January 6, 2026: MLK and The 3-Legged Stool of Evil: Capitalism

Voices of Resistance is devoting its first three January shows to MLK's 3-legged stool of evil.  On January 6, we focused one of those legs:  capitalism.  

Following his march on Washington in 1963 and passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of 1964, MLK began talking about the three evils of USA society.  The following quotes in 1967 capture this:   “The evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and evils of racism" (3/1967) and "We must see now that the evils of racism, economic exploitation and militarism are all tied together... you can’t really get rid of one without getting rid of the others... the whole structure of American life must be changed"  (5/67).

MLK identified with socialism; he challenged the notion that capitalism was inherently beneficial because it was exploitive and resources were inequitably distributed, poorly serving the USA's poor.  He highlighted the need for a more equitable economic system and, with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, organized the Poor People's Campaign to remain at the steps of Congress until they passed an Economic Bill of Rights.  Sadly, he was assassinated and the Poor People's Campaign did not achieve its goal.  

Since then, capitalism has become more exploitive and the income and wealth gaps between the top 1% and the rest of us has grown significantly.  In the studio, Opollo, Robo, Barbara and guest Michael Thomerson discussed the alternative--a socialist economy.

Next week on VoR, we will talk about a second leg of MLK's stool:  militarism.  

We also discussed the situation in Venezuela, which exemplifies those three evil legs:  capitalism to take the oil to use and trade to keep the USA dollar strong using the military against a country of brown and black people.