Fact: That was before he was a Muslim. After inventing the religion and rising to power in Medina, he eschewed productive activities (Medina was a farming community) and turned to robbing caravans, plundering productive tribes in Medina (he ethnically cleansed Medina of Jews), and conquering Arabia.
Fact: Who doesn’t? The question is: how? Mohammad did it by plunder. The initial Islamic conquests weren’t to convert the infidel but to plunder, dominate, and exploit. As for the vaulted trade-routes: what was traded? Islam invented the intercontinental race-based slave trade plundering Africa, Eastern Europe and
Fact: Everyone did! Go anywhere in the impoverished world and you’ll find markets where people bring their goods for sale. Of course, as Hernando DeSoto shows, in The Mystery of Capital, it takes more than informal markets to make Capitalism. It takes the rule of law, property deeds and property liquidity, lending with interest, etc. Islamic societies have been autocratic--exemplified by the rule of men and granting of privilege.
Fact: He was a fascist. Let’s not split hairs.
Observation: So did the
Interpretation: Muslims were necessary middle men when they couldn't be avoided but they produce nothing and can’t compete when alternatives exist.
Fact: They author answers it himself: “Weber himself wouldn't have agreed with this comment -- he saw Islam as a religion of conquerors and plunderers, not hard-working laborers. Islam was an obstacle to capitalist development because it could foster only aggressive militancy (jihad) or contemplative austerity.”
Fact:
Fact: That is because the roots of Capitalism are individual rights, not merely markets, nor mere wealth, nor fortune. But this is an unknown ideal, as Ayn Rand noted 40 years ago, for most people who remain on the superficial level.
3 comments:
That is because the roots of Capitalism are individual rights, not merely markets, nor mere wealth, nor fortune. But this is an unknown ideal, as Ayn Rand noted 40 years ago, for most people who remain on the superficial level.
True.
The problem with oil wealth is that it negates the motivation to practice capitalism. Capitalism rewards through wealth and fortune, oil provides the same rewards.
The oil windfall is a problem that often limits the development of a Capitalist ethos. Capitalism rewards production, a work ethic, and honest dealings. Other methods to wealth are discouraged even if they aren’t eliminated.
An oil windfall, for a passive status-bound autocratic regime, does nothing to encourage the virtues requires for a vibrant liberal economic order. Just selling what you’ve gotten by luck or inheritance doesn’t mold the character that’s required to succeed in a competitive world under diverse circumstances.
They need a cultural change far more than a political, economic, or religious change. They need those, too. And they aren’t independent. It’s just that the fundamental cultural change specifies how the other changes must be made.
Jason:
In actual fact, Islam has its own unique economic system, which is neither socialist nor capitalist.
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