Capitalism Wakes Up! Read online

  Al Shariati

  Capitalism Wakes Up!

  Edited by

  Laleh Bakhtiar

  ABJAD Book Designers and Builders

  © Laleh Bakhtiar, 1979

  © Laleh Bakhtiar eBook, 2011

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  eBook ISBN 10: 1-871031-18-4

  eBook ISBN 13: 978-1-871031-18-8

  Published by

  ABJAD Book Designers and Builders

  Distributed by

  Kazi Publications, Inc

  3023 West Belmont Avenue

  Chicago IL 60618

  Contents

  Foreword

  Preface

  A Short Biography of Ali Shariati

  Capitalism Wakes Up!

  Endnotes

  Foreword

  ‘Am I not (alast) your Lord,’ (asked God, and) replied they, ‘Yea! We do bear witness.’ (7:174).

  This formed the initial covenant (ahd) of man with God. Through it, man inherited the heavens and the earth and in return for God’s promise of a Saviour and a Final Day, man assumed a responsibility to care for that which was entrusted to humanity.

  The human being who recalls the acceptance of the covenant, who assumes the responsibility, one ‘who has made the promise’ is known as one who is ‘committed’, ‘engaged’ (mutahid). In the view of Dr. Ali Shariati, this is the real artist for he or she is committed to the promise given that day and creates in anticipation of God’s promise.

  His point of view serves as an awakening to those who have not comprehended all of the criteria of art, to those who are not aware of the relationship between art and society and to those who think that society is beyond the realm of assistance by an artist. In this school of thought, the artist is bound to the promise and serves as a vehicle for its expression for it is through this expression that humanity continues to remember and recall.

  It is only artists, in his view, who, like the prophets of old, takes the sins of others upon themselves because a ‘real artist’ is attentive, engaged in social action and responsible. Their very attentiveness weighs down the sorrow they bear and builds artists into the form of messengers who, as prophecy was sealed with Muhammad, must remain unfulfilled.

  At the same time that they themselves remain unfulfilled, their art continues to be expressed and to ennoble for one of the major roles that art plays is to ennoble matter. The ‘matter’ of Shariati is humanity, people, the masses. With this in view, the real art of any society is faith and struggle upon this way. Anything less than this is to forget the covenant.

  Islam is centered on Unity and is expressed in art through what has been called ‘unity in multiplicity’, ‘multiplicity in unity’. Can one find a more appropriate symbol of multiplicity than humanity itself, created in the image of the One God, struggling and full of faith as it recalls the covenant by which it bound itself to God?’

  Laleh Bakhtiar

  Editor

  Preface

  ALI SHARIATI (1933-1977), a contemporary Muslim social activist, devoted his life to paving the way for the return to what he and those who followed him believed to be a non-distorted Islam.

  Ali Shariati left over 15,000 pages of lectures, letters, books and journals which were gathered together, divided into subjects and published from 1976-1986 in Persian in thirty-five volumes called The Collected Works. As comparatively few pages of his works have been translated into English, the almost fifty page English Guide and Indices to the Collected Works, appearing at the end of the present lecture in the Appendices, addresses this need in order to give those interested in Shariati’s ideas and his place in history an understanding of the extent and breadth of his work as well as an insight into his creative abilities which were so strong that the titles themselves call out to be heard.

  The “Index” gives all information heretofore unavailable on each of the titles including date, place where the lecture was given, and the surrounding circumstances, where known. Page numbers are given showing where a lecture can be found in the Persian Collected Works and indication of English translation where relevant.

  There are five additional indices given in the appendices of the Index in order to facilitate access to (A) the translated titles and (B) transliterated titles of the 35 volumes. In the third and fourth indices, every title that appears within the Collected Works (CW) is listed (C) alphabetically in translation and (D) transliteration followed by the number assigned to the work in the “Guide to Shariati’s Collected Works.” The fifth (E) is a list of the Dated Works According to Dates produced during his most prolific period of 1968-1972. Through this one can follow, day by day, the blossoming of the creative energies of this son of Islam and Iran, a man about whom Jean Paul Sartre said, “I have no religion, but if I were to choose one, it would be that of Shariati’s.”

  It is hoped that this work will be viewed as an attempt to give wider scope to Shariati’s ideas and that interested readers will contact the publisher with any information or criticism that they may have. This then can be passed on to other readers. Inshallah.

  Laleh Bakhtiar,

  Editor

  A Short Biography of Ali Shariati

  Born: November 23, 1933 in Mazinan, Sabzivar, Khorasan Province

  1940 Enters school

  1950 Enters Teachers’ College, Mashhad

  1952 Teaches in the village of Ahmadabad near Mashhad

  1955 Writes Maktab-I vasitah (The Median School of

  Thought and Action)

  1955 Translates Abu Dharr Ghifari. Enters the Faculty

  of Letters, Mashhad University. He writes a

  series of articles entitled “Toynbee and History”

  for the Khorasan newspaper. He writes an

  article entitled “Which one am I?” for the

  Farhang magazine in Mashhad.

