A common hypothesis for why he was assassinated is that it wasn't his fight against racism that "crossed the line", it was when he started fighting for the economically downtrodden across the board.
James Earl Ray shot him from his apartment across the street, presumably as an act of racial hatred. Maybe he had economic views but I don't think they're relevant, he was a convict and a bad person who acted alone.
If true I wouldn't consider Ray to have been acting on behalf of a conspiracy (even if the bounty itself was a conspiracy), but it's not quite acting alone, either. It's sort of like if someone got the idea for doing something from gossip on 4Chan. They may have already been primed to do something horrendous, but there's an element of but-for causation regarding the particulars and follow-through.
> "Is money a birthright now? Do we just get born and get money from the government?" Republican Rep. John Gillette told Business Insider. "Because I think the Founding Fathers would say that is very contrary to our capitalist system and encouraging people to work."
I think the other perspective is that the US _has_ historically been comfortable with giving away property in the Homestead Act, land rushes, the Oregon Land Donation act etc. These were giving away _capital_, and the people needed to provide the labor to make it productive.
IDK what a future-facing equivalent should look like. Should we all own datacenter racks? Robot factory lines?
RAM. The pro-human state of the future has fabs & distributes ram to it's citizen.
I actually do think it would be incredibly interesting to have state sponsored data centers. Give folks a VPS. Give folks some incredibly affordable services.
Everyone gets their own Ai chat bot at birth (maybe with a physical robot for it to pilot) and it's up to them to direct it in ways that produce value?
It costs a lot to administer the welfare bureaucracy and make sure the money goes to those who are entitled to it, and even then many people that aren't entitled to it game the system on a daily basis. I imagine a world where there is minimal administration since everyone gets the same amount, and it's all paid for by just gutting the current welfare system and it's administrative fees. I hope it's tried someday.
I still liked Milton Friedmans proposal for a negative income tax for this reason.
You just piggyback on the existing income reporting mechanism of the IRS - just add a filing for people with no income. And the way the IRS withholds for tax season is just done in reverse.
Yes there would be fraud, but no more than the amount of fraud that already happens on taxes. If anything, it actually incentivizes us to finally fix our tax system.
"before it was cool" people have been talking about this since at least 1848. But for the average American the fear of the C word seems to outweigh any sense of self preservation.
Can I tell you how our (U.S.) semi-universal basic income saved me?
I have Schizoaffective Disorder Bipolar Type and Partial ADA deficiency.
In 2003 I was unemployed and spiraling in psychosis and the hospitalized. Unbeknownst to my, a friends, who's father was a lawyer, had one of his underlings start signing me up for Disability, which I have been on ever since. Over the years I have studied my disorder, both genetically and psychologically, and I feel this year, as I approach 60, I find myself stable enbough that I might start part time work. I do not need daily medication anymore because of my genetic and nutritional insights.
Now imagine what the $2000 a month I received would do for someone who did not have my disability? Most people (even my family(!) (who I disowned)) thought I did not want to work. Yes, I was making bank before my illness took me over as a Network Engineer, but no one knows the isolation of not working. By the way, $2000/month still leaves me homeless so...
I will never understand the feeling people have that if you help people everyone will take advantage of it. Some will, but most will not. We have such a dim view of people who are poor, like it is always their fault, and never anything outside of their control. I guess that illusion of control is what keeps people mentally secure.
King was a socialist. That's not a conservative insult, it's just what he was. I think the only thing stopping him from calling himself a communist and siding with the Soviets was, communists in the Marx tradition did not believe in God.
Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò had the most beautiful thread on MLK last night, on how he viewed capitalism. America as a building already on fire, deep into crisis. And needing to be the firemen, needing to directly work to make the state actually help the poor, becoming a force for good rather than promoting the tensions of capital that are set up to only ever hurt the non capital rich (the poor) more and more. Amazing thread.
> we live in a failed system. Capitalism does not permit an even flow of economic resources. With this system, a small privileged few are rich beyond conscience and almost all others are doomed to be poor at some level.
Strong recommend!! So many great things from following Olúfẹ́mi but I found this to be such an incredible view, such an amazing story, from shortly before King's murder.
(Linking to the end so you don't have to expand the thread)
Universal basic income by itself is just a stick propping up the consumer economy. We need a real welfare state, not the pathetic half-attempt we have today. We must take care of each other.
A common hypothesis for why he was assassinated is that it wasn't his fight against racism that "crossed the line", it was when he started fighting for the economically downtrodden across the board.
I think the strongest hypothesis is that he combined the anti war movement and black freedom struggles. He was assassinated one year after his historic “beyond Vietnam” speech. https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksil...
James Earl Ray shot him from his apartment across the street, presumably as an act of racial hatred. Maybe he had economic views but I don't think they're relevant, he was a convict and a bad person who acted alone.
Maybe, it's not quite that simple. https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-repor...
