[Peace-discuss] Ibn Khaldun - 14th century Tea Party Guy

[C. G. Estabrook]

Of course we, poor souls, have to read Ibn Khaldun's most interesting 
reflections through the lens of the Great Transformation -- the coming of the 
capitalist era, which he did not imagine and of which he would not have approved.

He did not foresee a society in which human life was controlled by vast 
organizations that enriched themselves by extracting wealth from the direct 
producers by means of the wage contract -- and were then thought to have no 
further responsibility ("the free market").  Of course no society could ever 
actually exist according to "free market principles" -- it would immediately 
destroy itself -- but that remains the theory of modern exploitation, 
necessarily mitigated in practice. It insists that no one has a right to live 
unless they give up control of what makes them human, their work of head and hands.

Thomas More, Khaldun's rough contemporary (i.e., roughly in the way that I'm a 
contemporary of Karl Marx') wrote of similar matters in the Utopia (1516) and 
had his character conclude as follows:

    "Therefore I must say that, as I hope for mercy, I can have no other notion 
of all the other governments that I see or know, than that they are a conspiracy 
of the rich, who, on pretence of managing the public, only pursue their private 
ends, and devise all the ways and arts they can find out; first, that they may, 
without danger, preserve all that they have so ill-acquired, and then, that they 
may engage the poor to toil and labour for them at as low rates as possible, and 
oppress them as much as they please; and if they can but prevail to get these 
contrivances established by the show of public authority, which is considered as 
the representative of the whole people, then they are accounted laws...”

More, a lawyer and a government official, perhaps saw hazily the new arrangement 
of society (the transition to which would be bloody), as a result of which "All 
that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and people are at 
last compelled to face with sober senses, their real conditions of life, and 
their relations with their kind."

I first encountered Khaldun in the now terribly unfashionable work of Arnold 
Toynbee, which led me to Marx (and to which I'd been led by the novels of Isaac 
Asimov...). Toynbee said that his work was inspired by the Moqaddimah, "a 
philosophy of history which is undoubtedly the greatest work of its kind that 
has ever yet been created by any mind in any time or place."

And the philosopher Ernest Gellner (d. 1995) -- who pointed out that one of the 
better observations on class society came from the Prophet: "subjection enters 
the house with the plow" -- praised Khaldun's definition of government: "an 
institution which prevents injustice other than such as it commits itself."


E. Wayne Johnson wrote:
> One of the great ancient writers was the North African Arab historian Ibn
> Khaldun [or Khaldoun], full name: Abdu r-Rahman bin Muhammad bin Khaldun
> Al-Hadrami,(1332-1406) who is considered to be one of the founders of the
> study of Economics.  Note that Khaldun was a "historian" and he drew from
> texts already considered ancient.   His perhaps most famous work is his
> "Moqaddimah", the "Introduction" to Khaldun's History of the World.
> 
> Selim Karatas summarizes Ibn Khaldun's ECONOMIC PRESCRIPTIONS FOR A CIVILIZED
> SOCIETY -
> 
> Given political stability and solidarity, for the rise of the nations, there
> must be:
> 
> a)  A firm establishment of private property rights and freedom of enterprise
> 
> 
> b)  Rule of law and the reliability of judicial system for the establishment
> of justice
> 
> c)  The security of peace and the security of trade routes
> 
> d)  Lower and less taxation in order to increase employment, production and
> revenues
> 
> e)  Less bureaucracy and much smaller efficient army
> 
> f)  No government involvement in trade, production and commercial affairs
> 
> g)  No fixation of prices by the government
> 
> h)  A rule that does not give monopoly power to anyone in the market
> 
> i)  Stable monetary policy and independent monetary authority that does not
> play with the value of money
> 
> j)  A larger population and a larger market for greater specialization
> 
> k)  A creative education system for independent thinking and behavior
> 
> l)  The collective responsibility and internal feeling for the setting up of
> a just system to encourage good deeds and prevent vice.
> 
> http://www.liberty4urbana.com/drupal-6.8/node/176