Fourierian? Philosophy of Guaranteed Annual Income realizes "weapon of cash" for the poor

August 16, 2017 marked a half century since Martin Luther King gave his speech "Where do we go from here." This speech was King's last speech to SCLC, 8 months before his assassination. In this still relevant speech to today, King advocates a guaranteed annual income or a jobs guarantee, as well as critiques the cost effectiveness of the Vietnam War and the importance of non violence to social justice.

8 months before his assassination, in his last speech to SCLC, Dr. King asserted:

King Asserted:
“The poor, transformed into purchasers, will do a great deal on their own to alter housing decay. Negroes, who have a double disability, will have a greater effect on discrimination when they have the additional weapon of cash to use in their struggle.
Beyond these advantages, a host of positive psychological changes inevitably will result from widespread economic security.

The dignity of the individual will flourish when the decisions concerning his life are in his own hands, when he has the assurance that his income is stable and certain, and when he knows that he has the means to seek self-improvement. Personal conflicts between husband, wife, and children will diminish when the unjust measurement of human worth on a scale of dollars is eliminated.

Now, our country can do this. John Kenneth Galbraith said that a guaranteed annual income could be done for about twenty billion dollars a year. And I say to you today, that if our nation can spend thirty-five billion dollars a year to fight an unjust, evil war in Vietnam, and twenty billion dollars to put a man on the moon, it can spend billions of dollars to put God's children on their own two feet right here on earth.”