People could simply help themselves to everything. Restrictions are set only by his/her ideas of morality and ethics. The use of an exchange system significantly influences these ideas.
An exchange system gives default ideas about morality and ethics: you are allowed to take just the amount of goods as you have means of exchange.
Bertold Brecht once wrote: “First you think about food, then about morality”. In general he means that physical laws are stronger than (self-)imposed rules.
But the use of an exchange system affects the freedom of a person: he/she could take everything he/she wants, but the system says “no”, if he/she has no money.
Without an exchange system, a person would take things beyond any measure. Means of exchange should create accepted limits to this freedom.
Let’s have a look to the system:
If you go to a seller on a market, he would say “no”, if you just want to take something. You are (usually) not allowed to take something without giving anything. If you take it anyhow, he would call the police to underline his “no” and you might be called a thief.
But as an intelligent person, you may ask the simple question: why am I not allowed?
Now the seller has to explain, why he influences your freedom to take something without giving anything. His/her reasons may vary, but mainly he will explain that he has had to do something to be able to sell the goods you’d like.
But if the seller is as clever as you, he is going to ask, why you influence his freedom to say “no” and why you just take things, which are not yours. In this case your reasons could vary, too, but mainly you will explain, that you want to survive.
After this discussion, it depends on the seller’s understanding whether he changes his “no” to “yes”. But he will be very careful that nobody hears his/her answer – in case another person comes and wants something for nothing too.
The social system ensures that such discussions do not occur every day. But today’s usage transfers this discussion just to another place:
The provider of social help (usually the welfare system of a state) wants to know why you ask for money. You must prove that you have no income to maintain yourself. Actually it’s the same discussion as on the market.
An exchange system doesn’t influence the freedom “to give” (to say “yes”), but the freedom “to take” (by saying “no”). An unconditional basic income describes a “silent agreement”, that everybody whithin an exchange system needs means of exchange to maintain his/her life, but also that the exchange system limits the amount one person can take.
