UBI is another tool for make citizen obedient to state. Once implemented, like debts, there will be strong voting mass for system that they could benefit from - with price of less independency.
That is ultimately a better outcome than we currently have, where the exact same thing happens, except it's only large corporations benefitting. Politicians _should_ be buying votes from the working class and tangibly improving their lives in the process.
Political machines did deliver tangible benefits to their constituents through what could be described as vote buying. In Daley's Chicago, if you there was a pothole on your street or your cousin who was new to the country needed a job, you could go to your alderman who would solve the problem for you. In return you were supposed to vote for the party and get everyone you knew to vote for the party.
This worked as long as the machine was unquestioned and there were contractors willing to play ball to finance the whole thing. Now as a series of court decisions limiting the spoils system and incompetent successors have weakened the system, the mayor's approval rating is half of what it once was and overall confidence in the city is much lower. And the city's finances are about as bad as they can get today. So I wouldn't call it socialism and I wouldn't even say that it's worse than the alternatives.
