TEHRAN (Iran News) –A couple of days ago I was busy watching a debate on a TV program, Jahan Ara, where Dr. Toghyani and DR. Jebraeeli were present in the debate that was anchored by Mr. Sabeti.
The debate heated up and both respected intellectuals debated on the topic of base of prices and the way of government’s manipulation in influencing the idea of free market in the economy but the debate was more an argument than a debate because both sides considered each other pre-convicted of insulating their opinions on the structure of economic decision-makers of the government and therefor a hugger mugger picture from the economy has been painted.
In fact, both sides with their own languages (bringing it but not mentioning it) were painting this picture that Iran’s economy has no clear definition of any economic school. Toghyani was accusing the other side of being a Marxist and in return Jebraeeli was accusing Toghyani of being a pro-liberalism capitalist. Of course both sides did not spare anything to undermine the talks and doctrine of the other side.
I believe these two ways of view regarding the debate topic from the rough-and-tumble economic team of the government in the issue of economy, which has been actually comprised of a political team than an economic-wise, leads to this that all definitions in Iran’s economic bed have more political goals than economic ones. In other words, few officials are found to lay a stable rail for persistent economic decisions.
During the all past 45 years, most of decisions made in the field of economy in Iran has had political flavor. The Islamic Republic of Iran in its foreign policy whether right or wrong has followed a certain and defined policy and coincidentally in establishing the anti-West culture has achieved massive successes both for Asia and the region but in taking economic decisions in fact it has acted like a storm-hit downwind boat in the money sea and has gone ahead till now and the reason why it has not collapsed yet is reliance on injection of petro-dollars.
If I were to express a bold opinion, I could claim that this bewilderment and confusion has cost a great deal for the country. The proof for this issue that can be mentioned is some $2,000b of oil and non-oil sales have not even led to completion of 30% of the infrastructures. I put growth in military and nuclear structure and to some extent growth in scientific, industrial and agriculture structures in the mentioned 30%. Despite it, this 30% growth has helped to maintain the hegemony of the revolution in Iran and to some extent in the region and I claim if we moved in the direction of a defined economy, at least we would not have had the current domestic problems and both sanctions and media hostilities could have less destructive efforts on the trend of materializing the goals of our Islamic Revolution.
On this issue, I do not have any intention to analyze the past wrong actions. I see the mentality of the 13th government in supporting production and approach to privatization different from the past governments but it does not mean that I do not see the problems in decision making of the government in orienting the economy.
The previous governments had raised many problem statements in front of Iranian nation without any solutions for them and I should say God willing the plague of their presence has been eradicated and today the government, Majlis and Judiciary are preparing some intermittent solutions for some of these issues and have turned into crisis managers.
Economy also like foreign policy should find a single voice to move in a clear and bright direction. The views of Marxism and socialism are also unable to save the economy and it costs heavy because it leaves fundamental distortions on the axes of creating obstruction. Essentially I should tell that Marxists divide the world into two groups and say the first group is exploiter and the second one is the exploited and therefore history in all of the past periods has been nothing but class struggle between the exploiters and exploited people, it means, economic interests of some people necessitates to remain in the same stage and are opposed to the progress of production tools (ruling exploiter group) and one group wants growth and progress of production tools and getting rid of the current condition (the exploited group) and this leads to repeated conflicts and struggles which leads to a new system (new society) where beside production tools, economic, culture, traditions and religious interests and thought, in one word, change comparing to the previous society; and after a while, again this new system changes its path after fight, war and bloodshed which it itself has been the main factor behind it and it converts into a new system in the form and not in the content.
Regressive and reactionary trend of these transformations are very obvious in the underdeveloped countries comparing to the developed ones. The economy which is fatherly run is a consumerist one and consumption economy has no tendency towards innovation and creativity in developing production tools. With this definition, one can unequivocally say that Marxism is not an economic school and emitted socialism from it leads to a fatherly view to the consumption economy, and modernism in this thought is the least.
Today most of Marxist socialists believe socialism has failed and believe Marxism is a social doctrine, a worldview, an ideology, a philosophical school which was found in the late 19th Century by Carl Marx, the German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist and political theorist.
Base of Marxism as it has been mentioned in the Communism manifest has been laid on history of societies and history of class struggle and in today’s world there exists two classes of Proletariat and Bourgeoisie which are in clash to overcome each other and make these two histories and as I said, for years it induces replacement behavior
The right view and approach to a school-based economy even in the framework of ethical school of Islam is a view to free market and to some extent towards reasonable distribution of wealth. People should enjoy having the talent, understanding and environmental preparation and they themselves provoke production based on the demand and supply and to push the government out of the economy.
John Maynard Keynes, the English economist and philosopher, describes the view on the market as distribution of wealth from up to down and believes growth in any geography looks at big enterprises and encourages the governments to support industry and agriculture, services and leaders of economy and unlike him, Friedrich August von Hayek, who is considered as the founder of Austrian economy does not believe in distribution of wealth from up to down. Hayek believes distribution of wealth from up to down increases the Gini coefficient and decreases the volume of capability in producing jobs and both are liberal with two different views and these two views have set the base of the economies of West and East for their one-hundred year challenges.
We have to support the big enterprises for creating fast growth but in a ten-year plan range, the path for supporting should be directed by at least 10% per year towards supporting the small enterprises and lower classes of the society. We should stop banking chaos and distribution of money and instead of increasing salaries, goods are distributed and distribution of goods via the government should be stopped and it should be handed over to the enterprises which will be a pretext for encouraging them to production, and let the entrepreneurship and employership is formed and organized in order to increase the output and productivity.
If the production is the yardstick for growth, we should save work from the damages of rebellions. The employer should have this power to go through good and bad of his work. I think it went too much. I apologize for prolonging it and of course I will continue this topic later.
