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1. The baby bond idea spearheaded by academic @DarrickHamilton and political leaders @CoryBooker and
@AyannaPressley is part of a very old American tradition of economic and political justice. If each of us has a bit of property then each of us has political independence.
@AyannaPressley is part of a very old American tradition of economic and political justice. If each of us has a bit of property then each of us has political independence.
@DarrickHamilton @CoryBooker @AyannaPressley 2. You may have heard of the phrase "$*@ you" money. That means having enough money so you can walk out the door. It means you can remain unbossed. It means dignity and independence. That's the point of wealth dispersal.
@DarrickHamilton @CoryBooker @AyannaPressley 3. The institutional tradition of American racism is about preventing black people from having enough money to be independent. Economist Lisa Cook traced how Jim Crow/lynchings destroyed the ability of blacks to get patents and wrecked black newspapers. jstor.org/stable/44113425
@DarrickHamilton @CoryBooker @AyannaPressley 4. From the other side of the coin, much of the civil rights movement was built on top of independent black owned businesses in the segregated South. washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/march…
@DarrickHamilton @CoryBooker @AyannaPressley 5. Widespread property ownership helps end racism by promoting a genuine democracy. Thomas Paine had the original idea for baby bonds. His pamphlet "Agrarian Justice" is on the Social Security website for a reason. ssa.gov/history/paine4…
@DarrickHamilton @CoryBooker @AyannaPressley 6. Thomas Paine believed in the yeoman farmer tradition, which today we call the middle class. "To create a national fund, out of which there shall be paid to every person, when arrived at the age of twenty-one years, the sum of fifteen pounds sterling."
@DarrickHamilton @CoryBooker @AyannaPressley 7. People who have a stake in their society have a reason to protect that society. That is why small businesses and homeownership is so important. It is empowering citizens. It is denying that to blacks, women, and other marginalized groups that has been so key to injustice.
@DarrickHamilton @CoryBooker @AyannaPressley 8. @CoryBooker gave a remarkable speech in 2018 connecting tech startups, black business ownership, civil rights, and the plight of independent farmers and ranchers.
8. When America is at its best, such as during the New Deal and into the 1960s, we spread property to all. Not so we can be wealthy aristocrats, but so that we might be a free self-governing people. So thank you to @AyannaPressley, @CoryBooker, and @DarrickHamilton.
@AyannaPressley @CoryBooker @DarrickHamilton @drlisadcook 11. If you're afraid of hand-outs, it's by and large not black people getting them. "According to a 2013 study of TARP investments, black-owned banks were ten times less likely to receive bailout money than nonminority-owned banks." washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/march…
@AyannaPressley @CoryBooker @DarrickHamilton @drlisadcook 12. Exactly. Defining property rights carefully and protecting those rights is key to civil rights. Defining property rights as protecting the rights of financiers to rule is key to making all of us supplicants to the powerful.
@AyannaPressley @CoryBooker @DarrickHamilton @drlisadcook 13. Innovation is a function of political liberty. Mass innovation is a function of ensuring that chokeholds by entrenched interests are limited. We need innovation in all communities, not innovation controlled by the well-capitalized.
@AyannaPressley @CoryBooker @DarrickHamilton @drlisadcook 14. People don't pay attention to the commercial aspect of Harvey Milk's life. But they should. He ran an independent camera store, and so he didn't have a boss afraid he was too controversial. Could Milk have done what he did as a manager at Best Buy?
