This is taken from the book “Our Philosophy” by Bakir al-Sadr
There are many schools of socialism. The best-known of these is chat which teats on Marxist theory, or dialectical materialism, which expresses a specific philosophy of life and a materialistic understanding of it along dialectical lines. Dialectical materialists have applied this theory to history, society and economics; and thus, it became a philosophical doctrine concerning the world, a method for studying history and society, a school of economics and a plan in politics. In other words, it shapes the entirety of humankind into a specific mold, according to the kind of thinking they have, their outlook on life and their practical actions. There is no doubt that the materialistic philosophy, as well as the dialectical method, are not the creation and innovation of the Marxist school. The materialistic tendency existed in philosophical circles thousands of years ago, revealed at times, while concealed ac other times behind sophistry and absolute denial. Similarly, some points of the dialectical method of thinking have deep roots in human thought. All its points were formulated at the hands of Hegel, the well-known idealist philosopher. After that, Karl Marx adopted this [dialectical] method and chat [materialistic] philosophy. He tried to apply them to all fields of life, and achieved two things. First, by the dialectical method, he explained history from a purely materialistic perspective. Second, he claimed to have discovered the contradictions of capitalism and the surplus value that the possessor of money steals from his employees in accordance with his doctrine.
On the basis of these two achievements, Marx based his faith on the necessity of abolishing the capitalistic system and erecting, instead, the communistic and the socialistic societies which he considered as humankind’s [first] step toward a full implementation of communism.
In this philosophy, the social field is one of struggle among contradictions. Every social situation that pervades this field is a purely material phenomenon concordant with the rest of the material phenomena and circumstances, and influenced by them. However, at the same time, this social situation caries its own contradiction within itself. Then struggle erupts among the contradictions within its contents, until the contradictions accumulate and create a change in this situation and the construction of a new situation. Thus, the battle continues, until all people become of one class, and the interests of every individual become represented in the interests of this unified class.
At that point, harmony prevails, peace is realized, and all the bad effects of the capitalistic democratic system are removed, because such effects were produced by the existence of multiple classes in society. This multiplicity of classes was, in turn, produced by society’s division into producer and employee. Therefore, it is necessary to put an end to this division by means of terminating ownership.
In this respect, communism differs from socialism in some of its principal economic ideas. The communist economy is based on the following. First, private ownership must be canceled and fully obliterated from society. All wealth must be appropriated by everyone and handled by the state, since it is the legal trustee over society, so that the state manages and exploits this wealth for the welfare of the whole population. The belief of the communistic school in the necessity of this absolute nationalization was a natural reaction to the complications of private ownership in the capitalistic democratic system. Such nationalization was justified on the ground that its purpose was the cancellation of the capitalistic class and the uniting of people in one class, in order than to end the struggle, and to prevent the individual from employing the various tactics and methods for enlarging his wealth, in an attempt to satisfy his greed and appease the motive that drives him after personal benefit.
Second, goods produced must be distributed in accordance with the individual need for consumption. This point is summarized in the following text: ‘from everyone, in accordance with his capacity, and for everyone, in accordance with his needs’. This is to say that every individual has natural needs deprived of which he cannot survive. He devotes all his efforts to society; in return, society satisfies the necessities of his life and supports his living.
Third, this must be carried out on the basis of an economic plan put forth by the state. In this plan, the state reconciles the needs of the whole population with the quantity, variety and limit of production, in order to prevent afflicting society with the same illnesses and difficulties that occurred in the capitalistic society when absolute freedom was allowed.
Deviation from the Communist Operation
The leading authorities of communism who called for this system were unable to implement it with all its features when they seized power. They believed that, in order to implement this system, a development of human thought, motives and inclinations was necessary. They claimed that there would come a time when personal interests and individual considerations would disappear from the human soul, replaced by a social mentality and social inclinations. With that, a human being would think only of the social welfare, and would be motivated only for its sake. Because of this, it was necessary, according to the tradition of this social doctrine, to establish prior to that a socialistic system in which people could rid themselves of their present nature and acquire the nature which is consistent with the communistic system.
In this socialistic system, important revisions of the economic aspect of communism were made.
