The welfare state is an ineffective and expensive system that hurts and targets the poor more than it helps. Universal basic income is a better alternative that could work. The question becomes, then, where would the money for UBI come from? There are a myriad of reasons why UBI via taxes would be a bad idea. Instead, we should look to socially produced capital. Companies rely on people to be successful, so a percentage of all shares of all companies should go into a public equity trust and the dividends should be distributed to every member of society equally.
Yanis Varoufakis is the former finance minister of Greece and the cofounder of an international grassroots movement, DiEM25, that is campaigning for the revival of democracy in Europe. He is the author of And the Weak Suffer What They Must? and The Global Minotaur. After teaching for many years in the United States, Britain, and Australia, he is currently a professor of economics at the University of Athens. His most recent books are Talking to My Daughter About the Economy and Adults in the Room. Check Adults in the Room: My Battle with the European and American Deep Establishment at https://amzn.to/2UzNNo6