Why was Martin Luther King so opposed to capitalism? On the one hand, capitalism has generated immense wealth, significantly raised living standards and generally made life more comfortable and secure to varying degrees for most of those living in capitalist countries. On the other hand, it has exacted an excruciating toll in human toil and treasure. It has wrought immense suffering, systematic oppression and exploitation, and debilitating social alienation. Capitalism rewards, indeed depends upon, selfish, aggressive behavior. It values profits over people, promotes material values over spiritual values, dispenses power without social responsibility, and treats people as commodities to be discarded. Moreover, capitalism is not compatible with one person, one vote political democracy because those with the most capital have far more political influence and power per capita than less well-heeled Americans. It is also incompatible with economic democracy because capitalism allows no democracy in the workplace. Workers have to comply with capitalists rules and dictates or risk penury and, in egregious cases, physical violence. However, the factor that most powerfully fueled Kings opposition to capitalism is the imperative of his biblical faith to bridge the gulf between abject poverty and superfluous wealth. In this sense he considered capitalism an insult to his faith. Kings ethics are firmly in the tradition of radical biblical prophets like Amos, Micah, and Isaiah, who together proclaimed that everyone, including the rich and the powerful, were to be governed by ethical principles that included mishpat (foundational egalitarian justice), sadiqah (justice put into action), hesed (steadfast love; in politics, civility at the least) and emet (truthfulness, in public and in private). The political implications of this ethical constellation are reflected in this proclamation by the prophet Isaiah: A throne shall be established in hesed (steadfast love)... and on it shall sit in emet (truthfulness) a ruler who seeks mishpat (egalitarian justice) and is swift to dosadiqah (put justice into action) (Isaiah 16:5). From what we know of King, he was draped with the mantle of these prophetic ethics which, by definition, are fundamentally opposed to the anti-biblical foundational capitalist ethics of greed and dog-eat-dog self-dealing. A sense of the deleterious effects of capitalism can be seen in the extraordinary inequality of wealth that plagues America today. Fifteen percent of the US population -- nearly 47 million people -- lives beneath the official poverty rate of $24,000 per year for a family of four. Roughly 18 million more are near poor, living within 130 percent of the poverty line. More shameful still, 20 percent of all American children live in poverty. Yet capitalists and their political minions fight tooth and nail against every effort to ensure that all American workers are paid a living wage. King rejected the capitalist logic that claims that the economy cannot bear a universal living wage. He said, God intends for all of his children to have the basic necessities of life, and he has left in this universe enough and to spare for that purpose. How can the inherent structural injustice of capitalism be addressed? For King the answer was democratic socialism.
Posted on: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 07:08:13 +0000