Book Review: The Anti-Greed Gospel: Why the Love of Money Is the Root of Racism and How the Church Can Create a New Way Forward
by Malcolm Foley
Malcolm Foley makes clear in this book that the foundation of racism and its resultant economic suffering emanates from the effective worship of power and money by the wealthy class. Foley skillfully dissects the origins of racial hate as a path that leads directly from the desire and perceived need for economic dominance—and he demonstrates in a uniquely effective way how (as others have shown) that the concept of race itself was artificially constructed for economic exploitation and domination reasons.
Foley addresses the multiple angles of racial capitalism, and skewers the myopia of the distorted individualism advanced by neoliberal economic and social theory—none of us lives in isolation, no matter how remote one’s circumstances are, and it has been demonstrated anthropologically that humans advanced vis-à-vis the other species due to our ability to cooperate with each other. In doing so, Foley frees the reader from the neoliberal (and racist) nonsense that government structures helping people to have secure economic and socially enjoyable lives is some type of authoritarian oppression akin to Stalin’s Soviet Union—the liberal consensus of the New Deal built a foundation for widespread prosperity, and would have extended further to African Americans were it not for the racists in Congress during that era. It is this potential for universal application that amplifies the significance of this book as a guide for proper reparations to Black Americans, and in doing so further resisting fascism worldwide.
The solution to the current neoliberal and racist flood of disinformation (and the false societal norms it has established) is nuanced and challenging. Foley reviews in depth the struggles of anti-lynching advocates during their era with the temptation to resort to violence as a means to counter the brutal violence being perpetrated against them—and he rejects a violent approach in favor of the model of the 1st Century Christian communities consisting at that time significantly of Messianic Jews and some fellow Gentile believers. It is painfully apparent that some churches today are compromised institutions by their dependence on and integration with wealthy patrons, to the extent that their advocacy is watered down where it needs to be its strongest—as also with much of the Democratic Party, all of their emphasis on named disadvantaged groups will do little for those groups or anyone else until they call out the inhuman degree of wealth inequality that is baked into the current economic system. The existing kleptocracy is the root of the problem, and the dehumanizing aspects of capitalism must be mitigated if people are to live in dignity and security with fulfilling lives.
Foley’s Christianity is the closest thing I’ve seen to the actual Gospel of Christ, and his arguments are fully capable to stand toe to toe with any institutional expressions of the Christian faith. There are practical applications in the approach to possessions described in the early chapters of the Acts of the Apostles—basically that of common property managed for the benefit of all (and not just the privileged as in autocracies). It is nonsense that any of that would snuff out business enterprise creativity or any other technology that has given humanity the freedom we now enjoy from disease and discomfort. Foley points to the engine of common humanity with common cause to enable communities to overcome oligarchic dominance, and the Rev William Barber’s Poor People’s Campaign is an excellent practical example—let’s engage that engine at every opportunity for the just prosperity of all humanity worldwide.