How Capitalism Shapes Our MInds

Lecture 4: How Capitalism
Shapes Our Minds and Hearts
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4.1: Methodological
Differences between
Uloom-ul-Umran &
Eurocentric Social
Science
This is 1st Segment of 4th Lecture on A New
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L4: How Capitalism Shapes Our Minds and Hearts

Methodological Notes
The approach to study of economics adopted in this course is radically
different from that of conventional courses around the globe.
Our perspective can be labeled as “Uloom-ul-Umran”, which is the study of
how societies change over time. We will follow the methodology first created
by Ibn-e-Khaldun for this purpose. It is historical and qualitative, as opposed to
mathematical and quantitave.
For more information, see: Uloom-ul-Umran: An Islamic Approach to Western
Social Sciences – http://bit.ly/AZUUU
We will describe it greater detail later, after first describing Western
methodology for economics.

Battle of Methodologies
(Methodenstreit)
A battle of methodologies took place in Europe, where this historical
and qualitative methodology was replaced by a quantitative and
mathematical methodology which currently dominates.
For details see: Method or Madness? http://bit.ly/WEAmom
BRIEF: A century of religious wars led to rejection of religion as a
basis for organizing society. Social Science emerged as an alternative.
Rejection of religion led to its replacement by “science” as the sole
valid source of knowledge. The scientific method was to be applied
to the study of human society in “social science”.

Consequences of
Scientific Methodology
Science is study of external world. Objective: Factual knowledge – Subjective
experiences: No longer regarded as knowledge.
Our internal experience is “subjective” – cannot be studied scientifically. This
was discarded by economists using scientific method.
Rationality Axioms used to define behavior – not related to our internal
subjective experience of the world.
These axioms are built on rejection of God, Afterlife, Judgement Day. They
depict human behavior to be maximization of pleasure. Also, humans are
animals, engaged in cut-throat competition, governed only by survival of the
fittest.

The Alternative:
Islamic Methodology
Reject Axiomatic Behavior theory: This is wrong both normatively
and empirically. See:The Strong Conflict Between Human Behavior
and Economic Theory: http://bit.ly/AZconflict
Start with Islamic Theory of Human Behavior. Great Strides have
been made in Islamic Psychology:
Abdallah Rothman: Developing a Model of Islamic Psychology and
Psychotherapy Islamic Theology and Contemporary Understandings
of Psychology – Routledge 2021.

Rothman, A., Coyle, A. Toward a Framework for Islamic
Psychology and Psychotherapy: An Islamic Model of
the Soul. J Relig Health 57, 1731–1744 (2018).

4.1 Concluding
Remarks
• A theory of human behavior is FUNDAMENTAL to construction of social
sciences.
• Excluding subjective human experience as “unscientific” leads to a
dramatically wrong picture of human behavior.
• Islamic intellectual heritage offers a rich and complex understanding of
human behavior, which can be used to create an alternative theory of
economics, and also rebuild the social sciences.
• The Key Difference: Modern Economics is theory of the spiritually stunted
Nafs-e-Ammara; Islam’s Gift is an Economy of Spiritual Progress. See:
http://bit.ly/AZgift

4.2: How to Study Social
Change?
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Studying the
Process of Social
Change
All dimensions: political, economic, social,
educational, environmental, must be studied
together. No one dimension can be isolated.
This DENIES the premise of Economic Theory
that economics can be studied in isolation
from society, politics, and history

Uloom Ul Umran: A Historical and
Qualitative Approach to the study of
social change
Modern Social Sciences were created in early 20th
Century on the basis of a triple mistake:
1. Science is the only valid source of knowledge
2. Scientific methodology, as understood by
Logical Positivists, involves study of
observables, and does not go beyond the
unobservables.
3. Scientific methodology CAN be used to study
human societies.
All three statements are false. This leads to a need
to rebuild the social sciences on sound
epistemological foundations.

