MLK and the Petty-Bourgeois Civil Rights Movement
Jan. 19 – On this day millions of Americans are celebrating the memory and achievements of Martin Luther King, Jr. However, the man’s legacy and achievements are marred by his agency to act on behalf of bourgeois interests – and not those of the oppressed African-American workers he claimed to stand up for.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was largely successful during the tumultuous struggle to end the explicit oppression of African-Americans because he was an acceptable icon and figure that the bourgeoisie had little to contend with. His ideas for peaceful transition and passive resistance relaxed fears of the ruling elites that armed, revolutionary struggle for national liberation would ensue. His anti-communist rhetoric was another fixture that made him an amicable figure for the White bourgeoisie.
MLK’s idealism puts him in the category of other emerging movements sympathetic to the ideals of bourgeois liberalism. The expression of bourgeois liberalism against more reactionary elements of the ruling classes was a natural phenomenon that precipitated the success of a sycophantic and bourgeois Civil Rights movement over more radical and determined revolutionary struggles.
It is precisely his acceptance amongst the liberal elements of the bourgeoisie that propelled Martin Luther King, Jr. into heroic stature. Why does the US not hail the work of revolutionaries such as Harry Haywood, who staunchly expressed the need for class-struggle as intertwined with the liberation of Africa-Americans, or Fred Hampton, who also saw the struggle against the oppression of African-Americans as inextricably linked with the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism?
The type of movement embodied by Martin Luther King, Jr. failed to take into account the material conditions that defined African-Americans as a nation within a nation, something owed to Harry Haywood and Josef Stalin. Haywood developed the theory of a separate “Black Belt Nation” within the United States employing Stalin’s definition of a nation.
In contrast, Martin Luther King, Jr. ignored the material conditions facing African-Americans and gave no credence to dialectical materialism as the source of his understanding of how the movement for the liberation of African-Americans should proceed.
And what have been the resulted? The racial codes and explicitly oppressive regimes in the South have been replaced by liberal attitudes of racial coexistence between Whites and Blacks. This ultimately spelled the overall inclusion of African-Americans into the mainstream economic system, i.e. wage-labor. But this development concurs with the natural development that capitalism operates more efficiently when not restricted by external forces.
This was the basis for the defeat and inevitable destruction of slavery in the South. Contrary to the American Civil War mythos – while some held slavery with the utmost moral contempt – the ruling elite and representatives of expanding industry saw it as an economically unfeasible and prohibitive system. Capitalism, as a far more advanced form of economy over slavery, was victorious precisely because of its inherently more efficient capacity for productions and distribution.
The inclusion of African-Americans into the mainstream economic realm would necessarily result in more liberal tolerance in the political, social and cultural infrastructure. Racist legislation and prohibitions are cumbersome and prohibitive. They are inconsistent with the advancement of wide profit margins. The liberal bourgeoisie, bequeathed with enough foresight to recognize this, understood that de jure racial chauvinism manifested themselves in wholly negative forms in the economic sphere. As a result, African-Americans have slowly gained more mainstream acceptance into the broader American political, cultural and social realms.
The inclusion of African-Americans into the mainstream American society was not the result of Martin Luther King, Jr. It was a development that would have occurred regardless. Whatever contributions MLK made to this advancement were only possible because the material conditions at the time allowed for it. That is why Martin Luther King, Jr., as an agent of the bourgeoisie, was widely accepted by the general public.
The biggest mistake most people make when analyzing political, social, cultural and economic developments is a tendency to trust idealism over materialism. Only materialism can adequately explain how society tends to move forwards – and does not depend on idealism or ideology, which is in fact dependent on the physical, material reality of our world.
The ideas of MLK were accepted because they were representative of the dominant force in American society – the liberal bourgeoisie. The cultural idealism of the “Great Society” was evident of the growing prosperity and power of the petty-bourgeoisie, who later would become one of the most powerful elements in imperialist countries like the United States. The petty-bourgeoisie in the US understood its alliance with the ruling bourgeoisie and acted accordingly, to the expense of exploited workers, both White and Black.
January 20th, 2009 at 2:10 am
As a pragmatist, I think a Black nation would have been a good idea. Blacks would be forced to pick themselves up by the bootstraps, instead of just making excuses.
January 21st, 2009 at 8:44 pm
Dr King represents black courage and achievement and high moral leadership. Although at first a bourgeois liberal, in the last years of his life, Dr King came to understand the social nature of the race problem and the necessity for social reforms. He called upon blacks to unite their cause with that of white workers. Dr King was one of the first prominent African-American leaders to oppose US aggression in Vietnam. All progressive forces must honor the heroic legacy of Dr King.