Islam for Non-Muslims

• RELIGIOUS FAITHS VS IRRELIGIOUS IDEAS
• 1 The Present State of the World Religions
• 2 Religious System as a Historical Reality
• 3 The Evidences of God across the Universe
• 4 The Absolute Oneness of God
• 5 The Reality of the Afterlife
• 6 The Growth of Irreligious Ideas
• 7 Worshipping Natural Elements
• 8 Worshipping Imaginary Idols
• 9 Worshipping Human Beings
• 10 Inventing Relationship to God
• 11 Inventing the Idea of Reincarnation
• 12 Inventing the Theory of Evolution (Darwinism)
• 13 Inventing ‘Nature’ as the Creator of the Universe
• 14 Importance of Religion in this Secular World
• ISLAM AS A RELIGION
• 15 Addressing the Criticisms of Islam
• 16 Islam as a Magnet for the Non-Muslims
• 17 The Quran as the Original Divine Book
• 18 The Quranic Reality in Archeological Findings
• 19 Muhammad (pbuh) as the Great Prophet
• 20 Islam as the True Religion
• 21 Islam as the Universal Religion
• 22 Islam as the Eternal Religion
• 23 Islam as a Practicable Religion
• 24 Islam as an Enjoyable Religion
• 25 Islam as the Peaceful & Savior Religion
• 26 Islam as the Progressive & Rational Religion
• 27 Islam in Health & Hygiene
• 28 Islam in Promotion of Science
• 29 Muslims in Practices of Science
• 30 Islam & Other Monotheisms: Similarities & Differences
• 31 Islamic Tolerance for Other Religions
• 32 Islamic Rights for Non-Muslim Citizens
• ISLAM AS A WAY OF LIFE
• 33 Islamic System vs. Human Ideologies
• 34 Moral & Social Impacts of Islamic Rituals
• 35 Moral Discipline in Islam
• 36 Sinning of 3 W’s: Women, Wine and Wealth
• 37 Dignity & Equality of Man in Islam
• 38 Human Rights in Islam
• 39 Social Duties in Islam
• 40 Dignity & Rights of Labor in Islam
• 41 Dignity of Women in Islam
• 42 Rights of Women in Islam
• 43 Marriage & Family Life in Islam
• 44 Political Philosophy in Islam
• 45 Economic Principles in Islam
• 46 Islamic Economy vs. Capitalism & Communism
• 47 Patriotism & Internationalism in Islam
• 48 Understanding Controversial Issues in Islam
• 49 Conversion to Islam: Problems & Prospects
• 50 Conclusive Message to the Non-Muslims

46: ISLAMIC ECONOMY VS. CAPITALISM AND COMMUNISM

Introduction:  Historically, there had been a variety of economic systems in existence. Some of them did come and did go, one giving way to the other for experimentation by the humanity on the basis of trial and error method. In this way there came, in successive order, manorial (farming) economy under feudalism of medieval Europe, capitalism and mercantilism as an outgrowth of the Industrial Revolution, communism as a reaction to capitalist abuses of the workers, socialism as modified alternative to pure communism and so on. 

    Alongside these systems, Islamic economy, born about 15 centuries ago, has been relatively a quiet existence as a viable alternative to influential systems including capitalism and communism. A closer look will suggest that an Islamic economy, intermediating between capitalism and communism, envelopes the merits and avoids the demerits of both these two extreme systems.  Now follows an analysis of Islamic economy in comparison with capitalism (business owned and operated by private people) and communism (business owned and managed by government).

(1)  Economic Equality versus Disparity: (a) Disparity in Capitalism: In capitalism, the usual trend of widening economic disparity between the haves and have-nots generates various problems of social and economic nature. Particularly in the early stage of industrial development, when governments usually allowed freedom of business, capitalist employers used to abuse the workers (through low wages and long work hours etc.) and monopolist producers exploited the consumers by charging high prices.

(b) Equality in Communism: In reaction to above injustice, Marxian communism reversed the process of injustice, this time by victimizing the rich business or landowners. In doing so, it went too far by planning to eliminate the wealthy class by violent means and build a classless society of the workers based on perfect equality.   

Equality Impossible:  Islam maintains a distance from the negatives of both these contrasting ‘isms’ and charts out a middle ground that would protect legitimate interests of both the rich and poor.  It is awake to the reality that perfect equality among people is never feasible. The answer can be largely found in selfish human nature as God says “Those who are more favored (with God’s gifts) are not going to throw back their gifts to their slaves in order to be equal” (16:71). This proved real on the ground as Soviet dictator Stalin had to slaughter 5-7 million Ukrainians who resisted forceful takeover of their lands and livestock by his communist regime. Even though Islam holds out equal opportunities (like education, training etc.) for blossoming human potentials, individual variations in their natural features (like their inborn talent and ability) will explain their differential possession of income and wealth. This is why the communist nations could not end their rich-poor economic gap which they wanted to. 

Equality Undesirable:  Moreover, absolute equality of income for everyone is also far from being desirable. In keeping with the Marxian principle, if everyone is paid equally “according to their needs”, without any provision of extra reward (e.g. savings opportunity, salary bonus or profit etc.) for quality work, there would be little or no incentive for the workers to give their best in production.  In this situation, for example, nobody would like to work hard to be another ‘Einstein’ in order to be paid equal to his unskilled coworker.  Such shortage in incentives was not only a partial cause for the downfall of Russian communism in the early 1990’s, but also explains financial loss or poor performance of many state-owned or nationalized industries in mixed economy compared to private industries elsewhere.

