UBI just lifts the wealth distribution curve up a bit so the long tail approaches something above zero. You could also call it a "tax prebate" as in the FairTax proposal if that's more palatable. The poorest poor are going to get their basic necessities somehow, whether it's by participating in the economy or by digging through your garbage or your garage.
Or even worse engaging in activies that degrade your lifestyle ;)
I live in a society that has in effect a basic income (not very efficiently run, but that is another topic) and it allows the ultra rich and famous to walk around without fear. I have on more than one occasion met billionaires on the street who were wandering around without bodyguards or security. Once you have everything money can buy this is priceless.
I'm very interested in the concept of basic income, but I don't see any issue with this commentary from PT Barnum. It seems to be more of a statement of fact that some people spend their money more wisely than others. Basic income could be viewed as inline with this statement because you would get an income stipend at some small interval, like once a month, so even if you spent it all last month, this month arrives and you get that basic income again.
Even a cursory reading of the story should suggest to a reader a difference between the proposed action (divide equally riches amongst all), and UBI (fund a fixed-amount per citizen per annum).
Least of all, if one believes in the ability of capital to be reinvested to create more capital, it is obvious that the second case need hardly injure an economy while still helping the people who are broke.
The former case, of continual wealth division, of course may fail--luckily, that's not how UBI works.
> it is obvious that the second case need hardly injure an economy
I think an even stronger statement holds true: if you don't actively redistribute then you're effectively making an open-loop amplifier which will amplify noise (who happened to be in the right place at the right time) in preference to signal (effort input) -- which is just as harmful to the cultivation of a beneficial incentive landscape (i.e. one that promotes effort input, since that's tautologically all anyone ever gets to decide) as a failure to reward success would be.
Alternatively: it's often better to reduce the transition-state energy than to improve the final reward, which is exactly the opposite of what happens when decisions are made by people who have 1 metric shitton of money to invest in building a moat with the aim of returning 2 metric shittons of money.