the problem with communism was that it tried almost 100% government management and planning. Private iniative was forbidden, even in the areas in which it would be useful. (source: I grew up in a socialist/communist country)
In that manner, capitalism with guaranteed income is different. You want to be rich, go ahead amd try your chances at trade, entrepreneurship etc. You see a market opportunity - go ahead and kickstart it. On the other hamd, if you lack a capability, or you prefer to do things that nobody will want to pay you for (art, raising children etc), the govrnment will keep you covered.
Obviously there are problems to it, especially today when production costs are expensive. And there are implementation problems as well. But still, one system is the ultimate oppression, another one is ultimate freedom.
Btw. The running joke in communism was: "yeah, our system is perfect, it's just the implememtation that sucks". I believe that communism was impossible to get implemented correctky, whereas capitalism + minimum income can be. Not today, but in a few years when the goods will be even cheaper.
If I remember well the texbooks, communism is about common ownership of the means of production (typically factories), not about personal private property or money.
I bet I would have been executed back at the time of the October revolution for saying this, but you could have a market even with communism: if nobody want apples and everybody like oranges, guess what is going to be cultivated and what's going to cost more? It doesn't matter that the state (the people) owns all the apple and orange trees and processing factories. They'll allocate resources as the market want.
Unfortunately communism almost always came with central planning, maybe because the guys in charge were often dictators and, as you wrote, private initiative was not well received. Furthermore they had to differentiate from capitalism as much as they could (that was marketing), and anything remotely looking capitalistic was forbidden.
The problem with communism was that people were locked-out of the decisions. They had no idea what's going on. The reason for that was not that the leadership imposed it. It worked out that way, because the government made a promise to the common people:
"We will take care of your needs, you just be as productive as you can. You will be happy, we will take care for you".
So the people did. The government gave bread to the masses and the masses didn't care about much else. The ones who cared about more were deemed to be dangerous to the communist society and were killed.
How is the promise made by basic income proponents different that the communist promise?
In that manner, capitalism with guaranteed income is different. You want to be rich, go ahead amd try your chances at trade, entrepreneurship etc. You see a market opportunity - go ahead and kickstart it. On the other hamd, if you lack a capability, or you prefer to do things that nobody will want to pay you for (art, raising children etc), the govrnment will keep you covered.
Obviously there are problems to it, especially today when production costs are expensive. And there are implementation problems as well. But still, one system is the ultimate oppression, another one is ultimate freedom.
Btw. The running joke in communism was: "yeah, our system is perfect, it's just the implememtation that sucks". I believe that communism was impossible to get implemented correctky, whereas capitalism + minimum income can be. Not today, but in a few years when the goods will be even cheaper.