(c) Islamic Moderation:  Islam therefore does not accept absolute social equality as a practical idea.  Nor does it endorse the high measure of economic gap typical in capitalism as a good concept. Accordingly, it decrees against predatory interest (usury) on borrowed money, monopolistic exploitation of the workers and consumers, or any other practices that tend to gather wealth in fewer hands.  Islam shows zero tolerance for endless accumulation of wealth by the rich while totally ignoring the basic needs of the poor. It warns those “who pile up wealth and lay it by counting (penny by penny) thinks that their wealth would make them last forever; but no way!” (104:2/3/4). Islam, therefore, offers better advice to the rich to spend their money for the poor through compulsory and optional charities.  This will be a test from God for why He “bestowed fortunes more on some than others” (16:71). Because of such policies and programs, the economic gap between the rich and the poor comes down to such a level that is both tolerable for the poor and beneficial for the society and economy as a whole. Obviously, this position of Islam is a golden mean between impractical, absolute social equality intended in communism and intolerable economic disparity in capitalism.

2. Production versus Distribution:

(a) Capitalist Priority of Production Efficiency: In a clear contrast of emphasis, capitalism intends to be production-oriented and communism aims to be distribution-efficient. To be specific, capitalism favors production by allowing the rich capitalists and monopolists to maximize profit, which they can use for expansion of their business and production. In this process, the workers and consumers are badly exploited and in such a situation not much is done by capitalism to ensure much-needed distributive justice.

(b) Communist Slogan of Distributive Justice: On the other hand, communism plans to attain fairness in distribution by forcefully taking away wealth from the rich (capitalists and landlords) for giving out to the poor (workers and peasants), with an intention to create a classless society of the workers. This system, however, suffers from inefficiency in production, because the workers have no incentive to work hard, in the absence of their property rights and lack of personal interest in the form of profit or savings etc.  This means while capitalism achieves a measure of success only in production instead of distribution and communism performs poorly in both production and distribution. Because with lower production in communism, there are not enough resources for fair distribution which ultimately means “equal distribution of poverty”.  This is nicely quoted by former British Premier Winston Churchill “Capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings (prosperity); socialism is the equal sharing of miseries (poverty)”. This is why the poor workers in the capitalist world tend to be richer than their counterpart in the communist block.

(c) Islamic Moderation: By contrast, Islam aims to maintain a fair balance between the economic interests of both the rich producers and the poor laborers and therefore it not only takes care of efficiency in production but also encourages fairness in distribution.

3) Issue of Property Ownership:

(a) Capitalism: Capitalism does not set any ceiling to ownership of private property.  Anyone can amass any amount of property without fearing any nationalization or forceful take-over by government. This leads to socially and economically harmful system of monopoly. 

b) Communism: On the other end, pure brand communism does not allow private ownership of property, as it places all assets and business under state or communal ownership. Here people need to obtain their consumer goods from government warehouse with limited options e.g. absence of quality food or brand name clothing etc. This gives people a terrible sense of deprivation and frustration.

 (c) Islamic Compromise: Charting a middle course in this regard, Islam prohibits “wrongful devouring of people’s property” and wants you to be satisfied with “what is (legally) left to you by God” (4:161; 11:86). At the same time, it does not see anything wrong in the state management of some vital industries (ex: utilities like water or power plants etc. requiring heavy investment) if and when needed in public interest. In this sense, Islam endorses limited ownership of business by government.

(4) Issue of Personal Freedom:

(a) Capitalism: Pure brand capitalism namely ‘laissez faire’ as propounded by Adam Smith of Scotland allows unlimited freedom of business and thereby places personal interest on top of social interest. With government ‘hands-off’ policy, this system tolerates high proportion of exploitation of the workers and consumers by a handful of business monopolists.

(b) Communism:  Quite reverse is the case with communism where the state stands supreme over private individuals and thereby monopoly power shifts from private business to state authority. What’s more, the democratic values are undermined and basic rights of people including freedom of speech or press, right to worship or ownership etc. are denied in the name of collective interest. It may be recalled that communism started with a promise of liberating the poor working class (proletariat) from exploitation of rich business class (bourgeoisie) but finally they ended up with de facto slavery of the workers under dictatorship of elite ruling class. For example, human rights record probably can never be worse than estimated 20 million brutal deaths in Stalinist Russia and nearly 30 million deaths from Chinese famine under Mao’s repressive communism.

(c) Islam:  Islam, on the other hand, does not give any license to any group for doing wrongs against others in the society.  Subject to this condition, it allows all desirable rights and privileges to one and all. In this process, Islam maintains a fair balance among various interests within the society.

(5) Issue of Morality:  (a) Communism: Marxian communism attacked religion as an ‘opium’ in view of passive historical roles of the Church which only advised the working community to tolerate the wrongs from their business employers in exchange for prospective reward in the Afterlife. Going beyond such theoretical criticism of religion, the practitioners of this ‘ism’ closed or destroyed tens of thousands of temples across the communist world.

(b) Capitalism:  Capitalism, even though not basically anti-religious, has virtual dominance of secularism and materialism where morality usually takes a back seat. It therefore does not give much thought to the question of legality in earning and consuming wealth. Nor does it post any objection to production of and trading in undesirables (like alcohol, cigarette etc.), exploitation of the workers and consumers by the rich employers or selfish practices of business monopolies to wipe out small businesses and so on.

(c) Islam: By contrast, Islamic economy gives due attention to the moral and spiritual aspects of the people for their better Afterlife. At the same time, it does not ignore their earthly material interest, thus balancing between “wellbeing in this world and that in the Hereafter” (2:201).

Conclusion: It therefore appears from the above that the Islamic economy has clear supremacy over the other two systems.  While capitalism unevenly distributes relatively higher production, communism/socialism attempts at more equitable sharing of lower amount of production.  This situation calls for a third system that can ensure greater amount of goodness to the greater number of people.  Obviously, the need for such a third system can be best met by the economy that prevails within the framework of Islam.