That's precisely it. Since all the natural resources of the Earth have been mostly harvested from their natural state, that same principle of direct apples of trees no longer exists. This breaks the natural law. In order to restore it, you need to return the abundant state of resources that all people have access to. That's essentially The Civic Dividend. You are not giving people unlimited money; that would potentially halt progress. You are giving people a bare minimum of natural resources that mankind has right to, as in the state of nature. Apples were plentiful, but still had to be built into gardens and so forth to be great. The Civic Dividend gives people those plentiful apples, but they will be motivated to turn those apples into gardens, and to not get bit by snakes. This doesn't demean mankind by telling them that they are nothing more than pack animal to be coerced, and inflict unnecessary human suffering where motivation is already plentiful enough. And it restores the natural balance. People have access to natural resources of the Earth, so when society has harvested them like we have, we need to restore that balance of apples; plentiful, and to be cultivated. That is The Civic Dividend. Fundamentally, you have no right to deny people The Civic Dividend, just as you have no right to take more apples than you need. You cannot take the apples of the earth, then deny them to people and call them lazy for demanding them. The Civic Dividend is just giving people the fundamental apples they have a right to since they've been taken from the state of nature where they already existed. People seem to forget that nature is abundant with natural resources. And that in nature, all people have equal right to them. Now that those resources are harvested, that principle still applies, and those resources still exist; it is simply giving people the resources that already exist that by birthright they have equal claim to that which they need.

The argument against The Civic Dividend due to scarcity is silly! Because it's sort of like saying if we gave everybody apples, we would run out of apples, because there'd be nobody to make them. But that's ridiculous! Nature has more apples than man could ever want! Apples grow plentifully off of trees, and there are far more apples than man could eat, taking only what each person needs. People took the natural apples that existed, in some cases perhaps hoarded them more than they needed, and now some say they cannot give a reasonable portion back because if they did so, there would be no one to make apples. But you stole unlimited apples which are already plentiful enough. It is not a scarcity issue because there is more than enough apples for people to survive already in nature. By hoarding them, and calling them your own, you are ignoring that they existed not in scarcity but in plenty.

The Civic Dividend would not create a scarcity issue because there is more than enough apples in nature to go around, and the money that provides it is representative of the natural resources/apples that have been harvested. Money is just representative of work, of resources that have been harvested. And as a result, since there are enough natural resources for everyone to live, giving people The Civic Dividend would just give people what is in abundance, which there can be no scarcity of. Money is representative of apples, and in nature there are enough apples for all to go around. Mankind cannot take apples for himself in hoards, then deny them to other parts of mankind, saying they are scarce. They are not.

I'll reiterate, there is nothing wrong with people having lots of apples. But you cannot hoard them. People can take more apples than they need that day. This is called money. A store of work. That's what money is, it is a store of work. There is nothing wrong with people having lots of money; this is actually extremely good. But you cannot take more apples, more money, than you need, from the common state of nature. People have a right to own what they worked for, for it to be theirs and theirs alone. Private property is a good thing, and being rich is good. But you cannot take more than you need.

You cannot hoard apples. You can take what you need to eat, or to fulfill some nobler purpose. If you take an apple and eat it, good. Take one and save it for tomorrow, good. You can also take 50 apples with the intention to start a garden. That's good. Hell, take a million apples and start a lovely garden. It's yours. But you cannot take apples without reason. The resources of the Earth, from oil to wheat to ore, belong to everybody, and can be taken by everybody–including in rich amounts, if they take them for a noble and good purpose. But when you take all the apples of the Earth, all the oil of the Earth, all the ores of the Earth, represent it with money, then deny people access to those apples, oil, and ore by claim of scarcity, that is mistaken. Those resources are not scarce; there was enough for everybody to use, taking only what they need, or need to fulfill a greater purpose, and left enough for the rest to use. Which people can do, since nature is plentiful with oil, ore, and what, and there is enough for everybody for all noble and good purposes. Being rich and owning property is a good thing, but taking more than you need, and taking more that does leave enough for the rest of mankind, then denying them that thing where there was originally enough, is mistaken. The Civic Dividend is not some welfare system, nor some tool for lazy people. A man is not lazy for eating an apple that grows off of a tree in nature.