Indeed--the TARP bank bailouts (where the government decided in a top-down manner which banks deserved to "live") were much closer to standard Soviet Union practice than a guaranteed income would be.
I'm divided on the TARP bailouts. On one hand they bailout went parties professed to be the most cognizant of their actions, and who should have had the knowledge and resources to to avoid their problems. In those terms, the banks did not deserve bailouts. On the other hand, as a short term measure I feel like it was reasonable to prevent larger scale chaos.
Overall, the need for TARP was driven by the weak long term oversight allowing concentrated influence in overlarge companies. That's often viewed as a failure of government to remain independent from influence, but at the root of the problem I think it was a shift in economic philosophy across business schools and the business community. The long term fix in my view is putting new focus on defining what criteria lead to healthy, competitive markets. Businesses themselves should recognize that poor competitiveness, and short term focus in markets can lead to poor long term performance in the economy for everybody. Different mechanisms to discourage oversized companies should be introduced into legislation, but now I'm rambling....
