I support Indians getting themselves a working pensions and benefits system but I can't agree that the government should be running any kind of manufacturing.

The demands are a mix of sensible things with a few obviously corruption enabling things thrown in, they just hope the corruption will work in their favour but in fact it always hurts everyone.

I mean we had a debate in rad fem/GC circles a while back about universal basic income and a surprising number of people were against it as it would make people reliant on the government and then the government could charge the rules to withhold payment from people it didn't like.

That's the risk of all benefits systems. The handing out of grain sounds like a great idea but it will become the norm for large numbers of people in a very short space of time then if for some reason they don't get it that will be a disaster for them because their small earnings will have been budgeted elsewhere. You want a benefits system to be a temporary thing people dip into when times are hard not a way to maintain a low wage workforce or poor community indefinitely.