Economic Order in Iraq (Part II)
Having written yesterday on the disappearance of ideas concerning Islamic economics, at least in the context of Iraq, I thought I'd do a follow up entry concerning precisely why I think this was.
Unsurprisingly, classical doctrine has nothing to do with it. We can debate where the doctrine might affect outcomes and where it will not, but I don't see how you can take the piecemeal medieval notions of commerce and trade that animate the classical texts and make from them a modern economic order. And so things are more or less made up. Of course you could argue that certain classical bans on trades more or less mimic the modern interest ban, but you could as easily argue that the trade bans concerned particular commodities that were, by their terms, measurable by weight or volume (or foodstuffs and precious metals--categories differed depending on school of thought), and those don't include money. Or you could take the Sistani position, rejected by the Sunnis, that money trades are perfectly fine, so long as the currency itself is changed (dollars for dinars paid later at a higher exchange rate totally fine). Basically, there's not much by way of guidance to figure out what the classicists were up to, so pick your favorite jurist and start extrapolating, and you can pretty much create anything you want from Marxism to laissez faire capitalism.
Add to that the fact that certain central classical prohibitions have been abandoned, like the idea that a sale couldn't have conditions or stipulations in it for the most part, had to be sale of this for that price more or less (I am admittedly simplifying), which can't possibly work in a modern economy. So what's left is basically a corpus that is so malleable it's hard to see how modern notions of economic order really have much to do with anything it says. I'm not saying in all areas of law classical doctrine has this effect, but in building a modern economy from classical sources, yeah I think it's rather specious to put too much stock in the doctrine itself as having much to do with outcome. I know many of my colleagues resist this, the irony is that not all jurists do. One of the best portions of MB Sadr's manifesto Iqtisaduna is where he sort of more or less says that when you're taking old precendents from medieval times to understand notions of Islamicity and commerce, you're more or less picking and choosing in a manner that is highly, in his words, "subjective." The world is awry when the jurists are more aware of their roles of reinvention than scholars studying them.
Anyway, if not classical law, why then the abandonment of Islamic economics in favor of basically global notions of economic order, with certain proposed Islamic modifications? Well, if I had to pick a word, in the context of Iraq, I'd say "Dubai". Not just Dubai, but the point is, unlike the days of Islamic economic revolution in the 1960's when really living standards in the developing world (not Europe) were pretty bad regardless of what side of the Cold War divide you happened to be on, where it was pretty much right wing despot or left wing despot, there wasn't necessarily as much appeal to adopting an American system, and this need to articulate an entirely separate Muslim space that worked for the Muslim polities sort of made sense. They may do this stuff, but we in the Muslim world can only succeed in a different way. That the message was tinged with not only revolution, but social justice for the oppressed, made it more powerful, a Godly alternative for Iraq's downtrodden Shi'a to the Marxism which also proved quite appealing to them.
Now the world seems different. Economies that are open and basically Western oriented tend to work pretty well. Dubaians have stuff. Iraqis don't. I'm not talking about the debate raging about whether too much openness hurts an economy, and is it better to adopt capitalism with restrictions a la China or laissez faire a la Singapore. Both adopt modern forms of capitalism, the point is whether to get on that bandwagon, gingerly perhaps, but get on it, or stay off and insist on something different called Islamic economics.
And for this I find little support in Iraq beyond the rhetoric, because Iraqis actually like stuff. I don't know why this surprises people sometimes, but yes, they do want new electronic gadgets and nice homes and air conditioning and refrigerators that make ice and salaries to pay for all of that. Now it's still a rather Socialist mentality, people still seem to think that what you do to earn money is not actually produce, but sit around and drink tea at your office and wait for someone to pay you at day's end, but that's just lack of exposure. They've figured out what other Muslim countries do to succeed economically, and they want to do the same. That's the case whether it's Sunni Anbar or Shi'i Najaf, the idea of a separate form of economics doesn't seem sensible or wise, nobody is really advancing it beyond rhetoric, everyone wants to do what is done to get ahead in this world, and that's copy those Dubaians.
