Wealth
Critic:-
All Muslim nations are poor compared to Western ones, and therefore, also weak. This shows that there is something fundamentally wrong with the Islamic teaching. The more powerful countries will dominate them and unless they change they will be destroyed.
Answer:-
There are reasons other than the teachings why people are poor. They might not adhere to their teachings. The areas they live in might be poor in resources. The climate may have changed and caused droughts. The population may have grown too large. The people might have been afflicted by a disease due to unknown viruses or chemical elements. There may have been debilitating wars which killed off their leaders. There may have been a brain drain to other countries. The ideological, cultural, historical and environmental conditions which caused progress in other countries may have been absent.
Islam has no teaching against wealth but it does forbid usury on which Western Capitalism is based, and teaches that people should get their priorities right and not pursue material or worldly wealth at the expense of social and psychological welfare and development. The case in the West is the reverse of this - social and psychological welfare are sacrificed for material wealth because greed, lust, pride, vanity and laziness, abhorred by religions, are utilized by Capitalism. But this will eventually prove to be counter-productive because the production of material wealth, its use and enjoyment depends on social and psychological factors.
The critic is unduly impressed by the glitter and pomp of temporary and superficial material advantages.
It is true that Western nations, in the main, are wealthier than others and this also allows them to afford more education, health, freedom and virtue. This wealth is due to three interdependent factors:-
(a) The fortunate presence of a great amount of natural resources.
(b) The arising of a small number of thinkers, explorers, inventors and entrepreneurs who had the leisure to pursue their interests because of an easier life. This was the result of (i) the presence of enough natural resources (ii) the nature of the social system, and (iii) the diffusion of ideas through the world owing to economic, political and cultural interaction between people.
(c) The creation of barriers that prevented the migration of people from poor places to places where natural resources were abundant. This allowed the richer nations to exploit the labour and plunder the resources of others. These barriers separated humanity, creating the difference between rich and poor. In fact, the economic system has enslaved the majority of people of the world but in a less obvious but more effective manner than formerly.
But wealth has meaning only if it produces benefits. It is evident that much of the wealth in the West is Illusory and Negative. It has created a number of environmental, social and psychological problems. This includes pollution of land, sea and air, waste of resources, adulteration of foods, disruption of the ecological system, crime, delinquency, vandalism, alcohol and drug addictions, adultery, fornication and sexual perversions, incest, divorce, child abuse, neurosis, psychosis, and psychopathy. To deal with these things costs a great amount of labour and money.
The following aspects of Western Economy should be noted:-
1. Things can be made more cheaply when mass produced. This means that the task is divided into simple standardized parts that can be made easily by either machines or repeated human action that creates expert habit and requires no laborious thinking. Things can then be assembled on a production belt. Human beings are of course made into cogs in this machine. But automation and computerization makes human beings progressively redundant. But competition and the profit motive create great pressure for Centralization of manufacture where mass production techniques can be employed. This means that raw materials and workers must be transported to a centre, workers transported to the factory and back home again, and the goods must be transported out to be distributed. Thus the system itself requires the manufacture of modes of transport and communication and the use of energy sources even before any useful products are created. It means also that material resources from far and wide in the world are absorbed by the nations which can produce goods cheaper by these means but national borders based on Nationalism disallows the movement of labour to these countries, except for the intelligentsia. This means that many countries become increasingly impoverished owing to the fact that their resources as well as their best minds are lost..
2. But this also produces a lot of waste, pollution and disruption of the ecological system. This either creates costly irreversible damage or the rectification of the damage is very costly. This cost does not appear in the cost of the goods, but has to be paid for through taxes. This shift of the cost, therefore, produces an illusion that few people see through.
3. A great amount of injuries, disabilities and deaths are also caused by the use of machinery through industrial and road accidents, and diseases owing to the use of chemicals. The number of these fatalities and disabilities per year is greater than many wars and apart from causing suffering are also very costly in terms of compensation, lost services and the care required by the injured. But one does not hear as much consternation and protest against these causes as when a person made psychotic by the stresses and strains of industry, its noises, monotony or dehumanizing aspects or a so called terrorist frustrated by injustices, kills a few people.
4. The industrial system through its technology and organization also affects the social system. It has made the employment of women not only possible but more convenient. This is because work now requires less physically strength and is simpler and more supervised, and women are more docile and better able to deal with routine and monotonous work and can be paid less as they are supported by men. But it has increased the labour force lowering wages, which makes it necessary for wives to go out to work. This is also made more necessary by the increase of greed due to the materialistic and consumer culture encouraged by manufacturers. It has made them financially independent and encouraged indiscriminate mixing of the sexes. Women have become redundant in the home owing to the development of domestic machinery and appliances, the reduction of the size of the family through population pressure and contraception, and the removal of children from the home to educational establishments. All this militates against the stability and importance of the family. Infidelity and Divorce rate increases and the social network disintegrates and crime and delinquency increase. This involves the use of all kinds of physical and social security systems, social workers, police, lawyers and courts. The increasing cost of all these are not reflected in the price of goods either. The disintegration of families into single individuals means the multiplication of the number of independent households which must be furnished. Demand, therefore, has risen owing to this social change and puts unnecessary pressure on the resources of the world.
