Darkflight
Prince
The basic income is not in and of itself communist. The relations of production are not changing, it is just another form of welfare provided by the state.
It is a pretty awesome form though. It reduces overhead/"omg burucreacyz" whinging, it removes the "fraud" present in psuedo-basic income programs like food stamps, and at $200/month per person as a baseline that would be about 4.8% of US GDP per year.
You could also remove that means-testing marginal tax rate garbage through this program, so people have every incentive to work instead of worrying that their income will make them lose more in benefits. $10,000 for a family of four is enough to (probably) avoid starvation, but it sure does not do much else besides. Not that a BI making potential employees a little less desperate in the job market is a BAD thing.
A BI has also been supported as a macroeconomic stabilizer and as a buttress to a flagging labor movement. So it is a major issue both righties and lefties have found some common ground on.
I understand that, but it still is closer then anything else yet. And I do have high hopes for it.