Key Features of Uloom-
ul-Umran Methodology
• A “scientific approach” assumes that there are universal laws which apply to all
societies across time and space.
• In contrast, our historical and qualitative approach assumes human freedom to
chose goals and to strive for goals.
• Social change is driven by collective human responses to change – creating
agency for human beings not allowed in social science.
• These responses are shaped by theories about causal factors responsible for the
change.
• Causal Factors are never observable; different groups can always create different
theories. Theories which come to dominate depend on Power, rather than Truth.

Newton’s Laws:
• Enormously Popular: science became substitute for faith.
• Laws lead to a deterministic universe. Enormous
influence on philosophy. Kant set out to prove these laws
as “Pure Reason”.
• Economists set out to imitate Physics.
• All theory to be derived from ONE maximization
principle.
• Methodological Individualism.
• Ignored the central role of community in social change.
Key defect persists till tody.

Dominant View: Material
Determinism
Massive influence of Newton’s Philosophy – adopted as the
religion, following abandonment of Christianity.
Colin Turbayne: The Myth of Metaphor. The metaphor of the
world as an organism abandoned and replaced by the
metaphor of the world as a dead machine.
Initial conditions determine trajectories of ALL particles: we
live in a deterministic world.
Philosophers set themselves the problem of “explaining
away” the experience of free will.

Two “Scientific”
Methodologies:
1. Contemporary: Human Beings and Historical Events
are all subject to universal laws of motion, just like
physical objects – “SCIENCE”.
2. Marxist: Human lives are bound within the
economic relations of production and distribution.
These relations are subject to laws of motion.
Material Determinism: Human thought is shaped by
material forces, primarily the economic system. External
material forces determine our thoughts, feelings, and
spirituality.

UuU: Entanglement of
Man and Matter
Material forces shape our thoughts, feelings, and spirituality.
ALSO, our thoughts, feelings, and spirituality shape the
material world.
Primary Illustration: The knowledge given by God to man,
accompanied by the spiritual training given by the Prophet
SAW to the companions, dramatically changed the course of
history.
See: What the World Lost Due to the Decline of the Islamic
Civilization. http://bit.ly/azrdm

Social Change
• Exogenous Events, outside human control, create social change.
• Humans respond – collectively, in groups – to the change.
• Responses are mediated by theories about causal factors which
created the change.
• Responses are also mediated by class interests and relative power
of different classes which are affected by the change.
• Collective human responses to change shape the course of history

Natural Methodology:
Abandoned by West
• The Scholastics: Study of Society based on the Bible & Theology.
• A Century of extremely destructive Wars between Protestants and
Catholics.
• Abandonment of Scholastic Approach. Necessity of rebuilding a
theory of society on secular – non-religious foundations.
• Reconstruction of knowledge on basis of observations and reason
alone.
• Deification of science as the only route to certain knowledge.
Abandonment of heart and soul as basis for knowledge.

Concluding Remarks
• Historical Events in Europe dramatically shaped European thought.
• Rejection of Religion led to its replaced by faith in Science.
• Adoption of “scientific” methodology led to massive confusion in
approach to the social sciences.
• Attempts to create value-free economics have led to concealment of
moral values within “rationality”.
• The power of human beings to shape and change history, in
accordance with their visions, has completely disappeared from view.

4.3:Illustrative Study of
Social Change
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Transition from Hunter-Gatherers to
Feudal to City-States to Nations

Pedagogical Principle
• Every particular is an instance of a universal.
• Every universal is comprehensible only via its manifestation in
particular instances.
• How we grasp a universal from a particular depends on our
intuitions – which can often be wrong.
• How we assimilate a particular to a universal is generally easier,
and less subject to error. But, errors can also be made in this
direction.
• This process of acquisition of knowledge is different from the
standard Western categories – induction, deduction, transdiction.

Hunter-
Gatherer
Societies
A hunter-gatherer is a human living in a
society in which most or all food is obtained
by foraging (collecting wild plants and
pursuing wild animals), in contrast to
agricultural societies, which rely mainly on
domesticated species.

Marxist Analysis
Environment: Exhaustion of local supplies => Nomadic
Society.
Philosophy: Mother Earth: We take care of environment,
as it takes care of us. (Urban life leads to detachment
from nature.)
Politics: Egalitarian Societies – easy exit for discontented
subgroups. No slave.
Property: No private property. Illustrative Attitude:
Cherokee Constitution of 1839: “The lands of the
Cherokee Nation shall remain common property.”

