If you want to understand Andrew Yang, think of him this way: He is the prophet of Silicon Valley. My new story explains: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/11/andrew-yang/

Yang talks about making big tech pay their fair share. That's what the Freedom Dividend—$1,000 per month for almost every adult—is supposed to be. A dividend from our personal data—the oil of the 21st century.

But the Freedom Dividend does not come from big tech companies. It comes from a consumer tax on everyone, and by shrinking the welfare state. In other words, it is the poor who pay the most for the Freedom Dividend.

The billionaires in Silicon Valley like UBI. And Yang's version is very techno-libertarian. It's not meant to rewrite the rules or the economy. It's a hack to get around all the damage coming from big tech companies like Facebook and Amazon.

Yang’s UBI is more of a lifeline to Silicon Valley than to the workers left behind or threatened by automation, a “shiny object” to distract people. “Look, we’re giving you $1,000 a month," don’t “focus on the root of the problem that we’re creating.”

Yang's campaign feels like a glimpse of the future if Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg get their way: a shrinking government, powerful tech monopolies, and a thousand dollars a month to stave off a revolution.