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The mainstream media has created a pasteurized and homogenized version of Martin Luther King, Jr, befitting the neoliberal cultural bell jar. That being said, our friend Mathew Forstater reminds us that Dr King had a laser-like focus on economics and unemployment. The massively successful August 1963 march was called The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Without economic security, the social and political advances of the civil rights movement cannot take hold.
Steve kicks off the interview by asking Mat to speak about MLK in the context of today’s debate about a Universal Basic Income versus the Federal Job Guarantee.
Dr King and other civil rights leaders promoted an economic bill of rights that was specifically and intentionally not a UBI. The three-part platform demanded a job for anyone willing to work, an income guarantee for those who cannot work, and a raise in the minimum wage sufficient to lift the working poor out of poverty. All three prongs are necessary — a job guarantee alone doesn’t help those who cannot work; raising the minimum wage doesn’t help the working poor.
Dr King’s vision of a job guarantee encompasses four vital components.
1. The development of education and skills must be outcomes of the program and not prerequisites. Rather than being trained for nonexistent jobs, people are to be hired first and trained while they’re being paid.
2. Any jobs should produce community services — the public and social services that are in short supply and benefit the neediest communities. Labor is directed to our most pressing needs, including environmental and social justice.
3. The program generates income for families that have unmet basic needs. There must be an improvement in basic standards.
4. Acknowledge that there are numerous psychological and social benefits for individuals, families, communities, and the nation as a whole. This is based on his recognition of the social and economic costs of unemployment. Research outside the field of economics confirms the importance of work.
In contrast, a UBI provides no development of skills and no production of public services to benefit the community. In a UBI only the income piece is addressed.
Supporters of the UBI tend to look at work or human labor not as it was meant to be — a pursuit of one’s life mission. They’re looking at dead-end low-paying jobs with horrible working conditions. It’s understandable that they would oppose that kind of work.
We have always distinguished our version of a job guarantee from draconian workfare — the kind that forces welfare mothers to take underpaid jobs where they’ll develop no skills or knowledge. Our plan is built around the understanding that people enjoy contributing, working with others, and developing their talents. For models, we look to successful programs of the past like the WPA, CCC, and Argentina’s Plan Jefes.
In the rest of the interview, Mat explains that Dr King was not alone in advocating for a JG. He talks about the history of the Humphrey-Hawkins Act, which was originally intended as full-employment legislation but ultimately was gutted. From 1946 to 1978 virtually every major African American leader and organization came out for full employment, including James Farmer of CORE, Bayard Rustin of the AFL-CIO’s A. Philip Randolph Institute, and Oliver C. Cox, who wrote a number of Marxist critiques of capitalism. The #2 demand of the Black Panther Party’s 10 Point Program was that the government provide “full employment for our people.”
Our Macro n Cheese audience will appreciate this fascinating history of the intersection of the civil rights movement and the ongoing fight for a Federal Job Guarantee.
Mathew Forstater is a Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri–Kansas City and Research Director at the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity.
www.global-isp.org/research-director/
@mattybram on Twitter
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The mainstream media has created a pasteurized and homogenized version of Martin Luther King, Jr, befitting the neoliberal cultural bell jar. That being said, our friend Mathew Forstater reminds us that Dr King had a laser-like focus on economics and unemployment. The massively successful August 1963 march was called The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Without economic security, the social and political advances of the civil rights movement cannot take hold.
Steve kicks off the interview by asking Mat to speak about MLK in the context of today’s debate about a Universal Basic Income versus the Federal Job Guarantee.
Dr King and other civil rights leaders promoted an economic bill of rights that was specifically and intentionally not a UBI. The three-part platform demanded a job for anyone willing to work, an income guarantee for those who cannot work, and a raise in the minimum wage sufficient to lift the working poor out of poverty. All three prongs are necessary — a job guarantee alone doesn’t help those who cannot work; raising the minimum wage doesn’t help the working poor.
Dr King’s vision of a job guarantee encompasses four vital components.