Thus, the primary point of the communist economy – namely, the annulment of private ownership – was changed to a more moderate stand. This stand called for the nationalization of heavy industry, foreign trade, and large domestic trade, as well as the imposition of government restrictions on all of them. In other words, it called for the elimination of large capital to help the advance of simple industries and trades, and to give individuals power over these industries and trades. This is because the main point of the communist economy clashed with actual human nature to which we have alluded earlier. Individuals began to neglect performing their jobs and activities at work. They also avoided fulfilling their social duties. This was due to the fact that [under this system, they were only] supposed to secure an orderly life and a satisfaction of their needs. Also, under this system, one was not supposed to perform any work or make any effort for more than this, regardless of its intensity. Why then should the individual make any effort, work hard and earnestly, as long as the result for him is the same whether he is lazy or active? Further, why should he be motivated to make happiness available to others, and to bring comfort to them by his own sweat and tears and by the sap of his life and capacities, as long as he does not believe in any values of life except in those that are purely materialistic? Thus, the leaders of this school felt obliged to freeze absolute nationalization.
They were also obliged to amend the second important point of communist economics. They did this by creating differences among salaries, in order to motivate the employees to become active and to carry out their jobs – apologizing at the same time that these were temporary differences which would disappear when the capitalistic mentality was abolished and when humankind undergoes further development. Due to this, they applied continual change, in accordance with their economic methods and socialistic tactics, so that they could avoid the failure of any one method by introducing a new method. However, until now, they have not successfully eradicated all the basic principles of the capitalistic economy. Usurious loans, for example, have not been completely eliminated, even though in reality they are the basis of social corruption in the capitalistic economy.
But none of this means chat those leaders were failures or that they were not serious about their teachings or sincere about their doctrine. Rather, it means that they clashed with reality when they came to apply [their ideas]. They found their way full of the contradictory elements that human nature imposes in the face of the revolutionary method of social reform that they preached. Thus, reality forced them to retreat with the hope that the miracle would be accomplished in some near or distant future.
Politically, communism, in the long run, aims to eliminate the state from society when the miracle is accomplished and the social mentality prevails among all people. At that point, everyone will think only of the material interests of the whole society. But before that, when the miracle is not yet accomplished, when people are not yet united in one class and when society is still divided into capitalistic and labor forces, the government must be purely chat of the labor force. This would be a democratic government within the limit of the labor circles, and dictatorial with regard to the general public.
They tried to justify this by claiming that a dictatorial labor government was necessary at every stage experienced by humankind with the individual mentality. This is so, for the protection of the interests of the labor class, for the stifling of the breath of capitalism and for the prevention of capitalism from reappearing on the scene.
In fact, this school, which is represented in socialistic Marxism and then in communistic Marxism, is distinguished from the capitalistic democratic system in that it is based on a specific materialistic philosophy which adopts a specific understanding of life that does not admit any of the moral ideals or values of life. It also explains life in a way that leaves no room for a creator beyond the limits of nature, nor for expected retributions beyond the boundaries of the limited material life. This is contrary to capitalistic democracy which, even though a materialistic system, is not established on a definite philosophical basis. Materialistic communism believes in proper linkage between the issue of actual life and the social issue, but capitalistic democracy does not believe in such a linkage, or does not attempt to make it clear.
Thus, the communistic school was in reality the outcome of philosophical study. It was tested by experiencing the philosophy on which it was based, and from which it branched out. Judgement of any system depends on the extent of the success of that system’s philosophical notions in understanding and portraying life.
From the first glance one casts on the communistic system, it is easy to notice that, whether this system is diluted or complete, its general characteristic is to destroy the 0individual in society and make him an instrument to be manipulated for the purpose of 0realizing the general standards that this system presupposes. Therefore, it is exactly the opposite of the free capitalistic system that considers society for the sake of the individual and subjugates it to his interests. It is as if the individual personality and the social personality were destined in the traditions of these two systems to clash and to struggle against each other. The individual personality was the winner in the system whose legislation was based on the individual and his specific benefits. Thus, society was afflicted by economic tragedies that shook its existence and malformed the life of all its people.
The social personality was the winner in the other system, which tried to avoid the errors of the former system. Thus, it supported society, and sentenced the individual personality to disappearance and death. As a result of this, individuals were exposed to severe ordeals that abolished their freedom, their personal existence, as well as their natural rights to choice and thinking.
Flaws of Communism
In fact, even if the communistic system treats a number of the maladies of the free capitalistic system by means of abolishing private ownership, yet in one respect, this treatment has natural complications that render the price of treatment much too high.
