Capitalism

Origin:

In Europe in the fifth century AD after the decline of the western Roman Empire, feudalism came into being. This new system was supported by the Christian church, which spoke in the name of Allah. It did not, however, have any divine law or sound guiding principles of its own. Feudalism was a new development in Europe and the church cooperated with it, covering it in a garb of sacred and divine ordinances.

Between the fourteenth and the sixteenth centuries_ the traditional period which changed the history of Europe from the middle ages to the modern era _ all aspects of Western life began to take shape and the centers of wealth, power and culture began to leave the provinces and feudal estates and to accumulate in big cities. At the head of this movement were traders, usurers and bourgeois craftsmen who benefited from the prospects offered by that development. These people used to live in towns and cities and go frequently abroad, they were the first to receive the rich which poured into their country from outside and which forced them to adapt themselves to the new dictates of change and development. But how was this possible while an insurmountable obstacle in the form of the ecclesiastical rules which supported the feudalists stood in their way?
 
A hard tussle between the two parties ensued a total war which covered all fields of social life. The last round in that bout was won by the new system which preached the principles of freedom, modernism, tolerance and broader outlook in all walks of life, whether it be religion, philosophy, politics or economy.

With the help of these principles, people wanted to remove all obstacles from the path of the free and modern man. This led to two diametrically opposed parties - the freedom preached by the bourgeoisie led in one direction, while the narrow-minded feudalist church led in another. Each of the two parties harbored enmity towards the other and each of them had its self interest. One of the two parties exploited the name of Allah, religion and ethics to defend their concocted beliefs and ancient oppressive rights, while the other exploited the principles of freedom and tolerance to shake the truths which were inherent in religion and morality. They devised the concept which stated that there is no need to observe moral principles in furthering one's aims and interests.

Besides the feudal church they fashioned the idols of provincialism or regionalism - those harmful and accursed concepts which were responsible for the wars and strife of the time. For the first time, they established the idea of taking interest which was unanimously considered as illegal by the thinkers of earlier times. It was forbidden and made illegal not only in the Bible and the Holy Quran, but by Aristotle and Plato also and it was prohibited by Roman and Greek law. In the name of freedom and tolerance the bourgeoisie succeeded in snatching these rights from the feudal church. Having taken into their hands, they were overjoyed and considered themselves as sole proprietors of them.

In the ecstasy of victory they forgot that there was an inferior class to themselves which had suffered hard ships at the hands of the feudalists and which had the right to get its share of the fruits of the new and free system. I do not know why their liberalism and tolerance faded away so quickly. When parliamentary government was set up in England, for instance, and real sovereignty was transferred in the parliament from the nobles to the commoners, the bourgeoisie, missionaries of freedom, tolerance and wide outlook, assumed completed sovereignty themselves. In denying the peoples their rights of franchise, the arguments and reasons by which they had benefited were forgotten.

Following the industrial revolution and the inventor of the machine in the eighteenth century, the heat of the struggle became intense, At that time, industrial production and raw materials were available on a large scale. Similarly, the consumption of manufactured goods took place to an unprecedented degree. Here, the bourgeoisie who monopolized industry, trade and wealth and dominated the fields of science and literature, seized the opportunity and exploited the new scientific inventions in expanding their spheres of influence.

This class pounced upon the opportunity and monopolized the modern scientific inventions which helped it to expand its sphere of influence and sovereignty. There was a three-fold obstacle in its way consisting of the kings of the nation states who claimed to be gifted with divine authority, together with the rich feudal lords and the men of the national church. The result was a perpetual conflict and discord between the last two groups.

Later, the cult of freedom and modernism armed itself with a new weapon. Its followers called for full economic freedom and asked for the adoption of a republican system in the political field together with the giving of full civil liberties to the individual. They also wanted him to enjoy freedom in the social, cultural and moral fields.

Furthermore, they called for the restriction of the government's political sovereignty to the minimum and for granting individuals the maximum of liberty. The government, in their opinion, was nothing but an agency which was assigned the task of administering justice amongst individuals, preventing them from interfering with each other and safeguarding individual liberty.

They also wanted social and economic life to be in conformity with the activities actions and ideas of individuals. The government, they suggested, should not interfere in an individual's affairs because, in their opinion. It was not meant to play an active role nor to assume leadership. Thus it was that these people exaggerated and spent all of their efforts in glorifying freedom, tolerance and individual nihilism.

The economic system, based on the absolute theory of free economy, was the last step in the development of that movement, adopting as its name (the new capitalist system)