  1957 As a member of the National Resistance

  Movement, he, along with his father and

  other members is arrested in Mashhad and

  sent to the Qazil Qaleh prison for six months.

  1959 He translates Prayer by Alexis Carrel.

  He receives his B. A. from Mashhad University,

  Faculty of Letters and as he was at the top

  of his class, he should have been sent to

  France, but he encounters political difficulties

  1960 He translates Optimism and Pessimism by

  John Isolah and his translation is published

  in the magazine of Quds (Khorasan)Province.

  The political difficulty is somehow resolved

  and he is sent to France. He studies two

  majors: Sociology and the History of Religions.

  1961 In France, he joins the Algerian Liberation

  Movement and is very active. He wrote

  “What should we lean upon?” an article

  published in one of the French magazines.

  He translates “What is poetry?” by Jean Paul

  Sartre and printed in Paris. Because of

  his activities in the Algerian Liberation

  Movement, he is arrested in Paris and

  sent to the City Prison where he holds

  an interview with Givz which is printed

  in Togo in 1965.

  1962 He publishes an article in Paris entitled,

  “The Death of Franz Fannon.” After receiving

  two Ph.D.s in the fields of Sociology

  and the History of Religions, he returns to

  Iran. He is arrested on the Irano-Turkish

  border in Bazargan and he spends

&nb
sp; several months in the Qazil Qalah prison.

  1965 He works as a high school teacher in a village

  near Mashhad and then teaches in a school in

  the city of Mashhad. Finally, he is hired as

  an assistant professor by Mashhad University.

  1967-

  1973 He begins to lecture in Mashhad, the Husayniyyah

  Irshad in Tehran, Tehran University and other

  centers and universities in Tehran and other

  cities and this is the most productive period of his life.

  1973

  Sept. The Husayniyyah Irshad is closed and the secret

  police (SAVAK) try to find Shariati. As they are

  not successful, they arrest his father and put him

  in prison for more than a year. One month after

  his father’s arrest, Shariati turns himself over

  to the police and spends eighteen months

  in solitary confinement in the Komitah’s prison,

  the Shah’s prison for political prisoners which

  was similar to Hitler’s Dachau.

  1975-

  1977 He continues to live in Tehran and Mashhad,

  but was active only at nights where he gave lectures

  in secret until morning in other people’s homes

  so that SAVAK could not find him. But this type

  of life did not suit his enthusiastic nature,

  as an immigrant towards God, so he goes to Europe

  to continue his struggle.

  1977

  May 16 He migrates to Europe. After thirty days,

  even though he had entered Europe in disguise,

  SAVAK, with the help of the British Intelligence

  Service, martyred him.

  1977

  June 19 He attained what God had promised him.

  1977

  June 27 He is buried next to Zaynab’s tomb in Damascus.

  Chapter 1

  Capitalism Wakes Up!

  I WILL NOW EXAMINE a very fundamental problem which I have always referred to but never discussed1, the problem of the tactics capitalism uses to rationalize itself or the self-rationalization of capitalism.2

  When a historian discovers laws of the transformations in history, factors which cause social revolution and the dialectical principles of history, and when a historical-philosopher shows which factors cause the formation of a social class and how and under what circumstances it is formed and how it grows until it explodes, and when he shows how the determinations of the dialectics of history cause one social class to destroy its opposing class and then by means of an internal revolution, annihilate the ruling class and seize power, then the ruling class will certainly feel the danger of becoming the victim of the dialectics of history.

  In view of the above, as the philosophy of history and the game of dialectics helps the growth of awareness in the proletariat about the factors creating a proletarian revolution which will destroy capitalism from within, by the same token, capitalism realizes the historical, social, class factors, the - direction and behavior that endanger its existence and which would ultimately destroy it.

  Subsequently, according to Marxism, when man’s self awareness, social consciousness, awareness of being part of the proletariat class and when the proletariat, who are the pioneer force, mobilize and form a political party, as a center for their struggle against the ruling class, this could be one of the causes and factors leading to and expediting the dialectic revolution in favor of the proletariat. For the same reasons, the ruling or the exploiting class, that is to say, capitalism, is able to have control over such factors as self awareness or scientific awareness and become familiar with the laws of the historical revolution and cause its path to deviate in such a way as to safeguard its own capitalistic direction.