This is in addition to difficulties that one encounters in the method of applying this treatment. One cannot employ this method, unless all other methods and procedures fail. In another respect, this treatment is incomplete and does not ensure the end of all social corruption. This is so because it is not accompanied by a correct diagnosis of the illness and the specification of the point from which evil proceeded and conquered the world under the capitalistic system. That point continued in the communistic school to retain its position with regard to social life. With this, humankind did not win a decisive solution for their big problem, nor did they obtain the remedy that heals their fits of illness and uproots their bad symptoms.
The complications of this treatment are enormous indeed. Its concern is to terminate individual freedom, in order to establish communist ownership in place of private ownership. But this enormous social transformation is, at least until now, contrary to general human nature – as admitted by its leaders – since the materialistic human being still thinks in terms of himself and considers his interests from his limited individual perspective. Further, to put forth and try to fulfill a new design for society in which individuals completely melt away and personal motives are totally eradicated requires a firm power that holds the reins of society with an iron hand. Moreover, this power quiets any voice that grows loud, stifles any breath of freedom that circulates in society, monopolizes all the means of propaganda and publicity, imposes limits on the nation that the nation cannot exceed under any circumstances and punishes on the ground of accusation and speculation, so that it does not suddenly lose its grip on the reins of power. This is natural in any system one seeks to impose on a nation, before the mentality of that system matures in that nation, and before the spirit of that system prevails.
Indeed, if the materialistic human being begins to think in a social manner, to consider his interests with a social mentality and to be free of all personal sentiments, private inclinations and psychological effects, is would be possible to erect a system in which individuals melt away. With that, nothing would remain at the scene except the huge social giant. But the realization of this in a materialistic human being who does not believe in anything except in a limited life, and who does not perceive any sense of life except chat of material pleasure requires a miracle that creates heaven in the present life and brings it down from the highest to earth. The communists promise us this heaven.
They await that day in which the factory will put an end to human nature, recreate ideal humankind in thinking and acting even though they do not believe in any idealistic and moral values. If this miracle is realized, we will then have some words for them.
For the time being, to put forth the social design that they seek requires confining individuals to the limits of the idea of this design and ensuring its execution by setting the group that believes in it in charge of protecting it and by taking precautionary measures for its sake, through silencing human nature and psychological effects and using any means to prevent them from bursting forth. Under this system, even if the individual acquires full insurance and social security for his life and needs because the social wealth supplies him with all of this at the time of need, nevertheless, it would be better for him to obtain this insurance without losing the breath of righteous freedom, without melting away in fire as a person, and without drowning in a stormy social sea.
How could a human being aspire to freedom in any field when he is deprived of the freedom of his life, and when his nourishment is fully linked to a specific organization – considering that economic freedom, as well as freedom of life, are the basis of all kinds of freedom?
The defenders of this system apologize while asking: ‘What would a human being do with freedom, with the right to be critical and to express his views, when he suffers from an abominable social burden? Again, what benefit would he derive from debate and opposition, when he is more in need of good nourishment and a secured life than of the protests and clamor with which freedom provides him?’
Those who put forth such questions do not pay attention to anything other than capitalistic democracy, as if it were the only social cause which rivals theirs on the battleground. Thus, they diminish the value and rights of individual dignity, because they see in it a danger for the general social trend. However, it is the right of humankind not to sacrifice any of their essentials or rights as long as it is not necessary for them to do so. Humans had to choose between dignity, which is one of their moral rights, and satisfaction of need, which is one of their material rights. Thus, they lacked the system that combines both sides and succeeds in resolving both issues.
A human being whose capacities are the objects of extortion by others and who does not enjoy a comfortable life, a fair salary, and security in times of need is one who is deprived of the delights of life and has no access to peaceful and stable living. Similarly, a human being who lives continuously under threat, who is judged on any movement he makes, who is exposed to detention without a hearing and to imprisonment, who is exiled or executed for the slightest mistake he commits is indeed scared and alarmed. Fear steals away his good life and alarm disturbs its pleasures.
The third type of human being, who enjoys a tranquil life and is confident of his dignity and safety, is the pleasant dream of humankind. But how can this dream be realized, and when will is become an actual reality?
We have stated above that the communist treatment of the social issue is incomplete, in addition to having the complications to which we have already alluded. Even though it represents human sentiments and emotions that were stirred up by the general social tyranny – thus attracting a group of thinkers to the new solution – nevertheless, these thinkers did not grasp the cause of corruption so that they could eliminate it. Rather, they eliminated something else. Therefore, they were not successful in their treatment and in achieving a cure.
