'Fulfilling One Of Martin Luther King Jr.'s Dreams: A Basic Income Guarantee'

[Popular Front of Judea]

Yes it is a reformist demand but the more precarious *cough* members of the working class are in dire need of this -- along with a higher, inflation indexed minimum wage. One shouldn't be dissuaded by the support of Milton Friedman or Charles Murray for a version of this idea. Socialists stand for the welfare of the working class, not the bureaucracy. Right?

This year, we mark the 50th anniversary of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous “I Have a Dream speech at the March on Washington on Aug. 28, 1963. But we are sobered by the fact that 46 million U.S. citizens are living in poverty and that we have become two Americas -- one for the rich and one for the rest of us.

Dr. King had a solution to poverty and to the bleak economic conditions faced by many Americans today. "I am now convinced that the simplest solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a new widely discussed measure: the guaranteed income," he wrote in his 1967 book, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? "A host of psychological changes inevitably will result from widespread economic security."

In 1969, a Presidential Commission recommended, by a vote of 22-0, that the United States adopt a guaranteed annual income, with no mandatory work requirements, for all citizens in need. The report was buried and forgotten, even though the National Council of Churches, by a vote of 107-1, agreed. So did the Kerner Commission, the California Democratic Council, the Republican Ripon Society, and the 1972 Democratic Party platform.

Fast forward 50 years and the concept of a guaranteed income -- or Basic Income Guarantee -- is not even being discussed much anymore. But it remains, as the late economist Milton Friedman always maintained, the most practical and sensible way to end poverty in America and provide economic security to all Americans.

Fulfilling One Of Martin Luther King Jr.'s Dreams: A Basic Income Guarantee | International Business Times

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

It's interesting that Dr. King is considered an American hero (justifiably), and yet all of our leaders manage to leave out his rather pointed critiques of capitalism and its effects on the common man.

Case in point is that, whenever they mention his famous 'I Have A Dream' speech, they mention how it took place at the "March on Washington". They always leave out the full title: "The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom"

They also often leave out his work in the Poor People's Campaign when discussing his assassination, even though it was his primary activity at the time of his death!