Trigger for Social Change: Cultivation of Land
• Nomadic lifestyle must be abandoned.
• Private property must emerge.
• Gatherers => Farmers
• Hunters => Soldiers. Robbing farmers is easier than
hunting!
• Farmers need protection from roaming soldiers.
• Feudal Society emerges.
• Feudal Lord with soldiers guarantees safety of farmers
in neighborhood of castle, in return for food tributes.
Class Structure.

City States
• Need for Alliances among Feudal Lords.
• Stable Local Alliances create prosperity, and emergence
of cities.
• Cities create need for governance. Economic power
allows maintenance of armies.
• History of Europe: Continuous Wars between City-
States. Machiavelli’s The Prince.
• Alliances between multiple cities lead to emergence of
the Nation-State.

Creation of National Identities:
Lives there a man with a soul so dead …
Benedict Anderson: Imagined Communities – essential
tool: the print media. Cheap and widely distributed
newspapers create common perspectives.
The “Asabiyya” of Ibn-e-Khaldun, manufactured by
newspapers.
National Identity must be nurtured by education, and
must be sufficiently strong to be worth dying for. (Hearts
and Minds)

Iqbal-Madani Debate on Nation
Iqbal: Among these newly minted gods, the biggest is the
Nation. The clothing it wears is the coffin of religion.
Allegiance to humanity (Adam) must supercede allegiance to
Nations. National Identity source of maximum warfare and
death in human history, by dividing man against man – against
teachings of the Quran.
Madani: In ultimate agreement. Pragmatic strategy against
British rule, to use nation to achieve liberty.

Wael Hallaq: The
Impossible State
The topic of Nation and its Islamic status continues to be of
central importance, and extraordinarily divisive in Muslim
thought.
Nations of Middle East created as part of a divide-and-rule
strategy.
See also, lecture series at American Islamic College (available
on YouTube, search by names):
A Critique of Modernity: The State and its Forms of
Knowledge | Lecture 1

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4.4: Pedagogy
& Knowledge
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Economics: http://bit.ly/na2ie
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Islamic Theory of Knowledge:
Radically Different from Western Approach
Hadeeth: Useful Knowledge Enters the Heart.
Islam is a religion founded on the knowledge
given by Allah T’aala to humankind – this is a
knowledge they could not have acquired on
their own.
Islamic teachings place central emphasis on
acquisition of knowledge. Pre-Islamic Era is
known as “Jahiliyya” or period of ignorance.
Islamic scholars have enormous amounts of
writings, discussions, debates about the
nature of knowledge.

Western Epistemology Built on Radically
Different Foundations
• Influx of knowledge from Al-Andalus via reconquest
strongly resisted by Catholic Church. Ultimately leads to
Protestant-Catholic split.
• More than a century of religious wars lead to rejection
of religion as a basis on which to build society.
• Rejection of Bible, Theology, and the Scholastics lead to
search for new principles on which to found
knowledge.
• Knowledge defined to be based on observations and
logic. This excludes (deliberately) the heart and
intuition as sources of knowledge.

Contrasting Views of Knowledge: Deferred
Central Points: Sketched Briefly Here:
Islamic Knowledge is built on Heart and Intuition, on the
foundation of certainties provided by Quran. Human
knowledge is ALWAYS prone to error. These errors
multiply when our hearts are blinded by worldly desires.
Tazkiya – purification of heart – is a first step to
knowledge.
Western Knowledge: Excludes heart and intuition. Uses
reason and observations (of external reality, not of our
internal world) as sole sources for knowledge. Strives for
a certainty which cannot be obtained.

Relevance to Economics
• Modern Economics: Excludes our internal subjective human
experience as a source for knowledge about human beings.
• Replace it by a “rational” analysis – depending only on logic and
scientific knowledge – excluding emotions and spirituality.
• This leads to the homo economicus model: cold, calculating,
callous, and cruel.
• REPLACE this model by an understanding of human behavior
based on our direct intuitive and experiential understanding of
humans.
• Immediate consequence: Mathematics cannot be used to
describe it.