I think that's a good thing. Now if we could only do something about all of the other problems . . . .
Unsurprisingly, classical doctrine has nothing to do with it. We can debate where the doctrine might affect outcomes and where it will not, but I don't see how you can take the piecemeal medieval notions of commerce and trade that animate the classical texts and make from them a modern economic order. And so things are more or less made up. Of course you could argue that certain classical bans on trades more or less mimic the modern interest ban, but you could as easily argue that the trade bans concerned particular commodities that were, by their terms, measurable by weight or volume (or foodstuffs and precious metals--categories differed depending on school of thought), and those don't include money. Or you could take the Sistani position, rejected by the Sunnis, that money trades are perfectly fine, so long as the currency itself is changed (dollars for dinars paid later at a higher exchange rate totally fine). Basically, there's not much by way of guidance to figure out what the classicists were up to, so pick your favorite jurist and start extrapolating, and you can pretty much create anything you want from Marxism to laissez faire capitalism.
Add to that the fact that certain central classical prohibitions have been abandoned, like the idea that a sale couldn't have conditions or stipulations in it for the most part, had to be sale of this for that price more or less (I am admittedly simplifying), which can't possibly work in a modern economy. So what's left is basically a corpus that is so malleable it's hard to see how modern notions of economic order really have much to do with anything it says. I'm not saying in all areas of law classical doctrine has this effect, but in building a modern economy from classical sources, yeah I think it's rather specious to put too much stock in the doctrine itself as having much to do with outcome. I know many of my colleagues resist this, the irony is that not all jurists do. One of the best portions of MB Sadr's manifesto Iqtisaduna is where he sort of more or less says that when you're taking old precendents from medieval times to understand notions of Islamicity and commerce, you're more or less picking and choosing in a manner that is highly, in his words, "subjective." The world is awry when the jurists are more aware of their roles of reinvention than scholars studying them.
Anyway, if not classical law, why then the abandonment of Islamic economics in favor of basically global notions of economic order, with certain proposed Islamic modifications? Well, if I had to pick a word, in the context of Iraq, I'd say "Dubai". Not just Dubai, but the point is, unlike the days of Islamic economic revolution in the 1960's when really living standards in the developing world (not Europe) were pretty bad regardless of what side of the Cold War divide you happened to be on, where it was pretty much right wing despot or left wing despot, there wasn't necessarily as much appeal to adopting an American system, and this need to articulate an entirely separate Muslim space that worked for the Muslim polities sort of made sense. They may do this stuff, but we in the Muslim world can only succeed in a different way. That the message was tinged with not only revolution, but social justice for the oppressed, made it more powerful, a Godly alternative for Iraq's downtrodden Shi'a to the Marxism which also proved quite appealing to them.
Now the world seems different. Economies that are open and basically Western oriented tend to work pretty well. Dubaians have stuff. Iraqis don't. I'm not talking about the debate raging about whether too much openness hurts an economy, and is it better to adopt capitalism with restrictions a la China or laissez faire a la Singapore. Both adopt modern forms of capitalism, the point is whether to get on that bandwagon, gingerly perhaps, but get on it, or stay off and insist on something different called Islamic economics.
And for this I find little support in Iraq beyond the rhetoric, because Iraqis actually like stuff. I don't know why this surprises people sometimes, but yes, they do want new electronic gadgets and nice homes and air conditioning and refrigerators that make ice and salaries to pay for all of that. Now it's still a rather Socialist mentality, people still seem to think that what you do to earn money is not actually produce, but sit around and drink tea at your office and wait for someone to pay you at day's end, but that's just lack of exposure. They've figured out what other Muslim countries do to succeed economically, and they want to do the same. That's the case whether it's Sunni Anbar or Shi'i Najaf, the idea of a separate form of economics doesn't seem sensible or wise, nobody is really advancing it beyond rhetoric, everyone wants to do what is done to get ahead in this world, and that's copy those Dubaians.
I think that's a good thing. Now if we could only do something about all of the other problems . . . .
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