The Two Commandments - Part Two
Imam Rauf states:
"By the seventeenth century, two extremely
powerful ideas arose in Europe, ideas that
paradoxically formed the core of its institutional
support for the second commandment [i.e.,
to love one's neighbor as oneself - my added
note].
- The notion that reasonable interest on a monetary
loan does not amount to usury - an idea that made
possible a certain system of banking.
- The invention of the corporation, especially that
the corporation is a separate 'person' with owners
protected from responsibility for any liability, such
as unpaid debt or crime, incurred by the company.
It is ironic that enormous good has come from the
inventions of banking and the corporation ... But these
two institutions combined with the emergence of
modern liberal democracy to radically improve the
fortunes of the Western world. ... Not being able
accept these ideas is one of the primary reasons
the Muslim world lagged behind the West and
Asian Pacific nations. (Page 3, What's Right With
Islam).
Earth calling Commander Tom! Earth Calling Commander Tom! Hello, is anyone there?
One would be hard-pressed to find a more perverse form of argument than to say that at the heart of western institutional support for the second commandment (i.e., loving one's neighbor as one love's oneself) is the invention of interest-based banking and the limited liability corporation. I can't think of anyone - except perhaps a banker - who would believe - without blushing with thorough embarrassment - that an act of loving oneself was to charge oneself interest and, therefore, charging interest to one's neighbors is the loving thing to do.
A bank will rarely, if ever, do anything in which there is not something in it for the bank. In fact, a bank will rarely do anything unless things are arranged in such a manner that no matter what happens to anyone else, the bank will come out of things a distinct winner.
This is sort of similar to the case with the 'House' in gambling establishments. The only difference is that banks call on the courts to settle all outstanding debts, rather than seeking the services of people with deformed noses pushed to one side of their faces and who go by names like "Lefty", and "The Animal".
I don't consider this an expression of love. It may be one way of doing business, but it isn't love.
To complicate matters a little, one should not forget compound interest. This is one aspect of things which really gets the saliva of bankers working overtime.
Think of it. Charging interest on interest and not having to do anything for this added bonus except to collect, and, when, necessary sue and foreclose.
Of course, one might argue that banks show their love for their neighbors by permitting people to buy, for example, houses, and, to make things easy for the customer, arranging for low payments over, say, a 25 year period. When one does the math, and, depending on the interests rates, and whether these are fixed or floating, by the time someone gets done paying for the house, they have paid anywhere from 4 to 8 times what the market value of the house is worth.
And, let us not forget that one pays most (the vast majority) of the interest up front to the bank before one's payments begin to nibble away at the principle. So, if something should happen somewhere along the line to adversely affect one's capacity to earn an income which is capable of paying the mortgage payment, then, even if one has paid interest amounting to more than the value of the house, the bank gets to foreclose, take control of the house and the property on which it is situated, and do the whole thing over again. Now, this is real love, and excuse me for a moment while I wipe a tear from my eye.
We should also remember with fondness and gratitude the Savings and Loans banks who ended up losing billions of dollars and, in the best spirit of sharing, had American taxpayers foot the bill for the irresponsible speculations and business dealings bequeathed to us by these paragons of the commandment to love one's neighbor as oneself.
In addition, let us not forget the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. These institutions manifest what might be called 'tough love'. As a condition for giving loans, they require countries to restructure society in ways that are bad for most of the inhabitants of that country but which are quite profitable for the leaders, bankers, or foreign corporations within the countries to whom the money is loaned .
Among the requirements which are expected to be instituted by the country receiving such loans are: lower wages, provide no benefits to workers, cut social assistance programs, require poor peasants to pay for health care and education, degrade environmental standards, discourage, if not eliminate (both literally and figuratively) attempts to unionize, tear down the trade barriers which will enable foreign corporations to exploit the resources and people of the country on the cheap, while, simultaneously, destroying local, indigenous economies, and, thereby, force mass migration of peasants to urban areas where they can live in slums and serve as a cheap pool of labor for the government and corporations. Our cups runneth over with the sweet wine of love being poured by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
The people of the countries to whom these loans are given have little, or no, say in what the government commits those people to. Like the limited liability corporations with which Imam Rauf is so enamored, governments can do almost anything they want with the money which is being loaned, and the common people are the ones who will be on the hook for the debt.
