AHC: MLK, Jr. survives, and successfully talks about slow erosion American middle class in 1970s?

It is no coincidence that the civil rights movement came when the “pie” was expanding at the fastest rate ever. . .
Yes, I think the Civil Rights movement did much better in the '60s than it would have done in the '70s. In fact, sadly, a lot of the forward momentum kind of stalled out in the '70s.

I agree with you that it's highly likely Martin would focus on education, at least as part of the puzzle which it certainly is. And people who want to do some clear good often do end up focusing on education.

But hope upon hope, he would also focus on the total number of good jobs. This is much less commonly talked about. Other than poker players, baseball managers, and a few other assorted math types, we as humans are just far less comfortable talking about baseline numbers. In fact, I'd say if the total number of jobs increases — the good, bad, and in-between jobs — well, if businesses have a harder time filling jobs in general, this will help to bump wages and conditions upward even for the previously crummy jobs. And please try not to put this view on a left-right spectrum as I think it's kind of a hybrid.
 
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Democrats would move to the economic "right" because of donors and social right because of trying to get moralistic suburban reps, but neither trend would go as far as OTL. Failed attempt at healthcare under Carter, Obamacare+90s to 00s medicaid expansions under Clinton, likely relatively minor further expansiosn in Bush's second term*. I don't think we'd yet have UHC, but I imagine we'd see medicare expanded for people 50-64 and medicaid for say anyone making under $20 an hour as reasonable guesses.

* Medicare part D was a thing OTL.
 
Made in America: Middle Class Built on Manufacturing

Feb. 17, 2011

https://www.google.com/amp/s/abcnews.go.com/amp/Business/made-america-middle-class-built-manufacturing-jobs/story?id=12916118

‘ . . . But sometimes lost in all the debate over imports is an important fact -- the United States remains the world's largest producer of manufactured goods.

‘From Harley-Davidson motorcycles to Steinway pianos, Scotch tape to Louisville Slugger Baseball Bats, plenty of products still roll off our assembly lines for purchase by American consumers. . . ’
Of course, we’re no longer so far ahead like we were in the 1960s, and a lot of the actual jobs have been consolidated due to manufacturing.

But it’s important to point it things like this so that it’s not all doom and gloom.

And Martin might have been excellent at both finding positives we can build off of and forthrightly facing our problems. And the fact that he doesn’t start off as a professional economist but instead learns along with us is very appealing.
 
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Paint me a picture in which Martin Luther King, Jr. successfully bends the path regarding the erosion of middle-income jobs.
Did he ever show any inclination towards the subject in our timeline? There's something of a difference between trying to raise people out of extreme poverty to a solid working-class position and the size/health of the middle-class.
 
If there are clear positives being proposed and argued for, I’m not so sure we turn to the right.
Even if you had clear positives and negatives being debated on, post-watergate campaign finance "Reforms" would make moves to the economic right in dems quite likely. Well, this assumes a 1970s going like OTL with ford/carter/reagan. If it goes differently then you'd get a move left in the 80s but that'd be another atl.

However, "move to the right" doesn't have to mean they go full Clinton(either one) embrace of neoliberalism and monopolistic practices, though. Even in scenarios where we get some other non-clinton southern democrat in '92 we'd at least get more done on healthcare and probably much less globalization.
 
Such as the protests in Chicago in 1966. And you're entirely right. People are happy to criticize someone else, but don't like to look at their own faults.

What if I say, I don't give a damn about his legacy. If he's able to get more done, I'm fine with people looking at him in a far more mixed way. Another thing, Martin and Coretta may well have gotten divorced in the 1970s. Well, that's real life. People can draw the lesson that even big societal contributors can have flawed personal lives.

And most of all, I hope Martin would really hammer the idea that we can't merely spend our time debating on how to split up too small a pie. We need to be talking about ways to create more good jobs for all of us.

If he doesn't die, he will become a hindrance rather than an asset is the point. The Civil Rights movement could afford angry Southerners, it can not afford angry Northerners too nor could it have a figurehead whose personal life if exposed would be considered depraved even to many in contemporary times, to say nothing of America then.
 
. . . and probably much less globalization.
But globalization has lifted a large number of human beings out of poverty, especially in China.

I want to bend the path.

If we had better journalism regarding the conduct of corporations, but that’s not going to happen. Advertising dollars really set the whole tone, too many journalists from the biggest outfits come from elite colleges and are used to the system usually working in their favor. And there are probably several other factors as well that we simply aren’t going to get scandal sheet, watchdog journalism on corporations on any kind of sustained, regular basis.

I’ve also thought, what if the cold war was competed more on economic terms in which the U.S. government had a strong motive to see that our system delivers the goods and our corporations are a damn sight better behaved. That’s actually somewhat more likely, but it just didn’t happen to work out that way.

So, give me another path in which corporate behavior generally gets a C+ or a B grade during globalization. And yes, you, me, and everyone are invited to this challenge.
 
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. . . whose personal life if exposed would be considered depraved even to many in contemporary times, . . .
Martin cheated on his wife while on the road.

Men in many walks of life have done this. I’ve thought that in approximate percentages, maybe one third of men are naturally monogamous, one third struggle with the issue with greater or lesser success. With the effect that about half of men have cheated, with a similar percentage of married women who have cheated.

If there’s more to it than that, I’m going to need to see references.
 
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