  Consequently, when one becomes aware of the fact that incidents are occurring to the opponent’s benefit, then one becomes aware of how to divert the direction of the incidents to his favor. Thus, when capitalism learns that ‘competition’ is one of the causes of the proletariat revolution because it creates inflation and unemployment, then capitalism becomes able to eradicate that cause. In other words, capitalism, as Marx agrees, acknowledges that these factors cause the proletariat revolution. Therefore capitalism, by means of creating trusts, cartels and common markets, may stop or change those factors. That is to say, capitalism may make competition disappear, as a result of which, the capitalist or huge factories would not jettison or burn billions of dollars of goods produced as was the case in the year 1820 or 1925. Some of the reasons attributed to this are the following:

  In order not to lose their market shares, factories had to produce.

  To pay their employees

  Being unable to reduce production to meet the reduction in consumption.

  Increase in production has always been ahead of increase in consumption.

  To keep production (supply level) inferior to the demand level in order to preserve high prices.

  All the above mentioned factors will cause capitalism to fall into a crisis or create critical unemployment which would expediate the proletariat revolution.

  Another emphasized factor causing the proletariat revolution is the dialectic principle: transferring quantity into quality. This is a sociological law which we ourselves safeguard. For example, if you read a poem or recite an anthem, you will not become as emotional or excited as when a group of people reads the same poem in which case you will become extremely excited. What is the reason behind this? Quantity. That is to say, if 500, 2000 or 5000 people were reading the poem, there would certainly be more feeling and excitement than if only five or six people were reading it. Thus, when quantity is added, it changes into quality. In other words, a sentimental feeling, a thought and a state of excitement or even a decision, creates another resonance in their way of thinking and it is here that quantity transforms into quality.

  The same is true in the system of a social class structure. One of the reasons Marxism gives in the 19th century about why the farmer’s revolution may occur late, or never happen at all, is attributed to their lack of self awareness —workers should lead the farmers and give them the necessary awareness. This is called the problem of quantity, that is, the lack of concentration of farmers at their place of work. Farmers are working over a vast area of land in a scattered manner, 100, 200 meters or even one or two kilometers from each other, whereas, in industry, workers are more condensed. For example, 100 to 200 workers work in an area of 5000-6000 square meters. Another reason is the fact that the workers live close to each other. So, in industrial capitalism, workers or the exploited class are quite concentrated. In the feudal system, the workers, also called farmers, are very much spread out and dispersed. As the concentration of workers in industrial capitalism grows, it will cause the feudal system to pull back.

  This will enable the labor force to become even more concentrated. Quality-wise, as capitalism grows, groups of 10, 20 or 30 who used to work together under 100 business men will now have to work under five capitalists. Thus, concentration of the labor force, capital and production will lead to the concentration of the proletariat working force. This, in turn, would cause the number of workers to increase, thus accentuating the growth of workers tenacity.

  I call the increase in the proletariat class and its ever growing concentration, a quantity-wise increase—just like the increase in water temperature. This quantity will then be transferred to quality which is the awakening and self awareness of the proletariat, called revolution. You may have noticed that in places where people work or study as a group during the day and then disperse at night, they are more sensible and emotional towards problems. The reason is that they are concentrated at work and where they live. The result is not the same when they are scattered. The more the concentration of workers grows, the more they will get involved in debates, talks and the exchanges of ideas, thus attracting more and more workers. These are the factor
s which cause an awakening, an alertness, a class feeling, the expression of class needs, the making of decisions, the belief in self and their power, organization, analysis and evaluation of their environment and conditions of life in order to confront the ruling class. All these factors will pave the way for a class revolution.

  On the other hand, the capitalist is also aware of all the above problems. He is no longer the old unintelligent hoarder of money. The capitalist can now employ sociologists, philosophers, scientists and even the most renown socialists and Marxist experts. As the capitalist is informed of all the danger facing his existence, he will now mobilize all his power to change the natural determined direction of history in his favor.

  As we see, capitalism in the West has been very successful in its mission. As I mentioned before, a proletariat revolution had even started in the 19th century, but we hear nothing about it in the 20th century. In some French villages, the proletariat class even votes for the right wing. In France and Italy, the election boards show exactly those who have leftist or rightist tendencies. Moreover, during elections, the proletariat tendencies are shown by a curve on the political board.

  When living standards show signs of improvement, the political board indicates that the tendencies are towards the right wing. That is to say that even the proletariat and the exploited class in Europe mentioned by Marx have rightist tendencies. But when living standards drop and the French economy is badly hurt because of war, etc, the political board shows signs of tendencies moving towards the left wing. But today, as compared with the 19th century, the board is indicating all the signs to be in the favor of the right.

  As we notice, the proletariat class, which according to the dialectics of history, had to bring about a revolution, is now moving further away from the direction of history. The reason is that capitalism is now aware of all the factors and is working hard to stop the concentration of workers.