xenophobic attacks, which surely you know actually take place in South Africa.
"Idle hands are the Devil's workshop." Human beings do not naturally drift towards societally beneficial behaviour when lacking productive activities to engage in.