Liberals Should Embrace Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's more transformative goals
Well beyond the cliched phrases about 'content of character', King drew on the finest of the liberal tradition and added to it, providing a roadmap for the future in his final work
Few if any figures enjoy such a widespread veneration among Americans - at least, those who don’t remember him while alive - as Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. Maligned in life for leading the drive to upend legal segregation, King is today remembered for his inspiring message of racial equality and dedication to nonviolence. This image of King, however, is largely robbed of its uniqueness and vitality by the focus on only a small sample of the activist’s work - especially the famed ‘I Have a Dream’ speech and his Letter from Birmingham Jail - that fails to showcase King’s broader view on political economy and society. This has allowed everyone from conservatives to socialists to claim (or misappropriate) King’s banner for their own, but at the cost of losing sight of many of King’s valuable, but inconvenient, ideas. Liberals should not make this mistake.
King wrote his final book, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? in 1967. In August of that year, in Atlanta, he gave a speech on the same theme which allows for a clear view into King’s mature thought. Much of the speech touches on familiar topics, especially to liberals of the American - and especially Georgist - tradition.
The first sweeping claim King makes - uncomfortable perhaps to more market oriented liberals - is about the need to abolish poverty, and the insufficiency of markets alone to do so. King insists “We also know that no matter how dynamically the economy develops and expands, it does not eliminate all poverty. The problem indicates that our emphasis must be twofold: We must create full employment, or we must create incomes. People must be made consumers by one method or the other.” While full employment is desirable, an entitlement to an income - a demand that clashes so directly with Anglo-American mythology around work ethic, just desserts, and meritocracy - is needed to make up for inevitable market failings.
King defends this position with the recent (at the time) economic history of the US, full of unpredictable market shifts creating involuntary unemployment at large scales. He also, however, draws on Henry George’s work nearly a century before, and George’s claim that “The fact is that the work which improves the condition of mankind, the work which extends knowledge and increases power and enriches literature and elevates thought, is not done to secure a living.” King clearly understood the resistance to even voicing this idea. Over a half century later, this resistance has not been fully overcome - but it is the task of liberals to continue the work to do so. After all, both King and George are correct. Markets will always fail to employ some portion of the population, but, happily, introducing income stability in the form of either an unconditional or minimum income will not create the a doomed society of laggards imagined by Social Darwinists.
Beyond simply eliminating poverty, however, King echoes another principle twenty first century liberals need to become more open to exploring - questioning the ownership of natural resources. In the same speech, King brings up these questions:
We are called upon to help the discouraged beggars in life’s marketplace. (Yes) But one day we must come to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. (All right) It means that questions must be raised. And you see, my friends, when you deal with this you begin to ask the question, “Who owns the oil?” (Yes) You begin to ask the question, “Who owns the iron ore?” (Yes) You begin to ask the question, “Why is it that people have to pay water bills in a world that’s two-thirds water?” (All right) These are words that must be said. (All right)
Conventional wisdom among many liberals, especially of the ‘neoliberal’ variety, is that asking who owns the oil and iron ore is a dangerous path - one leading to nationalization and ultimately economic illiberalism and privation. However, these questions have a long liberal tradition behind them, and for good reason. The origin of mineral and water resources can be described much the same way Herbert Spencer describes the beginning of land ownership: “The original deeds were written with the sword, rather than with the pen: not lawyers, but soldiers, were the conveyancers: blows were the current coin given in payment; and for seals, blood was used in preference to wax. Could valid claims be thus constituted? Hardly.”
Spencer came to abandon some of these views in his later work - but this take on land, again largely promulgated by Henry George, would form much of the basis of American liberal movement in the early 20th century - a movement which emphasized not only land value taxes but the securing of other public goods, like suitable sites for hydroelectric dams, for public use. Liberals would do well to avoid ceding this ground to those further to our left. Our belief in economic liberty and a right to property, especially that based in Locke and thus in labor, does not translate well to a right to earth, water, and mineral resources. The ‘edifice that produces beggars’ may well be the way in which these basic property rights, fundamental to a life in a modern economy, have been divvied up among a few hands. Whether through outright nationalization, or through taxes and royalties, eliminating poverty will likely require clawing back some portion of the wealth that has been so granted to a privileged few.
Finally, the Liberals would also do well to reconsider another portion of King’s speech - the extensive reflection of the nature of power. King cites his political ally Walter Reuther, the head of the UAW at the time, in defining power: ““Power is the ability of a labor union like UAW to make the most powerful corporation in the world, General Motors, say, ‘Yes’ when it wants to say ‘No.’ That’s power.” Power comes from electoral politics, and that’s the lever liberals seem most comfortable using. King never discounted the importance of voting, hence his immense efforts in the work of registering voters and pushing aside legal barriers to voting. But a comprehensive view of power has to go beyond just electoral power. King described how an staff devoted initially to voter registration evolved into “a multifaceted program dealing with the total life of the community, from farm cooperatives, business development, tutorials, credit unions, etcetera.” King’s and his organizations utilized boycotts, community organizing, tenant unions, mutual aid, religious organizations, and any other forms of non-violent but non-electoral power. Liberals would do well to remember that these tools, not simply electoral victories, are forces of social change that cannot be ignored - and cannot be left as the exclusive domain of less ‘orthodox’ political movements. From housing to the defense of Ukraine, it is clear that relying exclusively on formal, elected politics is an insufficient strategy, particularly as elected officials can show a distinct lack of boldness when it is most needed.
The near universal reverence affording to King in the American pantheon of heroes has led to endless wrangling over how to identify him - as a socialist? As a Christian, first and foremost? King quite intentionally defied easy definition in this regard, aware as he was of the need to tailor his message to different audiences to achieve his goals - and claiming him as a ‘liberal’ would likely oversimplify the breadth of his vision. What is clear, however, is that King drew frequently on a the liberal tradition, and his work towards the end of his life provides lessons for liberals both in the realm of policy and of political activism.