There's some pretty compelling evidence that Ray's inception of the idea may have come from hearing about a bounty on MLK's head. See https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/12/martin-luther-ki...
If true I wouldn't consider Ray to have been acting on behalf of a conspiracy (even if the bounty itself was a conspiracy), but it's not quite acting alone, either. It's sort of like if someone got the idea for doing something from gossip on 4Chan. They may have already been primed to do something horrendous, but there's an element of but-for causation regarding the particulars and follow-through.
> "Is money a birthright now? Do we just get born and get money from the government?" Republican Rep. John Gillette told Business Insider. "Because I think the Founding Fathers would say that is very contrary to our capitalist system and encouraging people to work."
I think the other perspective is that the US _has_ historically been comfortable with giving away property in the Homestead Act, land rushes, the Oregon Land Donation act etc. These were giving away _capital_, and the people needed to provide the labor to make it productive.
IDK what a future-facing equivalent should look like. Should we all own datacenter racks? Robot factory lines?
RAM. The pro-human state of the future has fabs & distributes ram to it's citizen.
I actually do think it would be incredibly interesting to have state sponsored data centers. Give folks a VPS. Give folks some incredibly affordable services.
Everyone gets their own Ai chat bot at birth (maybe with a physical robot for it to pilot) and it's up to them to direct it in ways that produce value?
Maybe something more akin to the Alaska Permanent Fund - just replace oil revenue with AI?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund
It costs a lot to administer the welfare bureaucracy and make sure the money goes to those who are entitled to it, and even then many people that aren't entitled to it game the system on a daily basis. I imagine a world where there is minimal administration since everyone gets the same amount, and it's all paid for by just gutting the current welfare system and it's administrative fees. I hope it's tried someday.
I still liked Milton Friedmans proposal for a negative income tax for this reason.
You just piggyback on the existing income reporting mechanism of the IRS - just add a filing for people with no income. And the way the IRS withholds for tax season is just done in reverse.
Yes there would be fraud, but no more than the amount of fraud that already happens on taxes. If anything, it actually incentivizes us to finally fix our tax system.
I imagine a world where there is minimal administration since everyone gets the same amount
That is what socialism tried many times in history. Cost was a millions of deaths.
I thought an ordained minister would have been strict with "If you don't work, you don't eat."
https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/2%20Thessalonians%203:...
"before it was cool" people have been talking about this since at least 1848. But for the average American the fear of the C word seems to outweigh any sense of self preservation.
https://archive.is/R2K77
It's still not cool.
Can I tell you how our (U.S.) semi-universal basic income saved me?
I have Schizoaffective Disorder Bipolar Type and Partial ADA deficiency.
In 2003 I was unemployed and spiraling in psychosis and the hospitalized. Unbeknownst to my, a friends, who's father was a lawyer, had one of his underlings start signing me up for Disability, which I have been on ever since. Over the years I have studied my disorder, both genetically and psychologically, and I feel this year, as I approach 60, I find myself stable enbough that I might start part time work. I do not need daily medication anymore because of my genetic and nutritional insights.
Now imagine what the $2000 a month I received would do for someone who did not have my disability? Most people (even my family(!) (who I disowned)) thought I did not want to work. Yes, I was making bank before my illness took me over as a Network Engineer, but no one knows the isolation of not working. By the way, $2000/month still leaves me homeless so...
I will never understand the feeling people have that if you help people everyone will take advantage of it. Some will, but most will not. We have such a dim view of people who are poor, like it is always their fault, and never anything outside of their control. I guess that illusion of control is what keeps people mentally secure.
Martin Luther Kings preferred title was ‘Reverend’. He was an ordained Baptist minister.
King was a socialist. That's not a conservative insult, it's just what he was. I think the only thing stopping him from calling himself a communist and siding with the Soviets was, communists in the Marx tradition did not believe in God.
You know there is a difference between socialism and communism, right?
Quite a few of the founding members of NATO were socialist.
Still present. Socialism drives current EU politics. Grants and funds, centralised bank regulations, etc.
Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò had the most beautiful thread on MLK last night, on how he viewed capitalism. America as a building already on fire, deep into crisis. And needing to be the firemen, needing to directly work to make the state actually help the poor, becoming a force for good rather than promoting the tensions of capital that are set up to only ever hurt the non capital rich (the poor) more and more. Amazing thread.
> we live in a failed system. Capitalism does not permit an even flow of economic resources. With this system, a small privileged few are rich beyond conscience and almost all others are doomed to be poor at some level.
https://bsky.app/profile/olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social/post/3mct...
Strong recommend!! So many great things from following Olúfẹ́mi but I found this to be such an incredible view, such an amazing story, from shortly before King's murder. (Linking to the end so you don't have to expand the thread)
Universal basic income by itself is just a stick propping up the consumer economy. We need a real welfare state, not the pathetic half-attempt we have today. We must take care of each other.