My position: Milton Friedman had basic economic literacy but chose to ignore it at times, caring more about some other things (like moral and social issues – an area where he made some serious mistakes).

Many other people don't have economic literacy in the first place – and if they did have it, some of them would change their minds about Basic Income and other issues, rather than ignore economics to focus on their social-moral philosophy. One reason that would happen is plenty of people don't have a very strong social-moral philosophy in the first place, don't care about it much. And some would even change their social-moral philosophy itself, for the better, if they understood basic economics.

Spreading basic economics isn't a total cure-all alone, but it's a great step. Many people would notice the conflicts between economics and some of their other ideas. Some of those people would then have some success resolving the conflicts and reaching reasonable economically-informed conclusions.