“No,” says Wendy.
“So what I’ll do is ask a question and then I’ll answer it myself, like a politician might do. The question: What comes next?”
He pauses for effect and taps his pants pocket as if he’s looking for a set of keys that will unlock the secrets of the product that Wendy continues to hold.
“One possible solution is this bill. Universal Basic Income, they’re calling it. Nervy, don’t you think? I get the basic part. It’s certainly basic. I get the income part as well. Income, incoming. A kamikaze pilot. A plane about to explode. It’s the universal bit that kills me. What chutzpah. Universal? Please. This bill leaves no one happy. Not the businesses and high-income citizens the government’s asking to subsidize it. Not the recipients either. You think an out-of-work trucker in Mississippi wants your charity? You think that makes him feel good? The problem is that no one has presented a viable alternative. So allow me to present an alternative.”
“Explain,” says Wendy.
“What if wearing this The Suit™ were your job?”
“My job?”
“Someone’s job. Our out-of-work trucker in Mississippi, say. He puts it on in the morning. He wears it beneath his clothes for eight hours. For this he’s paid a fair hourly wage by me, his employer. Meanwhile, he can do whatever an out-of-work trucker in Mississippi does. Learn French cooking from a series of YouTube tutorials. Drink beer and water his hydrangeas. Work part-time as a Mhustle driver. Take care of his kids. Patronize strippers and rationalize this shameful time-suck by telling himself he’s helping these nice girls save for tuition to one of our liberal arts citadels so they can go on ski trips with upper-middle-class Jewish boys who will break their hearts when they don’t offer marriage even when Savannah, our Southern belle, promises to convert.”
“And privacy?” says Wendy. “Because isn’t this guy a paranoid white supremacist with tactical armor and seventeen guns and an illegal bump stock whose biggest fear is that the government is going to take it all away?”
“Don’t stereotype,” says Lucas. “It’ll get you nowhere. Look, we’re taking people’s data all the time. Spying on every facet of their lives. You’re right. People are paranoid about this, and in truth they don’t even know the half of it. But that’s the problem. People don’t like feeling like idiots. They don’t like the idea that things are happening behind their backs. It’s not the invasion of privacy that pisses people off—this is a country of exhibitionists. What pisses them off is the fact that it’s happening without their knowledge or approval. What pisses them off is that they’re not getting paid. With The Suit™ they’d have the illusion of control over the data they’re offering. With The Suit™ they’d be compensated.”
“Okay,” says Wendy. “I can see how it might work, if we were only talking about this—” She indicates the item in her hand. “You pay them, and in return, they provide medical data that you then resell at profit to insurance companies and big pharma. But we’re not. We’re talking about a helmet as well. The Suit™ on its own is all well and good, but The Helmet 2.0’s a major aspect of your income stream. The Helmet 2.0 whispers the ads. Asking people to wear The Helmet 2.0 is different. To wear the Helmet 2.0 is to participate in Shamerican Sykosis. To live in an augmented world. To wear a big bulky thing on your head for eight hours a day. I can’t picture our out-of-work trucker signing on for this. Especially if the whole sell of this product is that it allows him to maintain some semblance of dignity. I don’t see why anyone would prefer this to Basic Income, which I think is what you’re asking them to do. I could see it as a supplement to the UBI, sure, something that might appeal to a select group of people. But why, as you fantasize, would the majority of American citizens give up $23,000 in free money in exchange for wearing this ridiculous thing?”
“The choice isn’t up to the majority of American citizens,” says Lucas. “It’s up to Senator Breem and a handful of others, and these guys aren’t interested in pleasing the majority of Americans. They’re interested in pleasing the banks and corporations that fund their campaigns. They’re interested in pleasing their constituents. And in Breem’s case, a lot of those constituents—and especially the ones who have enough guilt and time to make noise on Breem’s voicemail and in Zuccotti Park—aren’t people who need $23,000. They aren’t people who will wear The Suit™ for forty hours to pay the heating bill. They are, however, people who would rather not pay sixty percent income tax. They are people who needed convincing that it’s morally and socially acceptable to be against a bill that would institute that tax, so long as there’s another option that might equally satisfy the people in need of $23,000. And now they are convinced. Do you know why they are convinced? It’s because you convinced them.”
“I convinced them?”
“Your campaign convinced them.”
“The campaign,” says Wendy, “is about the sexiness of labor.”
“No,” says Lucas. “It’s about the illusion of the sexiness of labor. About the illusion that low-paying unskilled and semi-skilled work in the service of corporate interest upholds essential American values.”
He pauses to let this sink in.
“Do you