The Student’s Perspective: to
Understand
To learn points-of-view, first abandon all personal views and
emotions.
Seek to see things from the point-of-view of those committed to it.
Attempt to understand arguments and counter-arguments while
SUSPENDING judgment and attachments.
Emotions cloud understanding.
In other places, I have taken and advocated the opposite view. This
relates to stages of growth in understanding. Initially, one must
start with the student’s perspective – no UNINFORMED judgments.
Companions used to say to Prophet SAW: Allah and His Prophet
know better.

Larger Lesson
• Increasing levels of unity lead to increasing strength.
• The Nation-State has been enormously harmful to
human welfare, leading to continuous warfare.
• Islamic ideals require unity at the level of the Ummah,
and ALSO at the level of humankind – we are all
brothers and sisters, sons and daughters of Adam and
Hawwa.
• Unity comes from the hearts, not from rationality.

4.4 Concluding Remarks
• This segment on contrasting theories of knowledge and pedagogy is a side-note
for our present topic: How Capitalism Shapes Our Minds and Hearts.
• There is one important reason for including it. We do not plan to study the impact
of capitalism by doing mathematics and by reasoning about it.
• RATHER, look at our hearts to see how they have been infected by the desire for
wealth, and the worldly goals of pursuit of pleasure, power, fame, glory, etc. –
these are essential to capitalism and anti-thetical to Islam

4.5 Emergence of
Capitalism
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Economic Schools of Thought
• These represent ways of thinking about the economy,
embedded within a society.
• These are NOT scientific theories, which can be evaluated for
Truth or Falsity.
• The normative and the positive are “inextricably entangled”.
(Putnam)
• Theories provide causal explanations of social change, and
also prescribe policies (which favor class interests, but
portrays it as a social interest).

Aristocracy versus Bourgeois
Physiocrats
Agriculture is centrally important
to economy.
Wealth of Nations is measured by
cultivated land and value of
agricultural production.
Mercantilists
Agriculture is source of raw
materials for production, and food
for labor.
Commerce creates gold and silver,
the measure of wealth of nations.

Rising Power of Commercial
Classes
Corn Laws, passed in 1815, restricts import of corn, to create
greater profits for Landlords. Repealed in 1846, to allow
cheaper food for labor, preventing rise in wages, and helping
commercial classes
Poor Laws, strengthened by the Speenhamland system in 1795,
provided minimum allowance, tied to price of bread, for all
poor. This caused substantial deterioration and decline in labor
supply for industrialists, and loss of production. Poor Laws were
repealed in 1834, causing extreme hardship to the poor, and
creating the labor market required by the industrialists.

Enclosures: Privatization of
Public Lands
Attempts of Aristocracy to grab lands resisted by masses,
supported by monarchy.
Cromwell beheads King Charles 1, ends monarchy, creates
Republic.
Royalists overthrow republic, restore monarchy, but extract
many privileges for themselves against the monarch.
Large scale enclosures follow the Restoration – a massive
landgrab, called a revolution of the Rich against the Poor, by
Polanyi.

Consequences
of Enclosures
• Privatization leads to large-scale efficient agriculture – more food and wool.
• The poor displaced from social and environmental networks appear in the
cities, and intrude on public consciousness: The emergence of "Poverty".
• Creation of a labor class, needing to sell their lives for money, and creation
of surplus food supplies, necessary to feed them.
Simon Fairlie: A Short History of Enclosure in Britain: The Land Magazine.

Industrial Revolution in England.
The Industrial Revolution was the transformation of a society based
on agriculture and handicrafts into a community of machines and
factories. It was a revolution in the sense of a complete change,
but it was not a political revolution, although its impact on
politics and society was enormous. It was essentially an
economic and technological revolution, involving the extensive
use of steam power, the application of science to industry, and
the mechanization of production. It began in Britain in the late
eighteenth century and spread to Europe and North America in
the nineteenth century. The Industrial Revolution had far-
reaching consequences for the structure of society, the nature of
work, and the environment, and it marked the beginning of the
modern world.