The principle of private ownership is not the cause of the absolute evils of capitalism that shook the happiness and peace of the world. It is not, for example, what imposes unemployment on millions of workers, in order to utilize a new machine that will destroy their industries. This is what happened at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. Again, the principle of private ownership does not impose a despotic control over the salaries of employees with disregard for their efforts. Further, it does not require the capitalist to damage large quantities of his products for the protection of the price of commodities and the preference for squandering these commodities instead [of using them] to satisfy the needs of the poor. Further still, it does not call upon the capitalise to turn his wealth into profitable capital, multiplying it through interest and through the absorption of the efforts of those who are in debt, and not through producing or working. Moreover, the principle of private ownership does not drive the capitalist to purchase all the consumer’s goods from the markets, so that he can monopolize them and then raise their prices. Finally, this principle does not require that the capitalist open up new markets that may infringe upon, or abolish, the freedom, rights and honor of nations.
None of these fearful tragedies was the result of private ownership. Rather, they were the product of personal, materialistic interest that was made the standard of life in the capitalistic system and the absolute justification of all managements and dealings. A society based on such an individualistic standard and personal justification cannot be expected to do other than what it actually did. It is from the nature of such a standard that those evils and afflictions proceed to fall upon mankind as a whole, rather than from the principle of private ownership. If such a standard is changed, and a new, rectified objective of life in accord with human nature is put forth, the real treatment of the big problem of mankind will have been accomplished.
The Correct Explanation of the Problem
In order for us to reach the first part of the explanation of the social problem, we must inquire about the personal, materialistic interest that the capitalistic system established as a criterion, as a justification and as an objective. Thus, we ask: ‘What was the idea chat validated this criterion in the capitalistic mentality, and what was the source of its inspiration?’ For it is this idea which is the real basis of the social afflictions and failure of the capitalistic democracy to achieve human happiness and dignity. If we are able to kill this idea, we will put an end to all conspiracies against social comfort, and to the unions against the rights and real freedom of society. We will also succeed in exploiting private ownership for the sake of the welfare and development of mankind and for their progress in the industrial fields and areas of production. What then is this idea?
This idea can be summarized in the limited materialistic explanation of life on which the West erected the powerful edifice of capitalism. If every individual in society believes that his only field in this great existence is his personal material life, if he also asserts his freedom of managing and exploiting this life and in his inability to achieve any purpose in this life other than pleasure which is made available to him by material factors; further, if he adds these materialistic beliefs to self-love which is intrinsic to his nature, then he will follow the same path trodden by the capitalists, and will fully carry out their procedures, unless he is deprived of his freedom by an overwhelming power and barred from selecting this path.
Self-love is the most general and the oldest instinct we know; for all other instincts, including the instinct for life, are branches and subdivisions of this instinct. The selflove that human beings have – by which is meant their love of pleasure and happiness for themselves, and their hatred of pain and misery for themselves – is what drives them to earn their living and to satisfy their nutritional and material needs. That is why a human being may put an end to his life by committing suicide if he finds that bearing the pains of death is easier for him than bearing the pains with which his life is full.
Therefore, the true, natural reality that is concealed behind all human life and chat directs life with its own hand is self-love, which we express by our yearning for pleasure and hatred for pain. It is not possible for a human being to carry freely the burden of the bitterness of pain and forgo any pleasures just so that others may have pleasure and comfort, unless his human nature is stripped away from him and he is given a new nature that does not yearn for pleasure and detest pain.
Even the wonderful forms of love which we witness in human beings and about which we hear in their history are in reality subjugated to that principal moving force – the instinct of self-love. A human being may love his child or friend over himself, as he may make sacrifices for the sake of some ideals or values. However, he would not perform any of these heroic acts, if he did not derive from them a specific pleasure and a benefit that outweighed the loss resulting from his love for his child or friend, or from his sacrifice for the sake of some of the ideals in which he believed.
Thus, we can explain human behavior in general, [as being well-grounded in] the areas of selfishness and [self]-love alike. In human beings, there are many propensities for taking pleasure in a variety of things, such as taking pleasure in material things exemplified in food, drink, the various kinds of sexual pleasures, and similar material pleasures. Other examples of similar pleasures are those of the soul, such as moral and emotional pleasures in moral values, in a spiritual companion or in a specific doctrine.
