Thread by @BlackSocialists

Just as is the case with MLK, people don’t like to mention the late, anticapitalist views of Malcolm X too much.

This thread is Malcolm X on both Capitalism and Socialism... in his own words.

At a symposium in May of 1964, when asked what political and economic systems he wanted, Malcolm X stated:

“I don't know.

But I'm flexible.

As was stated earlier, all of the countries that are emerging today from under the shackles of colonialism are turning toward Socialism.”

“I don't think it's an accident.

Most of the countries that were colonial powers were capitalist countries, and the last bulwark of Capitalism today is America.“

“It's impossible for a white person to believe in Capitalism and not believe in racism.

You can't have Capitalism without racism.”

”... if you find [someone] and you happen to get that person into a conversation and they have a philosophy that makes you sure they don't have this racism in their outlook, usually they're Socialists or their political philosophy is Socialism.”

The statements below were made by Malcolm X on December 20th, 1964 in Harlem at the Audubon Ballroom during an OAAU meeting featuring Fannie Lou Hamer and the Freedom Singers.

This was just three months prior to his assassination.

"You can’t operate a capitalistic system unless you are vulturistic; you have to have someone else’s blood to suck to be a Capitalist.

You show me a Capitalist, I’ll show you a bloodsucker.

He cannot be anything but a bloodsucker if he’s going to be a Capitalist.”

“[A Capitalist has] got to get it from somewhere other than himself, and that’s where he gets it – from somewhere or someone other than himself...

We find that the nations in Africa are developing socialistic systems to solve their problems.”

“There’s one thing that Martin Luther King mentioned at the Armory the other night, which I thought was most significant.

I hope he really understood what he was saying.

He mentioned that while he was in some of those Scandinavian countries, he saw no poverty.”

“There was no unemployment, no poverty.

Everyone was getting education, everyone had decent housing, decent whatever – they needed to exist.

But why did he mention those countries on his list as different?”

“This is the richest country on earth and there’s poverty, there’s bad housing, there’s slums, there’s inferior education.

And this is the richest country on earth.”

“Now, you know, if those countries that are poor can come up with a solution to their problems so that there’s no unemployment, then instead of you running downtown picketing city hall, you should stop and find out what they do over there to solve their problems."

“This is why the man doesn’t want you and me to look beyond Harlem [or] the shores of America.

As long as you don’t know what’s happening on the outside, you’ll be all messed up dealing with this man on the inside.

I mean what they use to solve the problem is NOT Capitalism.“

“What they are using to solve their problem in Africa and Asia is NOT Capitalism.

So what you and I should do is find out what they are using to get rid of poverty and all the other negative characteristics of a rundown society.”

3 days before death:

”It is incorrect to classify the revolt of the Negro as simply a racial conflict of Black against white, or as a purely American problem...

We are today seeing a global rebellion of the oppressed against the oppressor, the exploited against the exploiter.”