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The crisis of capitalism: toward the end of a materialist age
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By İBRAHİM ÖZTÜRK:


Today we are paying the cost of the last, but not the least, crisis caused by the "capitalist ideology." To remind you, a serious crisis came at the beginning of the 20th century that resulted in World War I.

The second big crisis came with the Great Depression and lasted throughout the 1930s, with a major collapse of the international payment system, resulting in World War II. Now the world is passing through yet another one at the beginning of the 21st century and will presumably end with an even bigger global catastrophe.

In my understanding, the fundamental weaknesses of the American political/economic system, such as an ever-rising debt, current account and budget deficit, savings-investment gap, excessive consumption-oriented citizens and many other mutually reinforcing negative elements, have reached a poisonous stage. This process seriously threatens the hegemonic, or superpower, status of the US. As the US becomes a risky market, the world has begun to escape from the dollar-dominated economy.

Having considered all these developments, it seems the US has entered into quite a dangerous gamble throughout the world, but particularly in the Middle East and the Caucasus. The name of this gamble is called "The Great Middle East Project." It seems to me that the Yankees are incapable of returning to their mainland, irrespective of who is elected. The result of this process might result in a situation symbolized by the term "sink or swim."

After establishing final control over Gulf energy resources, as a next step, the US wants to diffuse into the heart of the Central Asian and Caucasian energy resources by eliminating the "Iran factor." Therefore, the Sept. 11 attacks were abused by the US in order to invade Afghanistan and then Iraq so that Iran would be more easily contained. By establishing control over Eurasian energy resources, the US will be able to isolate China and Russia by separating two superpowers -- Russia as one of the major energy and raw material suppliers; China as the major importer of energy and almost any kind of primary products.

However, by coordinating their efforts, members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) have come together in order to prevent US infiltration in the region. As the situation is quite unclear, the process dynamic and the result uncertain, it is not possible to predict the outcome of the current big chess game in the world.

What I would like to suggest is that we need to change the basic ideology behind the current global materialist order in order to establish a peaceful world. Capitalism and communism are twin sisters in the sense that they are the product of a materialist-positivist philosophy, as interpreted and explained by Auguste Comte around the 1820s. This philosophy is secularist, short-term oriented and utilitarian.

Unlike capitalism, as communist ideology denied basic human propensities and therefore isolated itself from market dynamics, it was short lived. On the other hand, even if capitalism accepts basic human nature, it relies heavily on some "poisonous" propensities or devilish aspects of the human being such as short-term maximization of satisfaction by conspicuous consumption and through excessive use of limited natural resources.

Destructive characteristics of this capitalist ideology can be observed even in the definition of economics. Capitalism tries to interpret economics by using methodology similar to that used in the natural sciences such as physics and chemistry. Put simply, in capitalist terminology, economics has already become an applied sub-discipline of mathematical optimization. According to this calculus of a simple maximization of efforts, economics is explained as "a science of scarcity." Resources are limited but our desires are unlimited. We therefore face a fatal economic problem of ordering and choice.

In our view, this is one of the fatal errors caused by the materialist illusion in approaching the human being and the universe; the link created between them by God is missing. From a spiritual perspective, resources are quite satisfactory, rather than being limited, provided that they are fairly distributed. On the other hand, we should not take our desires as "a given," as something that cannot be domesticated, controlled and guided. Yes, our desires might be unlimited, but it is unlikely that such limitless desires will be satisfied solely through the means of materialistic means in such a limited and temporary life span. Moreover, human beings are not a simple function of their desires. Human beings are also equipped by other ethical propensities. What we need is to balance both dimensions of human beings.

Therefore, rather than taking our wants and desires as guiding principles, we should take our limited needs into consideration. Provided that we take resources as "sufficient," relying on their equitable distribution and take our needs as limited, the fatal or poisonous error in the definition of economics would disappear.

Having done so, we would start preserving limited resources, the environment and climate by limiting our consumption by establishing control on private property and by limiting our dedication to a one-dimensional emphasis on an accumulation regiment. The fight in controlling limited resources will then be replaced by a more peaceful and cooperation-oriented world system.

In my view, Islam, as a world religion, has the potential as well as the historical experience to provide the basis of such a global peace. Rather than blaming Islam as a "religion of war," by using mass media as a means of propagating such a view, it should be seen as the philosophy of last resort in this age of global dissatisfaction and devastating wars. This fact needs further elaboration, which requires more words than this column allows for.

todayszaman

November 27, 2008 | 12:13 PM Comments  1 comments

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PersonalLoans Lisa P
December 2, 2008 | 5:41 AM
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