Words of Wisdom (MLK)
A comment: In the age of US neoliberalism, these statements by MLK about basic social priorities have lost none of their force.
First, an excerpt on neoliberalism:
“… The advent of neoliberalism in the mid-1970s spelled the definitive end of the welfare state as a political model. One obvious result of this has been the rise of the precariat, a class of people created by the disenfranchising that occurred as government withdrew from the management of the peoples’ welfare as its core business and instead focused on the needs of the market. Many of neoliberalism’s key trends—especially deregulation, privatization, financialization, and the withdrawal of the state—were evident to scholars of postmodernity and globalization such as David Harvey and Fredric Jameson in the early 1980s, but the term itself did not gain currency until the early 2000s. It has now become a kind of catch-all term for any political programme or platform that prioritizes the interests of the financial markets over the basic human needs of society. …” [Emphasis added]
(Source: Neoliberalism. A Dictionary of Critical Theory (2 ed.). Ian Buchanan. Publisher: Oxford University (2018))
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Excerpt one, from “The False God of Money”, 19 July 1953.
Source: False Gods We Worship. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1953)
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[MLK notes three tragic attitudes:]
“First it causes men to be more concerned about making a living than making a life. [ … ]
Another tragic attitude [no. 2] which the worship of money leads to is that of selfishness. The individual who really worships money will seek to get it at any cost. It might come through exploitation, cheating, or even robbery; the how is unimportant. The aim is to get rich. The person who accepts this philosophy has no concern for the welfare of others. Other people become mere depersonalized means by which he exploits his economic ends.
A third tragedy that results from the deification of money is that it causes men to surrender their ideals. Who can doubt that the mad desire of gaining money and the fear of losing it are our chief breeders of moral cowardice and corruption. When men worship money they will compromise with honour and principle, keep silent when they should speak out, and engage in sharp practices that are morally degrading and socially pernicious; for money, mothers will constrain their daughters into loveless marriages; for money, public officials will sanction crime; for money, men will live their lives in the deep valleys of racketeering and gambling; for money, there are those who will sell their bodies and corrupt their souls. What will men not do for money when it becomes an object of worship? “The love of money,” as Paul said to Timothy, “is the root of all evil.”
Doubtless someone has been saying, but are you minimizing the importance of money? Are you saying that we must not pursue economic goals? To which I would answer, of course not. No one can really minimize the importance of money. Even if he minimizes money in theory, he cannot do it in fact, for it is necessary for survival itself. Without it men are deprived not only of luxuries, but also of necessities. So it would be sheer nonsense to attempt to minimize the importance of money. It is not the possession of money that I am condemning; rather it is the inordinate worship of it that I am condemning. Money in its proper place is a worthwhile and necessary instrument for a well-rounded life; but when it is projected to the status of a god it becomes a power that corrupts and an instrument of exploitation. Man is more than a dog to be satisfied with a few economic bones. Man is a child of God born to have communion with that which transcends the material. Man cannot live by bread alone.”
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Excerpt two, from Where Do We Go from Here. Chaos or Community? Martin Luther King, Jr. (1968)
(p. 181-182)
“One of the great liabilities of history is that all too many people fail to remain awake through great periods of social change. Every society has its protectors of the status quo and its fraternities of the indifferent who are notorious for sleeping through revolutions. But today our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change. The large house in which we live demands that we transform this worldwide neighborhood into a worldwide brotherhood. Together we must learn to live as brothers or together we will be forced to perish as fools.
We must work passionately and indefatigably to bridge the gulf between our scientific progress and our moral progress. One of the great problems of mankind is that we suffer from a poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance. The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually. (Emphasis added.)
Every man lives in two realms, the internal and the external. The internal is that realm of spiritual ends expressed in art, literature, morals and religion. The external is that complex of devices, techniques, mechanisms and instrumentalities by means of which we live. Our problem today is that we have allowed the internal to become lost in the external. We have allowed the means by which we live to outdistance the ends for which we live. So much of modern life can be summarized in that suggestive phrase of Thoreau: “Improved means to an unimproved end.” This is the serious predicament, the deep and haunting problem, confronting modern man. Enlarged material powers spell enlarged peril if there is not proportionate growth of the soul. When the external of man’s nature subjugates the internal, dark storm clouds begin to form.
Western civilization is particularly vulnerable at this moment, for our material abundance has brought us neither peace of mind nor serenity of spirit. An Asian writer has portrayed our dilemma in candid terms:
You call your thousand material devices “labor-saving machinery,” yet you are forever “busy.” With the multiplying of your machinery you grow increasingly fatigued, anxious, nervous, dissatisfied. Whatever you have, you want more; and wherever you are you want to go somewhere else . . . your devices are neither time-saving nor soul-saving machinery. They are so many sharp spurs which urge you on to invent more machinery and to do more business. (Note in the original: Scribner’s, p. 254.)
This tells us something about our civilization that cannot be cast aside as a prejudiced charge by an Eastern thinker who is jealous of Western prosperity. We cannot escape the indictment.”
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