Solution to wealth gap problem between 1% and 99% Americans
Submitted by Rashid Jahangiri.
World is watching protests at Wall Street in New York City. According to protestors they represent bottom 99% Americans and are protesting against top 1% Americans. They are protesting over huge wealth gap between the two groups of Americans.
In 2006 a documentary ‘The One Percent’ was directed and produced by Jamie Johnson, an heir to the multinational pharmaceutical/ chemical company Johnson & Johnson. This documentary is about the growing wealth gap between America’s wealthy elite and the citizenry on the whole.
Documentary has interviews with number of prominent, intellectuals, and wealthy Americans. On one end of spectrum of interviewees is Milton Friedman, Nobel Laureate in Economics, the creator of ‘Trickledown economics theory’ and on other end is Ralph Nader, famous US politician and consumers advocate.
Throughout the film Jamie Johnson searches for the solution to economic disparity, particularly in USA. None of the people interviewed provide the solution. They say they don’t want communism or even socialism but they don’t give any workable solution. At the end of the film, Jamie interviews his own father, himself a member of 1% group, he admits the problems, but also admits he has no solution.
I wish these intellectuals had read 15 pages of Chapter 2 in Maulana Muhammad Ali book ‘The New World Order’, originally written in 1942. (Link to book.) Documentary could have provided solution Americans are searching for. Blogger Ikram very aptly wrote elsewhere: Capitalism has not won; it is only lasting little longer.
From Rashid:
Last night I watched ‘Capitalism: A Love Story’ produced by Michael Moore. The documentary highlights the greed of Super-Rich of America to become Ultra-Rich of America. After that I again read the 15 pages of Chapter 2 ‘The Economic Problem’ from ‘The New World Order’ by Maulana Muhammad Ali. I was impressed by Maulana’s foresight on world affairs. He vividly saw when world was blinded by intensity of two extremes of economic systems. He wrote,” … social order in Islam has in it an inherent power which makes it indifferent to all changes and vicissitudes of fortune of the nations comprising it. It is not only a World Order; it is the only stable World Order”. As a citizen of US and the World, as part of my effort to solve socio-economic monster in our society, I wrote the following email to Michael Moore.
Dear Mr. Michael Moore,
I am a Physician in USA and I will pay you $1500 for your time to read 15 pages of ‘The New World Order’ by Maulana Muhammad Ali. Chapter 2 ‘The Economic Problem’.
Originally this tract was written in 1942. This tract provides solution to the Socio-Economic problem faced by citizenry of our country USA. I hope you will like suggestions in this tract and will be kind enough to lend your voice with the aim of solving socio-economic problem, you highlighted in your documentary ‘Capitalism: A Love Story’, taking over streets in our country and in other first world countries of the world.
http://www.aaiil.org/text/books/mali/newworldorder/newworldorder.shtml
Thanks,
Rashid Jahangiri, M.D.
Email:
Cell:
P.S.: I will post this email on following blog:
http://ahmadiyya.org/WordPress/
From Zahid Aziz:
There is something even more remarkable from Maulana Muhammad Ali’s writings. The book The Religion of Islam was published in 1936. Historians know that, with the great depression in the West, many educated and famous people in the West began to think highly of communism in Soviet Russia as the solution to the prevailing economic problems. (This attraction to communism caused some Cambridge and Oxford educated British graduates of the 1930s, who later joined British intelligence, working as Soviet spies within British intelligence.)
I have extracted at this link the images of three pages from the chapter on Zakat in the 1936 edition of The Religion of Islam, where in the first two pages I have underlined some prophetic words in red. Maulana Muhammad Ali warned that communism was not the solution and that the communist rulers would become a self-serving elite, exploiting the masses, just like the ruling classes under capitalism. He was writing in the atmosphere of admiration of communism. His words came true.
In the summer of 1991, our Jamaat held a convention at the Berlin Mosque. Communist systems in Europe were crumbling and East Germany had just become united with West Germany. In my speech at that convention, I read out these prophecies and pointed to their current fulfilment.
I quote from the closing part of my speech (The Light, November-December 1991), where I addressed the audience as follows:
———-
In your neighbouring countries, you have seen the communist system collapse because it had not conquered the hearts of the people. As a matter of passing interest, this is foretold by Maulana Muhammad Ali in his book The Religion of Islam, while discussing the solution of national economic problems. Writing in the 1930s, when it was generally believed that communism was solving the economic inequities in Russia, the Maulana said:
“Whether in Russia it [i.e. communism] has come to stay is a question which only time can decide. But there is one thing that strikes one as very strange. Bolshevism, which had come in to liberate the people, is as much of a bondage as capitalism. The autocracy of Czardom has only given place to the autocracy of the Soviet. Who knows that the people entrusted with the carrying out of the [economic development] scheme, the state-agents, may not tomorrow degenerate into an oligarchy similar to the oligarchy of capitalism? The rigid system of doling out the necessaries of life to all alike, to the indolent and the diligent, the stupid and the intelligent, will undoubtedly foster conditions which must soon become unbearable for humanity; for it is going directly against nature and nature’s recognised laws. But its evil results cannot be seen in a day.” (Zakat, under Problem of distribution of wealth).
