from Hacker News

Martin Luther King on “Guaranteed Income” (1967)

by AvenueIngres on 11/13/16, 6:20 PM with 35 comments

  • by utnick on 11/13/16, 7:12 PM

    It seems like it would be easier through technology to just reduce the minimum cost of living so much, that whatever basic income needed would be extremely small or even nothing at all.

    I'm reading the Wright Brothers Bio right now and what struck me is how they came from a really poor family ( dad was a travelling preacher ), and they owned a small bicycle shop in a small town, yet they had no trouble owning a big house, and could afford to leave the shop for several years in their 20s to go across the country to do flying experiments.

    That would be unthinkable today due to rent & food & healthcare costs.

  • by gcr on 11/13/16, 7:27 PM

    What are some good MLK book recommendations for Thanksgiving break? I'd love to get into more of his work but never had the opportunity to study it.

  • by ftrflyr on 11/13/16, 7:39 PM

    Take a look at Milton Friedman's thoughts as well. I believe MLK's stance was largely influenced from what he knew about Negative Income Tax. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtpgkX588nM

  • by Apocryphon on 11/13/16, 8:59 PM

    Full excerpt from King’s book “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community”: https://medium.com/basic-income/mlk-on-guaranteed-income-bfd...

  • by dilemma on 11/14/16, 12:08 AM

    UBI is a practical impossibility because it isn't possible to answer the most basic question in a satisfactory manner:

    How high should that income be?

  • by llsf on 11/13/16, 7:24 PM

    I just watched the video, and a "Join NRA" Google ad appeared on the screen. Really, Google ?!? Placing a "Join NRA" ad on a MLK Youtube video... Either it is an awful coincidence or someone thinks it is okay to do this now.