5. There are also psychological costs that have not been taken into considerations. It is in stable families that psychologically healthy children are brought up and people learn love, morality and a sense of values. It is also in families that spouses can find relaxation and recovery from the stresses of life. As a result of the breakdown of families, human beings become more isolated and self-centered. There is a rise in neurosis, psychosis and psychopathy. It is not just increase in population but demands per person which have gone up due to the increase of greed which is itself a symptom of the decline of other values. Greed for food that causes obesity and disease and for material goods is often a substitute for lack of love, security or personal significance. Goods are sought to create a barrier or provide a sense of security or of importance, specially when others also become deferential when they want something. People also wish to associate with the rich and powerful not just for material and social advantages but because of the illusion of glory by association. This tends to create dependence, psychological servitude and gullibility. Stresses are also a cause of physical and psychological diseases. They arise not only from tensions within families, or if caused by the industrial system, due to lack of relief in dysfunctional families, but they may be causes by competition within families, as substitutes for love or as an illusory means of gaining love, power or respect.
6. It is not only the case that the above factors produce Illusory Wealth that has no utility, but they also produce Negative Wealth. That is, they decrease Satisfaction, increase needs and produce dysfunction and degeneration. Apart from these, there are other sources of Negative Wealth. Advertising, propaganda, encourage materialism and sales tactics lead to unnecessary demands. Built-in obsolescence and constant changes of fashion, often deliberately manipulated in order to increase demand and keep prices up or methods of creating artificial scarcity. Desire for frivolous, useless and unnecessary goods and services such as cosmetics, chemical and surgical, fashions, tattoos, many kinds of jewelry, various drugs, alcohol and tobacco are maintained by propaganda.
7. In countries where there is greater wealth and education there ought to be less excuse for crimes. But the reverse appears to be the case. The same selfishness and ambition that is admired and propagated by the industrial and commercial system also produces all kinds of malpractice and crimes. The Legal system deals with this in a half-hearted and inadequate manner and often encourages crime by protecting criminals. It is perfectly possible to hire clever layers in order to take advantage of loop-holes in the law, some of which seem to have been deliberately created to allow big businesses to flourish with impunity. Because hiring lawyers and going to court is an expensive business, and usually hazardous because results are uncertain, much crime and injustice goes unreported. It is not within the means of most people to take on large firms, organizations and government departments. Others find it better to plead guilty or pay the fines when accused by police or other authorities or to settle out of court.
8. There is unnecessary multiplication of work. E.g. in research owing to industrial secrecy; the same news item is hunted for swarms of reporters owing to competition; many factories produce exactly the same thing and many shops sell exactly the same goods. A great number of middle men have appeared between manufacturer and consumer, all of whom make profits from merely buying and selling at profits, sometimes creating artificial scarcity by hoarding in order to increase their profits. One need only go into Restaurants and Motor Way Service Stations and look at the prices, say of a sandwich, and calculate the cost of ingredients, to realize that these are only a small fraction of the total price. The rest is profit or goes in the employment of many people who exist only because of the complex commercial system, which has arisen accidentally without intelligent design.
9. When demand for goods falls because unwanted goods have been produced or their price is too high or the majority have no money then factories close and there is unemployment. This reduces purchasing power still further causing more unemployment.. But this downward spiral is arrested and with it the threat of revolt and reformation, by paying the unemployed a certain amount. This money is obtained from taxes paid by those who work, paid in exchange for no work, and produces some purchasing power which increases the demand for existing goods and raises their prices for both the employed and the unemployed.
10. A great proportion of the price of goods goes to pay interest to persons who have surplus money and in exchange for no work. Interests is paid on the money lent to create factories and set up businesses, on machinery, wages and raw materials, and increasingly even on money lent to buy goods.
11. It is the stresses and strains of the industrial and commercial system, its speed and competition and complexity and demands that require as compensation means of relaxation and entertainment. These often take extreme forms and are counter effective - they increase the stresses. Methods of escapism in alcohol, drugs, excitement, self-abandonment to sensual pleasures are often used but they do not solve the problems and on the contrary become the source of further problems. When people calculate the income they will get from employment then the cost of this entertainment should be deducted if illusion is to be avoided.
12. Causing poverty and deprivation through exploitation of other nations. The conflict between greedy nations require maintenance of large military forces that account for a great proportion of national income.
If one were to add up the cost of these sources of Illusory and Negative Wealth, it would not be surprising if this accounted for 80% of the total National Income in some nations. This means that they could exist on 20% of their income without much change in their standard of life. They would need to work less, have fewer stresses, create less disruption to the environment and devote their time and energy to more valuable pursuits.
----------<O>----------