Davos Man

by Peter S. Goodman

In its modern-day incarnation, basic income has gained currency as a malleable approach that can be tailored to widely divergent conceptions of society. Progressives like Standing envision it as a means of emancipation from the meaninglessness of low-wage work. People stuck in minimum wage jobs at fast-food restaurants could gain freedom to abandon the fryolator, going home to play with their children, make music, and dig vegetable gardens. Labor advocates embrace basic income as a way to increase bargaining power, enabling workers to refuse jobs at poverty-level wages. Liberals envision basic income as a way to remove the stigma of public assistance. Instead of relying on food stamps at the grocery store while suffering the judgmental gazes of other shoppers—Shouldn’t she buy spinach instead of frozen pizza?—poor people would receive the same steady support as everyone else. Conservatives, like the political commentator David Frum, are drawn to basic income for its simplicity, viewing it as an all-in-one replacement for the tangle of overlapping social welfare programs that are already on offer. And Davos Man favors universal income as a means of unburdening himself of moral responsibility for profiting off technology that threatens jobs.