Wealth accumulates and man decay

Revered 18th-century reformer Shah Waliullah, who waged a relentless war against the evils he perceived in Muslim societies of his time, aptly postulated when he blamed the economic system for the destruction of human morality.

In an economic system where wealth accumulates and goes straight into the deep pockets of the richest one percent, the degeneration of universal ethical values is a true display of the disastrous nature of Capitalism.

In Pakistan, the richest two percent own around 85 percent of the country’s total wealth and according to Oxfam, only five people own half of the world's wealth.

The moral values of the rich also deteriorate in such an economic system where arrogance, pride, and luxury reign supreme. Simultaneously, theft, greed, bribery, prostitution, dishonesty, and flattery plague society due to poverty. 

Shah Waliullah asserts that the prophets were the first to correct the economic system. When Prophet Muhammad wrote to the rulers of the two major world powers of his time, Caesar of the Byzantine Empire and Khosrow of the Sassanid Empire, he pointed out that if they did not follow the just path, they would be responsible for all the sins of the farmers and workers of their empires.

The ruling class in this country goes to war when it sees power drifting away from its control and secures its interest by hook or by crook. Expecting this social stratum to change the system is naïve as to why would it want to change the status quo and give up all the privileges on the altar of altruism.

So whenever the ruling class raises the slogan of changing the system, it means tightening its noose around it. The people must change the system by themselves. They have to become aware of the system and its hegemonic nature in order to change it. And only by having complete knowledge of the system can they offer an alternative.

 

The writer is an Islamabad-based journalist. He can be reached at @rohshan_Din