These pleasures are felt when human beings find that those values, that companion, or that doctrine are a part of their specific existence. Such propensities that prepare human beings for enjoying those various delights differ in degree from one individual to the other. They also vary in the extent of their effectiveness, in accordance with the difference in human circumstances and in the natural and educational factors that affect people. While we find that some of those propensities mature in human beings naturally – as does their propensity for sexual pleasure, for example – we find, at the same time, that other forms of propensities may never appear in people’s lives. Rather, they await the educational factors that help their maturation and blossoming.
The instinct of self-love, working behind all these propensities, determines human behavior in accordance with the extent of the maturity of those propensities. Thus, it drives a human being to give himself exclusive access to food when somebody else is hungry. And it is the same propensity that drives another human being to deprive himself of food in order to give someone else exclusive access to it. This is because the propensity of the former for taking pleasure in the moral and emotional values that drives him to this love was latent. The educational factors which help this propensity focus and grow were not open to him. The latter, on the other hand, has acquired this kind of education. Thus, he takes pleasure in the moral and emotional values, and sacrifices the rest of his pleasures for their sake.
Whenever we wish to create any change in human behavior, we must first change the human notion of pleasure and benefit, and then place the behavior desired in the general frame of the instinct of self-love.
If the instinct of self-love occupies in the present life of humankind the position [already mentioned], if the self, according to the view of people, is an expression of a limited material power, and if pleasure is an expression of the delights and joys that matter makes available, then it is natural for people to feel that their opportunity for profit is limited, and that the race for their goal is short, and that their goal in this race is to acquire a certain amount of material pleasure. Further, the way to this acquisition is, as a matter of fact, confined to the nerve of the material life – that is, to money – which opens the way for human beings to realize all their objectives and desires. This is the natural succession in the materialistic notions which leads to a complete capitalistic mentality.
Now, do you think that the problem can be decisively solved if we reject the principle of private ownership and retain these materialistic notions of life, as did those thinkers? Again, is it possible for society to be delivered from the tragedy of such notions and to attain secure happiness and stability by the mere elimination of private ownership? Take into consideration that securing its happiness and stability depends, to a great extent, on securing the non-deviation of those personalities in charge of carrying out their reformative programs and objectives in the fields of work and execution. Those who are in such positions are supposed to uphold the same purely materialistic notions of life on which capitalism was established. The difference, though, [between them and the capitalists] is chat they laid these notions in new philosophical molds. [In accordance with their teachings], it is reasonable to assume that quite often personal interest stands in the way of social interest, and that the individual fluctuates between a loss and a pain which he bears for the sake of others, and a profit and a pleasure which he enjoys at the expense of others. What security would you estimate there is for the nation and its rights, for the doctrine and its objectives, under such trying times as the rulers face? Personal interest is not represented in private ownership only, so that the cancellation of the principle of private ownership would destroy our above-mentioned assumption. Rather, personal interest is represented in [various] procedures, and takes on different forms. The evidence for this can be seen in the revelations made by the present communist leaders concerning acts of treason committed by earlier rulers and the consolidation of these earlier rulers around the objectives they had adopted.
The capitalistic group controls the wealth [of the nation], under the auspices of economic and individual freedom, and manages this wealth with its own materialistic mentality. [Similarly], when the state nationalizes the whole wealth and eliminates private ownership, the wealth of the nation is handed to the same state organization which consists of a group adopting the same materialistic notions of life and imposing on people the priority of personal interests, by virtue of the judgement of the instinct of self-love which denounces a human being’s renunciation of personal pleasure or interest without any compensation. As long as the material interest is the power in control due to the materialistic notions of life, it will ignite once again the battleground of struggle and competition, and expose society to various kinds of danger and exploitation. Thus, all the danger for mankind lies in these materialistic notions and in the standards of goals and actions that proceed from these notions. Unifying the capitalistic wealth, be it small or large, into one large unit of wealth whose management is handed to the state – without any new development of the human mentality -does not alleviate this danger. Rather, it makes all people employees of one and the same company, and ties their lives and dignity to the directors and owners of that company.
Admittedly, this company differs from the capitalistic company in that the owners of the latter are those who own its profits, and spend them in any manner dictated by their desires. The owners of the former company, on the other hand, do not own any of this, according to the teachings of the system. However, the fields of personal interest are still open to them, and the materialistic notion of life, which posits this interest as a goal and as a justification, is still upheld by them.