Consequences of Industrial
Revolution
• Creation of massive amounts of surplus goods – far above
and beyond domestic demand or needs.
• Creation of Market Economy, necessitated by massive
surplus.
• Market Economy replaces, after violent battle, the social
economy, and takes central place.
• Market Economy has its own philosophy, culture, and politics.
To be discussed.
• Dominance of the market economy today continues to cause
harm to natural and humane social values.

Contrast with Traditional Economy
• Money is only used by the rich.
• Basic needs met by a network social relationships, not
by the market.
• Market is a peripheral adjunct to society. Country Fairs
– periodical events for trade, peripheral to normal life.
• Survival depends on social networks. Trust, Integrity,
Reciprocity, Placing social needs above individual is
natural – and required for survival.
• Generosity, Cooperation, Social Responsibility,
Paternalism, Regulation of Markets.

4.5 Concluding Remarks
The Industrial Revolution was a trigger for a massive amount of
social change.
Production of massive surplus led to creation of a consumer
economy – laborers create products, and buy them – wasting
time in buying and spending.
Creation of a labor market cheapens human lives, puts them for
sale.
Wealth becomes a goal of life: It can buy everything.
A Market Economy makes markets central to life: everything is
for sale.

4.6 A Market
Society
Living in A Market Society conditions
our minds to think in terms of
market transactions. Some specific
implications are explored.

Gifts Versus Commodities
Living in a market society, we lose sensitivity to the strong
conflict between market mechanisms and social mechanisms.
Polanyi: In a traditional society, markets are embedded within
society. In a market society, social relations are embedded
within the market.
Carrier: In traditional societies, people produced what they
needed and traded within social network for other needs. All of
these transactions build social relationships. In contrast, in
market economies, vast majority of transactions are impersonal
market transactions, that are often adversarial.

Illustration: Blood Donations
Traditional Blood Drives call for donations on basis of social
incentives.
What would happen if we offered to PAY money for blood
donations?
Entirely different class of donors emerges.
The two incentives: money versus social: are opposed to each
other.
IMPORTANT: Economists fail to understand this. Nobel
Laureates argued that offering money incentives would
INCREASE blood donations (because the two incentives would
add to each other).

The Battle between Markets
and Society
• One of the main messages of Polanyi is that a Market Society
came into existence after a battle with traditional society.
• Things considered sacred and out of reach of the market,
were reduced to commodities for sale on the market.
• Capitalist style labor markets – selling lives for money –
cannot exist, without cheapening human lives.
• This REPLACEMENT of social mechanisms by market
mechanism causes great harm to society.
• Polanyi provides a history of how markets won this battle
against society.

Emergence of Capitalism:
Double Movement
• Markets seek to expand, Society strongly resists
such expansion.
• Polanyi: History of emergence of capitalism
cannot be understood without looking at this
double movement.
• Why do Markets – in an industrial society - seek
to expand?
• Why does society resist such expansion?

Operation of Markets Requires
Three Artificial Commodities
• Land
• Labor
• Money
These commodities are artificial, in the sense
that they are no produced by labor.
Land is the environment, in symbiotic
relationship with humans.
Labor is the material of our lives, not for sale
at any price.
Money is a social convention, created by
consensus on use of tokens for claims on
goods sold in the marketplace.

Land as a commodity
• Cheapens Land – reduces its value as a gift from
God, which sustains our lives, and routinely
performs miracles of turning seeds into plants
• From mother earth, to commodity for exploitation
in all possible ways.
• This change in spirit is the root cause of the current
environmental crisis

Labor as a Commodity
• Human lives for purchase and sale.
• Cheapens Human beings to Human resources.
• Massively increases the value of money – it can buy
human lives!
• Labor markets became possible because of the
desperation created by Enclosures. Continued via
incorporation into social norms.
• Reflect on how un-natural and yet how common it is.
• This is among the most important elements of how our
minds and hearts are shaped by capitalism.

Money as an Artificial Commodity
Polanyi argues that money is a social institution that has
been created to facilitate economic exchange, and that it
is therefore subject to the same social and political forces
as other institutions. He suggests that the creation of
money as a means of exchange was a deliberate act of
government and that the value of money is therefore
determined by political decisions rather than by natural
market forces.