Governments, like many limited liability corporations, love to socialize costs while privatizing profits. The common people subsidize the lifestyle of the government officials by incurring debt which the former did not ask for but which was imposed on them by the thoughtfulness and benevolence of the latter officials who, as we all know, are the protectors and defenders of democracy and all that humankind holds sacred (it is hard to keep a straight face in relation to such a statement).
After government officials siphon off portions of the loan for their own, personal enrichment, and following the distribution of the appropriate bribes and inducements to an assortment of vested interests (such as land owners, rich business people, and other sectors of the country's plutocracy), and after the government spends money on beefing up national security by buying weapons from foreign corporations and paying advisors to teach the national military how to oppress the people of their own country who are likely to get a little testy over the re-structuring process which is about to be foisted on them, then, what remains of the loans can be used to help subsidize foreign corporations to further rape the country. So much love is being bestowed on the rank and file people of these countries, I just don't know how they stand it.
In the United States, 88% of the wealth of the country is owned by just 10 % of the people. Nearly 50% of the wealth of America is owned by 1 % of the people.
Interest charging banks and limited liability corporations, with a considerable helping hand from all three branches of government, have arranged things this way in the United States. The situation is even worse in many other countries.
A number of years ago, I taught a course in criminology for the law and security division of a community college. The textbook I used indicated that, year in and year out, limited liability corporations are responsible for more deaths and theft of money - and by a substantial margin - than all forms of street crime combined (including drugs).
I taught the course about twenty years ago. Things have only gotten worse.
All one has to do is mention a few words to help demonstrate the truth of this. For instance, for a starter, try: Enron, Union Carbide, any of the tobacco companies, Exxon, Halliburton, WorldCom, Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), Monsanto, and Arthur Andersen.
There are hundreds of corporations which could be added to this list. Among other things, these companies specialize in: stealing money from employees, placing employees and the general population in harm's way (either financially and/or environmentally), defrauding the public, and/or being recipients of all manner of corporate welfare handouts which are paid for by taxpayers.
Not every corporation is morally challenged. Many try to be good corporate neighbors, and some even succeed at this - although, unfortunately, all too frequently this comes with certain costs attached to it in the way of tax concessions from the state and local municipalities or an unwritten agreement for various environmental regulatory laws not to be enforced.
Like Herr Doktor Frankenstein's infamous creation, the limited liability corporation has become something of a monster. This monster, however, unlike Frankenstein's creation, is not fictional ... it is all too real.
Given the natural inclination of human beings toward: greed, arrogance, pride, selfishness, cruelty, and oppression of others, and given this is the case with respect to a species of being who lives, on average, for 70+ years (at least in the United States), and given that human beings are said to have a potential for morality and a sense of justice, if not fairness, and despite this potential, nevertheless, all too many human beings give in to their natural inclinations, and, in so doing, wreak havoc on Earth, then, what might we expect when we permit an "artificial person" to be invented which has: perpetual life; unlimited appetites for power, money, and property; an almost complete freedom from any mode of accountability, an absence of morality, and absolutely no sense of shame?
Furthermore, let us add one further ingredient into the laboratory flask. Let us pass laws which make it mandatory for such artificial persons to serve only its prime directive which is to maximize returns on investments on 'pain' of legal remedies being applied to chastize any miscreant who does not permit the artificial person from fulfilling its purpose.
Whatever 'good' might have arisen from such an invention, the good has, for the most part, only accrued to the few (remember, 88% of all wealth in the US is owned by only 10% of the people, and these figures are worse in many other countries), and this has come with huge costs being levied against society as a whole. War, degradation of the environment, unsafe working conditions, the exploitation of non-renewable resources, oppression, the corruption of democratic processes, the corporate biasing of media, loss of worker rights or protections, and the undermining of the judicial process are just a few of the costs which have been borne by the vast majority of people.