This has all now come true in front of your eyes.
———-
From ikram:
Muhammad Ali Sahib is right on the money as quoted by Dr. Zahid Aziz above – “The rigid system of doling out the necessaries of life to all alike, to the indolent and the diligent, the stupid and the intelligent, will undoubtedly foster conditions which must soon become unbearable for humanity; for it is going directly against nature and nature’s recognised laws. But its evil results cannot be seen in a day.”
The moral basis of the above statement is elaborated by Khwaja Kamaluddin Sahib while he is discussing attributes of Allah. All the good and bad in the world comes out of how a person or a system uses these attributes. He writes:
“The Book [i.e. Quran] properly calls these Attributes Excellent Names, thus negating the association of God with any form of evil. It is a blasphemy even to imagine that God is the author of evil. Evil is born when we abuse a thing, which is meant for good. Evil is the misapplication of things that are really good. Similarly every Attribute that the Holy Book ascribes to God can create evil if misused. For instance, we read of God as the Possessor of love. But love has got its wicked side too, if we yield to the dictates of lust. God is Merciful. But mercy becomes murder in the words of Shakespeare when we forgive those who kill others. He is the All-Giver. But His blessings will create laziness and sloth, if they are showered undeservedly and the same may be said concerning other Attributes.” [GOD AND HIS ATTRIBUTES by Khawaja Kamal-ud-din, The Woking Muslim Mission and Literary Trust, The Shah Jehan Mosque, Woking, England, 1936]
One is amazed by the vision of the elders of our Jamaat. May Allah bless their souls and give the existing and future members a wisdom even beyond. Amen.
From Dil Sooz:
Dr R. Jahangiri it will be very helpful if you can summarize pertinent points from this book by MMA. This is important current issue. Thanks.
From Rashid:
@Dil Sooz,
The 15 pages i refered are small size pages. Every sentence in those pages is a gem. I am afraid, if i summarize it, it will lose its essence. I think 30 minutes will be well spent reading those pages. Anyways, i one sentence:
Only Solution to world economic problem is Islamic Ecnomic System.
From Rashid:
Slavoj Zizek
Slovenian-born philosopher Slavoj Zizek, whose critical examination of both capitalism and socialism has made him an internationally recognized intellectual. In his talk on Al Jazeera he easily points out the world economic problem, and gap between rich and poor. But he struggles when asked to suggest solution. I wanted to send him link of ‘The New World Order’. I could not find his email contact.
Anyways, it is an interesting view point:
Slavoj Zizek: ‘Now the field is open’
The philosopher discusses the momentous changes taking place in the global financial and political system.
http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/talktojazeera/2011/10/2011102813360731764.html
From Rashid:
In Pursuit of Happiness….
Maulana Muhammad Ali sahib writes in his book ‘The World Order’ under chapter ‘The Economic Problem’:
“Islam, therefore, occupies the position of a peacemaker between the warring economic factions of different nations of the West. Its social order has several characteristics not to be met with elsewhere. In the first place, Islam does not allow the economic phase of life to so engross man’s mind as to make him forgetful of the higher values of life, as the Muslim’s first lesson is that duty to God takes precedence over all duties. Whatever work he may be doing, he must give it up when he receives the call to bow before his Maker, and this call is given not only in the early morning or when one is going to bed but also in the midst of the rush of man’s daily work. In obeying this call, the Muslim certainly feels the reality of the Divine presence. He knows that to earn his living he must devote his whole attention to his work, but he knows at the same time that man does not live by the bread alone, and that life has a higher value to which the economic value must be subjected. UNLESS THIS TRUTH IS REALISED, ECONOMIC COMPETITION BETWEEN INDIVIDUALS AND NATIONS WILL ULTIMATELY BRING WOE AND DESTRUCTION INSTEAD OF HAPPINESS OF THE MIND. The civilized nations in their race for economic advantages have just forgotten this lesson, and hence they are working for the ruin of each other”. [Uppercase is mine].
US Constitution guarantees individual rights in pursuit of happiness. How to get happiness is a million dollar question. American Intellectuals and wealthy people in their pursuit of happiness are looking for answers. I wish if people in following PBS program had just read what Maulana wrote in 1944.
Happiness and a High Standard of Living
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/episodes/november-18-2011/happiness-and-a-high-standard-of-living/9932/