Rebelling Against The Duty of Work

Living Without Working

Robert Tracinski
The Federalist

Voters in Switzerland just resoundingly defeated a referendum calling for a guaranteed minimum income that would have required the government to send a check to every Swiss citizen every month for as much as 2,500 francs, or a little more than $30,000 per year. That’s a solid lower- to middle-class income — for doing nothing.

There are two ways of looking at this news. We can applaud the Swiss for being sensible enough to reject a load of pernicious nonsense. Or we can be appalled that in a productive and orderly society, nearly a quarter of the population was ready to vote to make itself a ward of the state.

Because that’s the issue here.

The idea of a guaranteed minimum income has been gaining some popularity recently, oddly among libertarians, as a more efficient form of welfare spending.