On Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day we can scarcely avoid thinking, however briefly, about important things like equality, civil rights and justice. It is a happy coincidence that, this year, the day coincides with another important political event, the opening of the Republican caucuses in Iowa, where the delegates will certainly be inspired by those same historic ideas.
Martin Luther King Jr. was named in honor of an earlier campaigner for justice, Martin Luther. Five hundred years ago, which is a long time so you may have forgotten, a monk called Martin Luther bravely posted a list of demands on the door of the church in Wittenberg, Germany. He was protesting against corruption, which, then as now, was one of the most popular human vices.
Human nature doesn’t change much, and nobody ever wants to be punished for bad behavior. Most hope to be rewarded for it. But in the 16th century, the prescribed penalty for breaking the rules was very severe indeed — eternal damnation in fact — which is the kind of thing that anyone would prefer to avoid if possible.
This anxiety about eternal punishment was an irresistible business opportunity. The ruling elites in 1517 were corrupt even by Washington standards so entrepreneurs, who today would be running health and fitness scams on the Internet, sold what were called indulgences. An indulgence was a kind of get-out-of-hell-free card that forgave the buyer’s sins. The bigger the sin, the higher the price. The practice was abolished in 1567, but still the process sounds strangely familiar.
The desire for forgiveness has always remained in fashion, although the things we need forgiveness for have changed. Our mortal sins are now mostly about money and defined by more or less arbitrary human laws. We need not spiritual but financial forgiveness. In 1517, if you couldn’t afford an indulgence, you didn’t get one, and presumably paid the penalty in the next world. Now you may pay the penalty in this world, or you may not. Robbing a convenience store of $50 can get you five years in jail. Robbing consumers or investors of tens of millions or even billions of dollars may get you some negative press coverage, or a fine, or at worst a well-paid retirement.
So you can almost always buy your way out of trouble, if the trouble is big enough and profitable enough. Indulgences are obtainable from the armies of lawyers and lobbyists who intervene — on behalf of those who can afford it — with the Olympian lawgivers in Washington DC, who alone can forgive our legal and economic sins or cancel them out with a convenient piece of legislation. It sometimes seems that it’s not what you do, it’s who you know, who you can pay, and how much.
This may be unfair to our political system, which is less corrupt than most in the world and not by any means beyond redemption. After all, we do have Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and it is one of our more inspiring public holidays simply because it looks towards the future.
Martin Luther King Jr.’s message was 100% about making a better future. Nobody is selling indulgences for the sins of future. We will get exactly what we deserve.
