Richard Nixon: brought down by the Watergate scandal. Libertarians like it because of the simplicity. Pay everyone enough to live on and then you can abolish the vast labyrinthine bureaucracy of the welfare state and the cost to taxpayers of administering it. The idea, which has been advocated in the past by no less than former US president Richard Nixon, economist Milton Friedman and civil rights leader Martin Luther King, has been gaining momentum recently. The new impetus is fresh concern about the impact of new technology in destroying jobs. Driverless cars, artificial intelligence and the automation of many previously labour-intense jobs threaten to create a new army of unemployed, the argument goes. Pilot programs for a universal basic income are set to be rolled out in Finland and the Netherlands in 2017.

Martin Luther King was an advocated for a type of universal basic income. Credit:AP The movement hit a stumbling block at the weekend when Swiss citizens voted against a proposal for a 2500 Swiss franc ($3400) monthly income for all adults. Advocates had emphasised the importance of "humane existence" for all and a system which valued caring work and time for activism. But Swiss people voted "no" on practical grounds, a matter of cost and fear of an influx of migrants if introduced. Economists are split on the merits of the idea. If traditional economists believe anything, it's that incentives matter. If you pay someone $40,000 a year, where is the motivation to work?

But many question economists' traditional obsession with financial incentives, arguing people work for lots of reasons other than money: status, a sense of purpose and belonging. Real-world experiments in Canada and the US in the late 1960s, along with studies in India and Brazil, have found little evidence of widespread work discouragement from a minimum income. If anything, these studies found positive impacts. Participants in the Canadian study went to hospital less frequently and were more likely to finish high school. Women in the US study were more likely to leave abusive relationships. A minimum income paid to citizens in India actually helped them to secure work, by providing stability and access to childcare and transport. Indeed, our current system of delivering welfare, which withdraws benefits as incomes rise, creates huge financial disincentives to work for many, mums in particular. Replacing these benefits with a universal benefit unaffected by work might actually remove a disincentive for many. But, as always, the true devil of a universal basic income lies in the details.

Libertarians insist the payment must be universal, because this abolishes the need to distinguish between those who are deserving and those undeserving. If you don't need a huge welfare state to administer who should get payments, you realise a huge cost saving that can cover the cost of giving cash to everyone, including the well off. These high-income earners should be compensated too, the libertarian argument goes, for the abolition of Medicare and public education. But giving cash to the well off is, inherently, regressive. That money would do more to boost overall wellbeing if it were targeted at the poor. But if you don't want to give cash to the rich, and want to target assistance to those at most disadvantage, you need to keep the machinery of the welfare state, and you add to the cost. If funding for a basic income doesn't come from abolishing current payments, you're talking about increasing taxes or debt-funding the new payment. The former is contractionary for the economy, the latter inflationary. When it comes down to it, a universal basic income is a well-intentioned idea that needs more thought. If the debate serves to highlight some of the waste and inefficiency in the current welfare state or to highlight the excessively punitive nature of some of our existing benefits, that is all the better.

But better to fix those things first, rather than throw out the baby – a well-targeted redistributive tax and welfare system – with the bathwater of waste and unnecessary shame or denial of payments for welfare recipients in the current system.