Hmmm, taking a Bex and have a good lie down for some comes to mind.

"Islamic State is a cancer of capitalism", claims James O'Neill.

Sometimes, somebody says something which is so potty it is breathtaking. Congratulations, James O'Neill, you get this years Nobel Prize for Science for conclusively proving that there are indeed parallel universes.

One over riding fact demonstrates the failure of Islam to provide societies in which their people can be free and can prosper, it is the glaringly obvious connection that the more Islamic a Muslim state is, the more economically and socially backward it is.

It is no surprise that those Muslim countries that are the most insular, despotic, mullah ridden, and repressive, are the most staunch opponents of free trade and the most enthusiastic supporters of Osama bin Laden and his merry band of suicidal Jihadi's. Guess what else they have in common? None of these nations even belongs to the hated World Trade Organisation. which, with 142 members, is hardly an exclusive club. The Muslim world itself chooses to live in self imposed economic exile and is suffering terribly because of it. And who was the target of the 9/11 attack? The World Trade Centre of course. Muslims hate what they see as non Allah bestowed prosperity.

For while economic rationalism, free trade and liberated market forces have fomented dramatic changes around the world, (mostly for the better) the two places they have achieved nothing is in the African and Arabic worlds. With a few mostly "liberal" muslim countries as exceptions, (Turkey, Malaysia, Indonesia and some Gulf States) most Muslim countries have done their best to keep international economic integration completely at bay.

The extreme poverty that exists in Islamic countries, is a product of their own religious beliefs and almost every Muslim country is an economic basket case. Muslim economies are growing, on average, only 1% a year. But Muslim populations are growing, on average, at a disastrous 4% a year. Muslim societies are great believers in breeding like flies and Muslim families are noted for having very large numbers of children. This factor alone is instrumental in their appalling levels of poverty, superstition, unemployment and ignorance

Their own attitudes to family size and birth control has condemned almost an entire generation of young Muslims to be bereft of employment or a future in their own countries. These angry young men are simply becoming recruits for terrorist organisations who seek to blame everyone else but Islam for their own woes. Muslims covet the prosperity of the West and dream about our consumer goods and lifestyles. But they will not accept the liberal values and secular philosophies that have created that prosperity. All they can do is dream about gatecrashing a western country, or bob up and down on their prayer mats five times a day waiting for Allah to solve all their problems for them.

Financial institutions like commercial banks, stock exchanges and investment houses hardly even exist in Muslim societies, and venture capital for small entrepreneurs is unheard of. Even the concept of banks giving interest on deposits is against the teachings of the Prophet, who decreed that lending money and gaining interest was usury. According to statistics compiled by economic historian Angus Maddison and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, between 1985 and 1998, average per capita income declined 10% in real terms in Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. By contrast, it rose 30% in Israel, 50% in Uraguay, 90% in Chile and more than doubled in Thailand, Brazil, Vietnam, Mexico, and South Korea.

Christianity has its faults and bad people, but look around this globe and see where 99.99% of all inventions originated. Look around this globe and see where 98/99% of manufacturing is. Look around this globe and see where a 100% of charities that cater to everyone, even pagans, in the world are. Look around and see where the arts are - music, dance, paintings etc are. Then look again and see which countries are dictatorships, which countries are endemically corrupt, which countries kill, rape and oppress women. Which countries are sordid messes. Then have a look at the top hospitals, teaching universities etc - yes all in western Christian or nominally Christian nations.

The Jews have come from the tragedy of repeated pogroms and forced the world to respect them. With their knowledge, not with their terror. With their work, not their threats. Humanity owes many of the discoveries and science of the 19th and 20th centuries to Jewish scientists. 15 million people, scattered throughout the world, won their rights through hard work and knowledge. We have not seen a single Jew blow himself up in a German restaurant. We have not seen a single Jew destroy a church. We have not seen a single Jew protest by killing Christians, Buddhists or Hindus. The Muslims have turned three Buddha statues into rubble. We have not seen a single Buddhist kill an ambassador or kill a cartoonist. Only the Muslims defend their religious beliefs by burning down other people's temples and killing people. The Muslims must ask themselves what they can do for humankind, before they can ask that humankind respect them.

Upwards of a thousand years ago, Islam was far less objectionable and more civilized than Christianity. But whereas Christianity has gradually become more humane, Islam has gone in the other direction and reverted to it's founding violent fundamentals. This is partly because Mohammed (570-632) laid it down that, to avoid the sort of corruption that had beset Judaism and Christianity, his new religion must never accept any change of any kind. And to this day, the true Moslem continues to obey this injunction and resist anything new in social mores.

In the entire Arabic world, the only real economic success stories have been the burgeoning profits and high volume trading of the gun shops in Beirut, and the slave markets in the Sudan, Syria, and ISIS ruled Iraq. Certainly the tourism industry in the Islamic world is hardly booming, unless you count the booming that killed and wounded hundreds of innocent western tourists at Kuta Beach. For despite being the Middle East being the custodians to the world's most revered archaeological treasures, persistent bomb, grenade and machine gun attacks by western hating Islamic nut cases has seen even tourism drop to zero

Spot-on, LEGO.

"Islamic State is a cancer of capitalism", claims James O'Neill.

I would have thought that there has to be a body or body part for a cancer to colonise. So where is the capitalism, standard capitalism, in regions infested by ISIS or al Qa-ida or al-Shabaab or Boko Haram ? It is actually remarkable by its complete absence, isn't it ?

From a Marxist point of view, capitalism surely presupposes a proletariat, a working class ? Not just peasants and artisans but workers ? Factories ? The processing of raw materials into commodities, and their distribution and sale ?

On the whole, what is remarkable about the Muslim world is the ABSENCE of standard capitalism. Rampant, rentier capitalism maybe, the flogging off of raw materials, and entire societies largely parasiting on the proceeds. Of course, they're not alone in that - Russia springs to mind, and Australia as well to a large extent now.

But I'm sure if Marx could come back for a day or two, he would immediately declare that the curse of Muslim countries is that they have missed out on capitalism. Capitalism produces, and is produced by, workers who, in Marx's Utopian view, would re-make the world. Fat chance, but there's a grain of truth in his hypothetical observation.

But even Marx would concede that capitalism also, willy-nilly, brings about - eventually - more equal societies than those which existed prior to its development: also better health, more widespread education, equal voting rights - even eventually for women ! - and an explosion in self-expression, good and bad.

But of course, self-expression is anathema to ideologues, of the 'Left' as well as, in this case, the extreme Right.

I wonder it that's why the 'Left' is going so soft on the Islamo-fascists: birds of a feather .....

Thanks, James, for provoking some re-thinking.

Joe

Very much to the point Lego.
The illustration of Egypt that I gave a few pages back shows where the
Islamic countries will go as the oil revenue runs down.
Saudi Arabia has only been able to keep the opposition at bay by use
of the subsidies for the people.

It is interesting to note that the Islamic countries refused to sign up
to the UN Human Rights Treaty so they can do what they like to women
and the UN has to keep its mouth closed or risk a diplomatic protest.

Once the well head cost of Saudi oil starts increasing most middle east
countries will go into an economic decline. I suspect that will cause
turmoil amoungst the unemployed youths and those finding their oil
funded lifestyle declining.
What do you think they will do ?
Become boat people or just go to war with the Big Satan.

Looks to me like it could go either way, into collapsing states or
another big Moslem invasion of Europe ?