Capitalism Conditions
Our Minds and Hearts
• Awareness leads to the possibility of liberation
• Realize that our lives our precious, beyond the
possibility of purchase.
• Realize that we are unique – not interchangeable parts.
• Realize the enormous and irreplaceable gifts given to us
on the planet – flora, fauna, seas, mountains, forests.
These cannot be brought or sold for money.
• Money is the market substitute for trust. Building
genuine trust in social relationships leads to deep life
satisfaction

4.7: The
Transition to
Capitalism
The transition from a traditional society to a market society changed all the
dimensions of society: politics, economics, educational, environmental, … .
See: The Great Transformation in European Thought: bit.ly/AZGTET
Some specific aspects of this transformation are discussed in this section.

Feudal Society
• Land was biggest source of wealth (created by
enclosures).
• Landlords were the most powerful class.
• Social responsibility of the rich for the poor was an
essential philosophy for this class structure.
• Markets were peripheral to society, and strictly
regulated. Intuitive understanding of the threat posed
by markets to social structure.

Transition from Land
to Capital
Eric Hobsbawm: Age of Capital
Growth of trade and commerce led to rising
power of the trading classes, which overtook
the traditional landed aristocracy.
This led to major changes in society.

Creation of a Capitalist
Class:
Hobsbawm argues that the rise of industrial capitalism
created a new class of capitalists who were distinct from
the traditional landed aristocracy. These capitalists were
defined by their ownership of productive assets and
their control over the means of production, rather than
their ownership of land or their position in the feudal
hierarchy. This new class was able to accumulate wealth
on an unprecedented scale, and its members became
some of the most powerful and influential individuals in
society.

Creation of A Labor Class
At the same time, the expansion of capitalism also created a
new class of industrial workers who were defined by their
dependence on wage labor. Hobsbawm argues that this new
class was characterized by a distinct culture and
consciousness, which was shaped by their experiences of
working in factories and mills. This new working class
became a powerful force in society, and their struggles for
better wages and working conditions played a key role in the
development of the labor movement and the formation of
socialist and communist political parties.

Karl Marx: Increasing
Exploitation => Revolution
Labor is a commodity for sale. Surplus labor drives wage to
subsistence.
Capitalists exploit labor, to accumulate wealth and power.
Dynamics of capitalist competition require increasing exploitation.
This will eventually lead laborers to revolt, to create a more just and
equitable system.
One of the keys to creating justice is the public ownership of capital.

Polanyi: Birth of
Economic Theory
• Economic theory was born in this
period, and is saddled with
conceptual frameworks which are
now obsolete.
• Marx, Ricardo, Mill, Malthus – they
all analyze a society in transition –
which is caught in conflict between
traditional and capitalist social
norms.

Max Weber:
Worldly Prosperity Signals Salvation
What were the beliefs of capitalists, which led them to seek profits?
Protestants in general believed in predestination, and salvation by
grace alone, not by works.
A sign of success was worldly prosperity. This led protestants to
strive for worldly success, without seeking to benefit from
accumulated wealth for worldly pleasures.
This led to accumulation of capital, which created the dynamic
growth of capitalism.
The “Iron Cage” of Weber: People trapped in this way of acting even
after loss of faith in Christianity.

R H Tawney: Religion and the Rise
of Capitalism (16th to 18th Century)
Religion as central to all human pursuit was marginalized to
personal belief system.
Social Norms of Market Society replaced Christian Religious
norms.
Bible: Love of Wealth is root of all evil, was replaced by GB
Shaw: Lack of Wealth is root of all evil

Concluding Remarks
• Social Transitions are complex and multidimensional.
• The Elephant and the Blind Men
• If we look at all dimensions together, we can get a holistic
picture.
• This is an illustration of “Multiplexity” of Recep Şentürk
• Key problem with Western theories of knowledge and social
science: reduction of a Multiplex worldview by a Uniplex
view.
• Decolonization of Social Sciences requires going back to
Multiplexity.

