The Neoliberal Beast in the Road
In the hadith about the boy, the king, and the monk it is worth noticing that there is a scenario quite similar to the conditions created by neoliberal policies.
The boy determines that the way of the monk is beloved to Allah during the incident with the beast in the road. The people cannot pass freely, the beast is blocking the way, and apparently, there are no services from the state to handle the problem.
And remember, this is the same state which will later be able to organize the mass killing of perhaps 20,000 Believers in a single morning; so it is clearly not without means. But the function of the state at that time, as now, was not to serve the people, but to wage war against them, in service to the vested interests of power.
Furthermore, the people themselves do not know how to handle the problem. We can surmise that they have become disempowered, and estranged from one another to the extent that they cannot confront the beast together.
Thus, we have a state committed only to its own ability to control, but otherwise removed from the peoples’ lives, and we have an oppressed population without services or any state structure that responds to their needs.
This is essentially the same as the state under Neoliberalism.
The beginning act which led to both the downfall of the corrupt state, and to the population embracing the religion, was when the boy addressed the practical needs of the people, and killed the beast in the road. We must do the same today, know and understand, and work for the practical needs of the people. The state has abdicated its responsibility, and has become little more than a security apparatus used by the elite to enforce the status quo.
The boy did not go to the king and ask him to deal with the beast, he addressed the problem directly, with the faith in his heart, and a stone in his hand.