Ontario's plan is not groundbreaking, it's not really a basic income either; it's more like an increase in social assistance rates. 

As Reguly points out, by clawing back 50 per cent of all earnings, the plan removes incentives to work and stunts peoples' entrepreneurial and aspirational instincts to work to gain a stake in the economy. As ever, the Wynn government specializes in half measures — the minimum necessary to get the photo op. If the government was truly interested in the plan's success, income would not be clawed back until it exceeded about $30,000.

Reguly is probably also correct that the adoption of a basic income scheme offers a lifeline to neoliberalism and would be taken as giving carte blanche to capitalists and governments to create larger and more formalized economic ghettos than we have now.

The problem is that capitalism is no longer capable of building an economy that generates inclusive growth. Those days are over. Like it or not the next stop is revolution.