Why would the Muslim world want to accept such a creature into its midst? In fact, whenever and wherever such a creature has been accepted into the Muslim world, this has brought - except for the few - little but suffering, loss of liberty, oppression, and war.
As a Muslim, I believe one's apportioned allotment is assigned by God. One may have to struggle to realize one's portion, but whatever is destined for one, in the way of material/financial blessings, will come quite independently of interest-charging banks and limited liability corporations.
One of the choices which any human being has is the decision to seek what is destined for one through permissible or impermissible means ... through means which are moral and just, or immoral and unjust.
There is something inherently problematic about seeking to serve an entity which has no soul and feels no need to be ashamed before Divinity. There is something deeply disturbing about the idea that the reason why the Muslim world lags behind the West is because of its refusal to bow down before the corporate idol which has been fashioned from gold.
The Qur'an says:
"And surely We shall test you with some fear and
hunger and loss of wealth and lives and crops; but
give glad tidings to the steadfast - who say when
misfortune strikes them: Surely, to Allah we belong
and to Allah is our returning." (2:155-156)
The world of corporations and modern banking are two misfortunes which have struck the entire world, Muslim and non-Muslim alike. The task facing us all in the midst of these misfortunes is to find ways of remaining steadfast with integrity.
There are better ways to distribute justice and material goods to humankind than through the artificial persons known as transnational corporations and banks. Real human beings have the potential for finding far better solutions to the problems besetting humankind than can artificial persons who are, for the most part, little more than sociopaths in many of their behaviors.
One cannot measure or evaluate the economic efficiency of a given process until one adds up all of the costs which are entailed by such a process. Corporations are engaged in a zero-sum game in which they win and everybody else loses - not necessarily in the surface transactions of such an entity, but this is so when one looks at all of the hidden costs of permitting corporations to do business as 'artificial people' who enjoy all the privileges and rights of non-artificial people, and, actually, even more, but who have no dimension of moral sensibility, public accountability, or commitment to justice for everyone, then, one begins to understand that the bottom line for a corporation and the bottom line for society, as a whole, add up in two entirely different ways.
Large corporations - to the extent that they are 'successful'- are efficient only when one narrows the focus to issues revolving about ROI (return on investment) and excludes from consideration almost every other dimension of the costly ramifications of the dynamics between corporations and the rest of society. In almost any way one cares to calculate things, the concept of the limited liability corporation has been antithetical to the establishment of real democracy, justice, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for the vast majority of people in any given society in which the idea of corporations as an artificial person has been permitted to take root.
One might come a lot closer to the truth of why the Muslim world has lagged behind the West economically if one takes a closer look at how the military-industrial complex of the West has managed to corrupt - and, if it cannot corrupt, then, to kill, overthrow, control, extort, hold hostage, or remove from office - virtually every Muslim government for the past several hundred years. So-called Muslim leaders have, by and large, betrayed the generality of Muslims by engaging in illicit intercourse with the 'artificial persons' who have been whispering sweet nothings into the ears and numbered bank accounts of such so-called leaders.
Moreover, all too many imams, mullahs, theologians, Muslim journalists, educators, shaykhs, and qadis have betrayed the vast generality of Muslims by seeking to indoctrinate the latter through methods of spiritual abuse which have, by and large, closed off the populace to what Islam actually is. As a result, many Muslims no better understand the nature of the spiritual abuses which have been perpetrated against them than do the vast majority of Americans understand how limited liability corporations and banks have torn to shreds much of the fabric of democracy in the United States.
Indeed, there has been a massive failure of leadership both among Muslims and Americans which has led to the betrayal of essential principles and values in the United States and in the Muslim world alike. This is one of the experiential truths which Americans and Muslims share.
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