Eternal Challenge of Islamic Economics to Capitalism and Communism

Abstract

Capitalism is fundamentally an economics of producers that has always served the cause of producers. Its special concern for economizing the production process in the guise of economic efficiency went always in favor of producers at the cost of interests of workers and consumers thereby creating a strong sense of economic deprivation in the conscience of workers and low‐income consumers who generally constitute the majority of the population in almost all the developed countries including the United States of America. It is this growing sense of economic deprivation that can be easily observed, especially in the big cities of the United States of America, as a catalyst for Marxist reaction. The Marxist fruit of Capitalist international economics appeared in the form of cold war within the global economy between the rich and the poor countries. Keeping in view the historical dynamics of Marxist movement, twentieth century Capitalist economists have consciously started to counter the threat of Marxism by incorporating in economics the extensive analysis of issues such as social welfare function, interdependent utility functions, intertemporal utility functions, equity in distribution, unemployment insurance, economic development, labor unionism, full‐employment of labor, economic rents, consumer protectionism etc. in the form of labor economics, public sector economics and development economics. It was no doubt a Capitalists' cleverish attempt to redress the grievances, mainly resulting from market failures, of the economically depressed classes within the Capitalist system. So far problems of the depressed classes could not be solved and are not at all expected to be fully solved within the original Capitalistic framework due to its inherent exploitative tendencies.

Citation

Iqbal Anjum, M. (1996), "Eternal Challenge of Islamic Economics to Capitalism and Communism", Humanomics, Vol. 12 No. 1, pp. 53-90. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb018771