Earlier in his life, Franklin made the case for universal health care, paid for with public money, based on the precepts of Christianity:
The great Author of our Faith, whose Life should be the constant Object of our Imitation, as far as it is not inimitable, always shew’d the greatest Compassion and Regard for the Sick …
This Branch of Charity seems essential to the true Spirit of Christianity; and should be extended to all in general, whether Deserving or Undeserving, as far as our Power reaches. … the great Physician in sending forth his Disciples, always gave them a particular Charge, that into whatsoever City they entered, they should heal All the Sick, without Distinction. …
We are in this World mutual Hosts to each other … how careful should we be not to harden our Hearts against the Distresses of our Fellow Creatures, lest He who owns and governs all, should punish our Inhumanity.
Then again, Franklin said some ugly things about “the poor” and also was concerned the Anglo-Saxon whiteness of the colonies would be contaminated by “swarthy” races such as the French and Swedes.
In 1776, Adams endorsed the concept of false consciousness, i.e., that lower economic classes adopt the perspective of those at the top. Friedrich Engels later made that same argument, and it’s now considered a Marxist idea, but as the words of Adams show, it’s as American as you can get:
Such is the Frailty of the human Heart, that very few Men, who have no Property, have any Judgment of their own. They talk and vote as they are directed by Some Man of Property, who has attached their Minds to his Interest.
At the same time, Adams also proposed a solution — the redistribution of property:
[P]ower always follows property. This I believe to be as infallible a maxim in politics, as that action and reaction are equal is in mechanics. Nay, I believe we may advance one step farther, and affirm that the balance of power in a society accompanies the balance of property in land. The only possible way, then, of preserving the balance of power on the side of equal liberty and public virtue is to make the acquisition of land easy to every member of society; to make a division of the land into small quantities, so that the multitude may be possessed of landed estates. If the multitude is possessed of the balance of real estate, the multitude will have the balance of power, and in that case the multitude will take care of the liberty, virtue, and interest of the multitude in all acts of government.