Unlike traditional market economics, Islamic finance centers on the religious tenets of Islam and operates in a way to keep Muslims compliant with sharia, the religious law that comes directly from the Koran. Islamic activists intellectuals, writers, and religious leaders have always upheld the prohibition of riba, the interest charged by moneylenders, and denounced gharar, which refers to any type of speculation. Under this belief, money must not become a commodity in itself to create more money. Islamic finance thus shuns hedge funds and private equities, because they simply multiply cash by stripping assets.Money serves as a means or instrument of productivity as originally envisioned by Adam Smith and David Ricardo. This principle is embodied in the sukuks, Islamic bonds. Sukuks always link to real investments—for example, to pay
for the construction of a toll highway—and never for speculative purposes. This principle springs from the sharia’s ban on gambling as well as on the prohibition of any forms of debt and activities that trade risk.
Above all, Islamic finance does not allow investment in pornography, prostitution, narcotics, tobacco, or gambling. As discussed above, since the fall
of the Berlin Wall, all these areas have blossomed thanks to globalization outlaws under the indifferent eyes of the government.
Is any of this in accordance with libertarian views? I find it unlikely that anyone will offer loans without interests…
There are a lot of good ideas in Islamic fiscal conservatism, and they truly have a community based approach to banking. But the shame is that Islam’s position on usury isn’t compatible with Austrian conceptions of time as it relates to capital.
It’s also important to remember that libertarian is not Austrian is not anarchist is not conspiracy theorist is not conservative is not socialist.
Libertarianism is voluntarism, enabled by an adherence to the non-aggression principle. Here at LvMI, we discuss AE (Austrian Economics) which is compatible with libertarianism. But while a lot of people identify libertarian, very few in fact are. You have to be willing to reject the use of force against others as a means to an end. Most people are fine with using force against people of another country, with more money, to collect taxes, to enforce compliance with rules like anti-pot or anti-prostitution, to force political change, for profit etc. None of that is libertarian.
What right do I as an individual, or 50 of us as a majority, have to force a ban on you involuntarily? A libertarian answer is, no right. Your individual free will cannot be commanded by the force of others.
Put another way, libertarians are opposed to monopoly. A ban would be a monopoly.
The real question is: what is the punishment for doing these things? Not whether they should exist or not. The latter is a diversion from the real ethical issue.
If it is death, dismemberment or decapitation, caning, public humiliation, imprisonment (and thus kidnapping and possible rape), etc. Then I think you know the answer.
If you were Muslim, would you support these aggressions against me if I wish to charge interest or speculate? Would you do the aggression on me yourself?
Taking it to the extremes, what right do we have to property and freedom? Rights don’t exist, they’re created by humans. Can they then be used as arguments in a discussion?
The problem with interests is that you can make money simply by owning money. This will enable rich people to get richer and richer even under the gold standard.
True. My point is that the bill of rights, the law, the constitution etc. are not holy. I really wish that I could prove scientifically that it’s wrong to force or harm people physically, but I can’t.
This all stems down to ethics, and morality itself is not created by the mind (subjective). Morality is dependent on external factors, such as interacting with other human beings. In order to survive and raise our standards of living (tied in with survival) the norm become to take action that is mutually beneficial (voluntary trade) to the participants. Morality is emergent and applying a top-down model to rights is law. As Aristotle said, “Law is mind without reason.”
Game Theory is a good place to start; I suggest looking it up.
Accepting or rejecting the premises of Islam, doesn’t have to do with accepting or rejecting their economics. I’m sure they wouldn’t tell people about their economics first if they were promoting their religion as the “answer”. It generally has more to do with accepting things like the existence of God, first and foremost. And then moving on to accepting whether or not it was dictated to Muhammed. Which in itself is not scientific (if your worry is to be scientific). I’m sure most follow these economics based on the religion, rather than their actual utility. For if people accepted them simply on utility, it would negate the fear of God, the threat of hellfire, the infallibility of the text, and so on. Which themselves seem to be negated by the fact they require states and real-world violence to enforce.
I don’t dispute the fact that rights are good for our race, I’m simply saying that rights don’t exist in nature. Btw, isn’t it unfair to say that individual rights should depend on which animal race we belong to? I’m not in favor of giving sheeple the right to vote, but why is it ok to kill them when it’s not ok to kill a human being? Or do libertarians care about animal rights as well?
I’m a utilitarian btw. For me, happiness is more important than freedom. But I admit that freedom is necessary to achieve happiness for many people.
They’re not objective. Rights are defined by humans, and we’re free to define them in any way we want. For example homosexuals, black people and women have not always enjoyed the same rights as others, and that’s still the case many places on earth. That’s why rights can never be arguments in a debate.
Again, natural rights theorists may dispute this with you.
Not necessarily. You can define a right to healthcare, but if no one provides it for you, you can’t fulfill that right.
That has to do with the violation of their rights, not that they do not have any.
On this website, rights are constantly an argument in debate. You’ll have to get used to that. It’s about 40% economics, 50% philosophy and about 10% politics and everything else.
You might want to check some of the previous and endless discussions about natural rights =]
Correct. And what does that prove ? Slavery was common in the US until 1865. Was that supposed to mean that slavery was morally good and that slaves had no rights…because those rights were being violated ?