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| Islam can Make Poverty History |
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Ideological Causes of Poverty & Solutions
When development economics was introduced in President Truman's inaugural speech, he stated one of the central principles of capitalism. He said: "Greater production is the key to prosperity and peace. And the key to greater production is a wider and more vigorous application of modern scientific and technical knowledge." Truman like all capitalists viewed increased production as central to the progress of all nations, especially the 'underdeveloped world', which highlights an inherent philosophical problem in capitalist economics: the science of production and the ideological viewpoint towards how an economy should be organised are viewed as one subject when, in fact, they should occupy two different spheres. In January 2005, Columbia's Professor Jeffery Sachs published a United Nation's study, which again attributes Africa's problems to production, identifying Africa's high transport costs and small market size, its low agricultural productivity and very slow diffusion of technology as primary causes, together with the issues of disease and conflict. Inevitably, Sachs' solutions propose the need to increase agricultural production and urban, scientific, and technological development together with education and health policies.
However, Sachs - like the African Commission - fails to make the distinction between the science of production and the way an economy should be organised because the application of modern scientific and technical knowledge to increase production is, in reality, economic science. In origin, the problem is not with production but rather it is with ensuring wealth distribution, which is a matter for the economic system to solve. Policies to increase production are not unique to capitalism rather it is universal for all nations irrespective of their ideological viewpoint because it is a study of efficiency and innovation. Technologies, which increase agricultural production through innovations such as genetic engineering or 'science-based agriculture' are part of economic science, whereas who may own agricultural land, what someone may produce on that land, and what someone may buy and sell is what really needs to be addressed. This is the problem in Zimbabwe, Mozambique and South Africa, among other African countries. There is much uncultivated land, and South Africa's neo-liberal macro economic programme has slowed down land redistribution because it is reliant on limited state resources being injected into a land market with high prices.
Therefore the problem here is not primarily with agricultural production methods rather it is a problem of wealth circulation, which is a matter of economic organisation and this is determined by a nation's philosophy about life. This is where the differentiation between the Islamic economic system and capitalist economic system becomes apparent, and not in the area of economic science because both systems devise methods to increase production but they differ in how to distribute wealth. The capitalist viewpoint views methods of increasing production as part of the economic system when in fact it is a science, while the Islamic viewpoint separates science from the economic system. This is evident in land distribution just as it is evident in the general circulation of wealth. If Africa is to achieve prosperity then the distribution of land is crucial to economic growth. Islam would address the problem of land reform in countries like South Africa and Mozambique, which has 20 million hectares of uncultivated land, by giving the land to anybody who has the ability to cultivate it. The Propeht Muhammad said:
"Whoever cultivated a dead land it becomes his"
Therefore the idea that the market will naturally increase incomes and enable people to buy land contradicts reality. Vast acres of uncultivated land are in the hands of economic elites, and in some cases economically dominant ethnic minorities which creates artificially high land prices, further preventing people from owning land because wealth is circulated exclusively amongst the rich. In extreme cases this leads to conflict culminating in genocide. In Rwanda the majority of Hutus were cultivators while the minority Tutsis were herdsmen. The economic division between Hutus and Tutsis created ethnic resentments that were unleashed after sudden political liberalisation, which is further evidence that democracy has a poor track record in alleviating divisions in society. Amy Chua described Rwanda as essentially a feudal kingdom in which: "Tutsis were overlords and Hutus their vassals...These atrocities were in a terrible sense the expression of 'majority will' in the context of mass poverty, colonial humiliation." Consequently wealth circulation is essential to prevent economic injustices and the dominance of any one group of people over another.
Islam prohibits the hoarding of wealth and this would be enforced by government. This would create the economic conditions in which entrepreneurial activity can flourish by empowering the people to become economically productive. So if land has not been worked on for more than three years then people would lose ownership of that land, and transfer ownership to people who will use the land productively
Practically this means that economic activity is driven throughout society, which prevents economic injustices. Land will have to be cultivated which means employment and incomes for the African nations. The Africa Commission seek to accelerate growth by involving, "poor people in that growth", which they say, "is fundamental for poverty reduction", by increasing, "donor funding of US$10 billion a year up to 2010 and, subject to review, a further increase to US$20 billion a year in the following five years." The problem in origin is not with funding. The African nations can self-finance their own development if land is distributed thereby preventing vast amounts of land that isn't being used to remain in idle hands. This would lead to real economic growth because it empowers the people to become productive, and prevent groups of people to use their economic power unjustly. The Commission aims to foster: "small enterprises through ensuring better access to markets, finance, and business linkages, with a particular focus on youth and women, as well as the family farms that employ so many people in Africa." But in reality what is really needed is to give people access to land ownership so that people can develop new creative businesses.
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