Capitalism thrives on the exploitation of the poor
Let’s observe Martin Luther King day via a piece by Tavis Smiley in December 2017:
On Aug. 31, 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a speech entitled “The Three Evils of Society” at the National Conference of New Politics.
Since it’s not the “I Have A Dream” speech, most of my fellow citizens are unacquainted with the text of this particular address, delivered just eight months before his assassination in Memphis, April 4, 1968. And, even if we were familiar with it, it’s not exactly the kind of speech that the corporate media would be quoting with enthusiasm.
Consider what King had to say that day:
“We have deluded ourselves into believing the myth that capitalism grew and prospered out of the Protestant ethic of hard work and sacrifice,” said King. “The fact is that capitalism was built on the exploitation and suffering of black slaves and continues to thrive on the exploitation of the poor — both black and white, here and abroad.”
Let’s hear Mike Pence tell us again that Trump is like King. Let’s hear Trump tell us again that “we celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. for standing up for the self-evident truth Americans hold so dear, that no matter what the color of our skin or the place of our birth, we are all created equal by God.”
He went on to boldly declare that, “The evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and racism. The problems of racial injustice and economic injustice cannot be solved without a radical redistribution of political and economic power.”
See what I mean? Who really wants to wrestle with that? Anyone? Anyone?
A radical redistribution of political and economic power.
By the time King gave this speech, he was no longer on the list of most admired Americans. The radical King was now being ridiculed by fervent foes and former friends. The truth he was telling was too hot to handle.
He was getting too close to the money. They’ll give up even the racism before they’ll give up the money.
Even as a bullet with his name on it chased him all around America in his final year, King kept reminding us that the inseparable twin of racial injustice is economic injustice.
“Many white Americans of goodwill have never connected bigotry with economic exploitation. They have deplored prejudice but tolerated or ignored economic injustice. But these two evils have a malignant kinship.”
As they bear witness to the increasing racial unrest in our nation, and some even denounce white supremacy, our national leaders in Washington still haven’t made the connection, the “malignant kinship” between poverty and race.
And they’re not going to, because the poverty is too precious to them. The divine right to pay workers as little as you can possibly get away with is sacred.
racism – sexism – poverty. All those things help keep the master class – the white male – in power. And that is why white men are so afraid of the other, not because the other is violent, or immoral, or incompetent, but because they threaten to expose him for the fraud he is. They threaten to reveal that he is no more competent, no more intelligent, no more capable than those who are not white males.
Which is why men can’t allow women to speak in meetings. Why whites kept blacks in subordinate roles, not only in real life but on television, in the movies, in books. Why the stories that get printed show a small subset of black men, women, or immigrants – a subset that exists in every group but is only centered in the reporting about those groups that are to be feared or despised.
‘The fact is that capitalism was built on the exploitation and suffering of black slaves’
Wow. It’s only in the past decade or so that I’ve really come to grips with this, from reading several amazing books about capitalism and slavery in the US, of which I think River of Dark Dreams was the best. The authors of these books point out that we’ve been taught that before the Civil War ‘the North was industrial and capitalist, and the South was agricultural and old-fashioned’ (which is why the North won–and, to continue with this point, it would only have been a matter of time before the ‘backwards’ South gave way to the ‘progressive’ North), where this was actually pretty much the opposite of the truth–the antebellum South was a global trading power with a much more advanced corporate and financial structure than the North, whose economy relied on an influx of the South’s money and goods. Personally, I think we’ve been blind to this for so long because it doesn’t fit in with the Marxist progression of slavery-feudalism-capitalism-communism (even non-Marxists and anti-Marxists rely on Marx for a great deal of our understanding of history and economics). I had no idea Dr. King was already there.
This post, and the one with Trump’s MLK tweet, prompted to send the following email to my family members, though the IPU only knows if it will have any beneficial effect:
“On MLK Day”
Since the USA has a holiday for Martin Luther King, Jr, it is good to notice how sanitized and sentimentalized our cultural memory of this great man has become.
Although he no doubt believed “that no matter what the color of our skin or the place of our birth, we are all created equal by God”, that is ultimately a de-fanging and banal understanding of what he was truly about.
This year, remember that what MLK had to tell us should not make us feel comfortable. We ought to be distinctly uncomfortable that we have so greatly failed to achieve what he believed that our country could truly accomplish!
Shortly before he was murdered, Dr. King proclaimed: “We have deluded ourselves into believing the myth that capitalism grew and prospered out of the Protestant ethic of hard work and sacrifice. The fact is that capitalism was built on the exploitation and suffering of black slaves and continues to thrive on the exploitation of the poor — both black and white, here and abroad.” (Emphasis mine)
“He went on to boldly declare that, ‘The evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and racism. The problems of racial injustice and economic injustice cannot be solved without a radical redistribution of political and economic power.'” (Source: https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-12-04/smiley-capitalism-has-always-been-built-back-poor-both-black-and-white)
King also said: “Many white Americans of goodwill have never connected bigotry with economic exploitation. They have deplored prejudice but tolerated or ignored economic injustice. But these two evils have a malignant kinship.”
You certainly won’t often hear quotations of King like this from most of our elected officials, or even from most of our mainstream media.
It is, therefore, all the more imperative to remember the depth and profundity of King’s critique of American society, which is, sadly, perhaps as relevant as when he delivered to us his magnificent oratory.
Audio of the “Three Evils of Society” speech: https://youtu.be/j8d-IYSM-08
Transcript of the speech: https://www.scribd.com/doc/134362247/Martin-Luther-King-Jr-The-Three-Evils-of-Society-1967
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