1. The development of education and skills must be outcomes of the program and not prerequisites. Rather than being trained for nonexistent jobs, people are to be hired first and trained while they’re being paid.
2. Any jobs should produce community services — the public and social services that are in short supply and benefit the neediest communities. Labor is directed to our most pressing needs, including environmental and social justice.
3. The program generates income for families that have unmet basic needs. There must be an improvement in basic standards.
4. Acknowledge that there are numerous psychological and social benefits for individuals, families, communities, and the nation as a whole. This is based on his recognition of the social and economic costs of unemployment. Research outside the field of economics confirms the importance of work.
In contrast, a UBI provides no development of skills and no production of public services to benefit the community. In a UBI only the income piece is addressed.
Supporters of the UBI tend to look at work or human labor not as it was meant to be — a pursuit of one’s life mission. They’re looking at dead-end low-paying jobs with horrible working conditions. It’s understandable that they would oppose that kind of work.
We have always distinguished our version of a job guarantee from draconian workfare — the kind that forces welfare mothers to take underpaid jobs where they’ll develop no skills or knowledge. Our plan is built around the understanding that people enjoy contributing, working with others, and developing their talents. For models, we look to successful programs of the past like the WPA, CCC, and Argentina’s Plan Jefes.
In the rest of the interview, Mat explains that Dr King was not alone in advocating for a JG. He talks about the history of the Humphrey-Hawkins Act, which was originally intended as full-employment legislation but ultimately was gutted. From 1946 to 1978 virtually every major African American leader and organization came out for full employment, including James Farmer of CORE, Bayard Rustin of the AFL-CIO’s A. Philip Randolph Institute, and Oliver C. Cox, who wrote a number of Marxist critiques of capitalism. The #2 demand of the Black Panther Party’s 10 Point Program was that the government provide “full employment for our people.”
Our Macro n Cheese audience will appreciate this fascinating history of the intersection of the civil rights movement and the ongoing fight for a Federal Job Guarantee.
Mathew Forstater is a Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri–Kansas City and Research Director at the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity.
www.global-isp.org/research-director/
@mattybram on Twitter
Coming Soon
Episode 110 - Taming the Megabanks with Art Wilmarth
Episode 109 - Institutions with Linwood Tauheed
Episode 108 - Knowledge is Power with Rev. Delman Coates
Episode 107 - We Are Losing the Media War with Jordan Chariton
Episode 106 - Reform or Revolution with Danny Haiphong
Episode 105 - The Case for Scottish Independence with Kairin Van Sweeden
Episode 104 - Focus on the Family with June Carbone
Episode 103 - Anatomy of a Job Guarantee with Fadhel Kaboub
Episode 102 - The Global Scourge of Neoliberalism with Patricia Pino
Episode 101 - Beat Back Better: Organizing in 2021 with Emma Caterine
Episode 100 - Flying with Sara Nelson
Episode 99 - A Modern Debt Jubilee with Steve Keen
Episode 98 - Imminent Collapse with L. Randall Wray
Episode 97 - Solidarity with Joe Burns
Episode 96 - Treasury's Gift To The Fed with Robert Hockett
Episode 95 - The Land Value Tax with Joshua Vincent and Rich Nymoen
Episode 94 - Political Sobriety with Rohan Grey
Episode 93 - The Public Banking Act with Rohan Grey
Episode 92 - Propaganda and the Vortex of Centrism with Esha Krishnaswamy
Episode 91 - Crisis Management with Warren Mosler
Episode 90 - The MMT Sequence with Warren Mosler
Episode 89 - Juxtapositions with Bill Mitchell
Episode 88 - Debt Deflation and the Neofeudal Empire with Michael Hudson
Episode 87 - A Just Transition Through Participatory Governance with Cindy Banyai
Episode 86 - 2020 with Margaret Kimberley
Episode 85 - Shadow Banking with Robert Hockett
Episode 84 - African Sovereignty and a Global Green New Deal with Fadhel Kaboub
Episode 83 - Mutual Credit and the War on Cash with Brett Scott
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