4.8: Central Myths of Capitalism

All Societies are Created
by Acts of Imagination
Social Consensus defines the network of social
relationships, duties, responsibilities and roles of all
members of society.
This “knowledge” creates society, and defines the identity
of the members.
This knowledge must be reproduced – via education of
members – for the society to continue to exist.

Foucalt: Power shapes Truth
Foucault writes: "Each society has its regime of truth, its
'general politics' of truth: that is, the types of discourse which it
accepts and makes function as true; the mechanisms and
instances which enable one to distinguish true and false
statements, the means by which each is sanctioned; the
techniques and procedures accorded value in the acquisition of
truth; the status of those who are charged with saying what
counts as true." In this way, Foucault suggests that the stories
societies tell about themselves are intimately tied to the
exercise of power, and can be used to legitimize or challenge
existing structures of authority.

Ideas of Ruling Class Dominate
Society
It is not enough that the conditions of labour are concentrated
at one pole of society in the shape of capital, while at the other
pole are grouped masses of men who have nothing to sell but
their labour-power. Nor is it enough that they are compelled to
sell themselves voluntarily. The advance of capitalist production
develops a working class which by education, tradition and
habit looks upon the requirements of that mode of production
as self-evident natural laws. The organization of the capitalist
process of production, once it is fully developed, breaks down
all resistance.
Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume 1

The Myth of Progress: Central to
Capitalism
• The emergence of capitalism has been a disaster for mankind,
and for the planet.
• However, it has been painted as the greatest success of
human history.
• This is necessary for the survival of capitalism.
• It is achieved by focusing resources on propaganda, and in
particular, on the educational system, which is designed to
produce human resources, for sale for money.
“Rejecting Eurocentric Concepts of Development”
http://bit.ly/AZrecd

False Ideologies Created by
Capitalism
• Human lives can be bought and sold for money.
• The value of my life is the amount of money I can earn.
• Helping the poor is harmful to productivity, and ultimately to
everyone. Motivation for work is created by poverty.
• The goal of life is to maximize pleasure, power, and profits –
without concern for society.
• Money is central to the acquisition of all the pleasures that
life has to offer.

Fundamental Myths of
Economic Theories
We live in a barter economy.
Money is a means of facilitating exchange of commodities.
Money is a veil – it does not matter for the real economy, which
consists of commodities.
Goal of life is to maximize pleasure from consumption.
Galbraith: Because excess production is central to capitalism,
advertising to create demand for unnecessary goods is essential
to its survival.

Consumerism and Money
Economic Theory is one of the principal tools of capitalist
education.
Its central myth is the L => W => C idea. All must labor, earn
wages, and use money to buy commodities they need.
Marx expresses this idea as C => M => C’ The commodity labor
is sold for money, which is exchanged for a different set of
commodities.
Deeper insight is produced by dividing the purchases C’ into
two parts: C’ = Essentials + Surplus
Capitalism required manufacture of surplus goods, and ALSO
demand for these surplus is manufactured by advertising.

The Monetary
Economy
Capitalists: M => C => C’ => M’ Capitalists use money to purchase
input commodities C: labor and raw materials. They produce output
commodities C’ and sell them to get more money M’.
The goal of the capitalists to is to make money, not consume
products.
The goal of laborers is ALSO to accumulate savings, to protect them
against vagaries of the labor market.
A society where every is driven to accumulate MONEY is radically
different from a society where all driven by the goal to consume
goods.

4.8: Concluding
Remarks
Society is created by a “knowledge” of a set of social relationships,
responsibilities, duties, and roles assigned to different members.
This knowledge must be imparted to all members, to allow society to
continue.
The powerful elites construct this knowledge and educate all
members to believe in the society, so that all fulfill their roles
contentedly.
Islam in unique in defining a natural social structure which is built
into our fitra and sketched in the Quran.

4.9: Society: Network of Social Relationships
Society must train members to recognize their roles and
responsibilities within this network, to survive.
A market society, created by capitalism, trains us to
believe in certain myths, essential to survival of
capitalism.
Learning these myths enable us to unlearn them.

