Islam and Corporate Globalization
"O you who believe! do not devour your property among yourselves falsely, except that it be trading by your mutual consent, and do not kill yourselves. Surely Allah is Merciful to you." Qur'an al-Karim 4:29
Although many have tried to pin contrasting civilizations into the generalizations of McWorld vs. Jihad, many Muslims and critics of corporate globalization see this as merely reaffirming antequated stereotypes. The issue is deeper than most pundits would realize.
Over the last decade major disruptions have occurred in the Muslim world, Food Riots in Jordan, Farmer revolts in Pakistan. Major Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) have impacted the poor, SAPs is another term for privitization. Rather than generate sustainable growth the policies of the IMF and World Bank have led to greater destablization in Muslim majority nations. As the Agha Khan, a wealthy pro-western Muslim leader has demonstrated the best solution for Muslim majority socieities and communities is locally based solutions in such areas as microfinance and education not external corporate globalization.
Aside from the practical implications there are cultural issues as well. Western solutions imposed on non-Western tradition nations leads to a cultural colonialism. Whereas the western values of share holding and market approaches is dominant among the World Bank, IMF and Multi-National Corporations. The Islamic societies have different values when it comes to economics.
Economics in Islam, Iqtisad, literally means a balancing of wealth. The major value of the Islamic economic system is the alleviation of extremes between rich and poor. The results of IMF/WB policies continues to be the increase in inequity in the economic system.
Islamic economics values equalization between rich and poor, environmental sustainable policies, the removal of a single property class (privitization) in Islam there are three classes of owners (mutual, private and state).
"Current privatization efforts dwarf all which have gone before. In general, the "less developed" nations, including peoples of the Muslim faith, seem to have attracted the advocates of privatization. Disturbing results are obtained when the substance and process of privatization are juxtaposed to the teaching of Islam. In certain cases, relatively weak hands (i.e. debtor governments of the less developed nations ) to relatively strong hands (i.e., consortia of international entrepreneurs). Islam teaches the opposite: It recognizes the right of the less able in the wealth of those who have greater ability or the oppurtunity to produce greater wealth (Mirakhor, 1989). The outcomes of privatization are important to peace and security. Consequently, the emergence of privatization as a cat's paw in political discourse is not a good omen. For example, Abdelhak Benhamouda, Algeria's labor leader, 'opposes any privatizations undertaken on the 'back' of the workers and demanded (sic) 'guarantees' from the government'(AFX NEWS, 1995)."
[source: Privitizationand the Ethics of Islam, Felix Pomeranz, http://www.islamonline.net/English/contemporary/economy6/economoy-1.shtml]
Position Statement:
The PMN calls for the removal of non-locally based economic development solutions such as SAPs and debt forgivance for all Less Developed Nations.
More information on Islamic Finance: http://www.islamic-finance.net