Gar Alperovitz: Beyond the Dreamer (MLK)

[marmar]

Beyond the Dreamer

Posted on Jan 15, 2014
By Gar Alperovitz

This article was originally published in the January edition of Sojourners and is reprinted here by permission of the author.

In the last year of his life, Martin Luther King Jr. struggled with what are best understood as existential challenges as he began to move toward an ever-more-profound and radical understanding of what would be required to deal with the nation’s domestic and international problems.

The direction he was exploring, I believe, is far more relevant to the realities we now face than many have realized—or have wanted to realize.

I first met King in 1964 at the Democratic Party’s national convention held that year in Atlantic City—the occasion of an historic challenge by the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) to the racially segregated and reactionary Mississippi Democratic Party. I was then a very young aide working for Sen. Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin. Sen. Nelson authorized me to help out in any way I could despite President Lyndon Johnson’s effort to clamp down on the fight for representation in the interest of a “dignified” convention that would nominate him in his own right after his rise to the presidency following President Kennedy’s assassination. Johnson didn’t want a bunch of civil rights activists muddying the waters and, not incidentally, causing him problems in the conservative, race-based Democratic South.

.......(snip).......

On another occasion, King said, “One day we must ask the question, ‘Why are there 40 million poor people in America?’ And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising questions about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth. When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy and to ask questions about the whole society.” Elsewhere he added, “Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all God’s children.”

What King meant by “democratic socialism” or a something beyond capitalism is clearly ambiguous—and his evolving thoughts on the issue were tragically cut short. Some believe he had in mind something like the Swedish welfare state he found so laudable when he traveled to Stockholm to receive the Nobel Prize. My own sense is that his repeated statements point in the direction of something more profound—a democratic form of system-wide change corresponding to the broad, participatory vision he affirmed, a system beyond both traditional capitalism and traditional socialism that hopefully one day may come into clearer focus and definition. .....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/beyond_the_dreamer_20140115