The Battle for Knowledge:
Truths Against Myths
The Central Battleground is Knowledge.
Knowledge given by the Quran led to the creation of an
ideal society.
All human beings have the potential to rise higher than
angels, and also to become worse than the beasts.
An ideal society encourages all members to strive for
excellence in conduct, and creates an environment
conduct to human development.
Ebb and flow of knowledge over time led to many
variants – the Islamicate – all patterned on the
foundations of Islam.

Colonization & Global
Conquest
Knowledge of how to build an Islamic Society was wiped out by European
conquest and colonization of Islamic lands.
Social Sciences were build on the assumption that European society is the
most advanced, by far, among all societies. Europe is “developed” while the
rest are undeveloped.
These Eurocentric assumptions were absorbed by the ruling class, and
transmitted through Western education now in global use.
The rich and powerful elites seek to create European societies all over the
Islamic world, in order to “develop”. They use Social Science to do so. We need
to develop our own Islamic politics and economics.

Solutions: Personal
and Collective
On personal level – UNLEARNING many myths is required.
On collective level – We need to produce an alternative to
Western education.
This course in Islamic Economics is ONE small piece of the
massive effort required to replace the ENTIRE structure of
Western Social Science by an understanding of how to shape
societies according to Islamic laws.
Replacement of Social Sciences by applications of Fiqh to
modern world

Personal Level:
Unlearning
Unlearning Jahiliyya and Relearning Islam:
http://bit.ly/SSUJRI
Our human lives are infinitely precious.
Our success will be determined on Day of Judgment.
Life on this Earth is test – we succeed if we struggle for the
GOOD, not if we achieve a successful outcome.
Wealth and Poverty are not signs of favor or disfavor from
Allah.

First Steps to Learning:
Who Am I?
Learning Who You Are: http://bit.ly/AZwya
Learning how to become a human being, instead of a human
resource.
Three Mega-Events Which Shape Our Thoughts: http://bit.ly/AZ3ME
1. Global Colonization and Conquest: Shock-and-Awe of the West
2. European Transition to Secular Thought: Marginalization of
Religion
3. The Great Transformation to Market Society. Wealth as Goal of
Life

Understanding Human Beings:
Basis for Building Society
Our methodology focuses on our own intuitive, direct,
experiental understanding of our human experience –
no mathematics.
Also, we have a developed and sophisticated
understanding of human behavior, founded on the
Quran, and the Sufic spiritual tradition.
Toward a Framework for Islamic Psychology and
Psychotherapy: An Islamic Model of the Soul
Abdallah Rothman & Adrian Coyle
Journal of Religion and Health volume 57, pages1731–
1744 (2018)

Decolonizing the Social Sciences:
From Uniplexity to Multiplexity
A Series of Lectures by Recep
Şentürk
Brief Writeup/Outline:
http://bit.ly/AZdss
Video Lecture Series:
http://bit.ly/RSDSSU2M

Islamic Attitude
towards Wealth
Al-Bukhari reports that the Prophet Muhammad
(may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him)
said: Hakim! Wealth has a deceptive appearance. It
appears to be very sweet (but it is really not so). It is
a blessing when earned with contentment of heart,
but there is no satisfaction in it when it is got with
greed. (al-Bukhari, 1422H, 2:123, ḥadīth no. 1472)

Some Basic Antidotes
Nafs-Ammara: Modern Economics advocates this lowest
level of spiritual development – man as an animal
bound by his desires. Worship of the Nafs.
The Soul of Human Beings is a Battle-ground for good
and evil.
“Islam’s Gift: An Economy of Spiritual Progress”
http://bit.ly/AZgift
Modern Economics is the economics of the spiritually
stunted.
Islamic Economics is for spiritual progress, from Nafs-e-
Ammara to Nafs-e-Lawwama to Nafs-e-Mutma’innah

Concluding Remarks
This is final 9th segment of Lecture 4 “How Capitalism Shapes Our Minds and
Hearts”. The first segment is: Uloom-ul-Umran vs. Social Science
http://bit.ly/na2ie41 Links to next segment are provided in each segment.
Weekly mailing list on Islamic Economics: http://bit.ly/AZIEML
More details of online course on A New Approach to Islamic Economics:
http://bit.ly/na2ie

How Capitalism Shapes Our MInds

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