The Ugly Face of Capitalism

Since capitalism has deemed the economic problem facing humanity to be the scarcity of the resources (goods and services) available in the world to satisfy people's wants, it views increasing the production of those goods and services as the solution to satisfying people's needs, leaving the price of goods and services to determine who would remain in the market and who would fold from among the producers; those who can afford the price would be able to acquire those needs and those who cannot do not deserve to live.

Malthus, one of the founders of the capitalist thought and the author of the demographic theory, expressed this conspicuously by likening the scarcity of the world's goods and services to a boat in high seas, thus those who can swim to reach the boat deserve to live and who those who cannot must sacrifice for the sake of the others. He said the hope was pinned on the occurrence of earthquakes and natural disasters, and the spread of debauchery and diseases to reduce the number of the world's population. He argued that the needy would only aggravate their misery by marrying and rearing new generations of miserable people.

This is how the founders of the Capitalist thought expressed their views on solving the economic problem. Had it not been for the patchworks that occurred in the nineteenth century, with the emergence of the socialist concepts as a reaction to the ills of the Capitalist thought, such as the establishing of syndicates, the fixing of the working hours and the approval of social security, the lifespan of this thought would not have lasted this long.

Translated from: Sawt Al Ummah Magazine Issue 12