I remember talking to a friend's dad way back when COVID hit under Obama about Universal Basic Income and he was against it because he said it would make people not want to work and be lazy. I didn't say anything because I could tell he was the kind of person who wants everyone to understand that you need to work harder than others in order to get ahead, which is true, but not everyone needs to get ahead to live peacefully. But if he would have been interested economic instead of primarily philosophical arguments, I would have said something along the lines of the following.
First of all, if the right people get ahead (not the misers), they will be charitable to the poor. Second, people with positive motivations like creativity do better and more work than people who are only trying to survive. Thirdly, a couple of thousand dollars a month is helpful to poor people to feed, clothe, allow personal hygiene and support them to be able to get to work and school. Starting with nothing makes it much harder to contribute to society. Finally, why should taxes not go back into supporting people who pay them? Why should our government not serve us, instead of the other way around? Personal misers are social sadists who think that a strong collective ruins personal discipline, and that character is a one-way street.
I'm all for a good grind but I think there can be a healthy balance between negative and positive compensation. At the same time people like this (not just my friend's dad but mine too) they give the impression that personal discipline is all that matters, they want to reinforce it through external hardships.
It's true that there are many weak people who make a negative social contribution when afforded resources, but that should not stop welfare for everyone, because without it plenty of innocent people suffer deprivation.
I think the miserly views of a lot of old people come from the fact that conditions were bad for them and they had to harden themselves in order to make a way and survive, and that carries over and subconsciously affects how they think about society and that it's impossible for it to be any different or for general conditions to be better. Like they're stuck in a moment. And I think that since they can't express this fear since they use it to fuel themselves, it becomes a communist boogeyman. And then they're averse to getting anything for free, when they themselves are the ones who say that nothing is free. So how could it even be free if nothing is? There should be no danger in that, they're just being oxymorons. What you get in return is happy people around you.