ILLUSIONS, HALF-TRUTHS AND MASKS: Keywords: Antifa, mobs, riots, radicalization, Le Bon, Ortega y Gasset, Arendt, Desmet, dictatorships, totalitarianism, useful idiots, internet mob.

 

French mob storms the assembly of the Etats Generaux 1789
The elected congress lasted two months. The Jacobins ruled by mob

ILLUSIONS, HALF-TRUTHS AND MASKS

A meditation about the new rise of communism in America

By Xuan Quen Santos

PART  VIII

“Is there a greater tragedy imaginable than that in

our endeavor consciously to shape our future in

accordance with high ideals we should in fact

unwittingly produce the very opposite of

what we have been striving for.”

Friedrich A. von Hayek (1899-1992)

“The Road to Serfdom” (1944)

  

During the last 150 years, a new sociological phenomenon began to be recognized. I believe it is part of the emergence of the middle class, still misunderstood and misdirected. It has been highjacked and turned into a powerful tool of ideological terrorism. I am referring to “the mob”.

You have seen it lately in the violent college take-overs in defense of the terrorist group Hamas, carefully disguised as a defense of the Palestinian people in Gaza. They proved to be more anti-Israel. You have witnessed them in action many times, with different masks. They quickly disappeared, only to re-appear as the current anti-ICE riots in defense of illegal immigrants.

Recent anti-ICE riots in Los Angeles.
The Mayor called it a peaceful demonstration

Consider these recent events in the USA. All had echoes throughout the world. Occupy Wall Street riots (2011), LGBTQ riots under many names since 1969 (2011, 14, 20, 21, 23), The Women´s Marches riots (2017), Defund the Police riots (2014-21), Antifa riots (2017-23 reoccurring), Black Lives Matter riots (2020), Trans riots (2019-22), Keep Roe vs Wade riots and Pro-Abortion riots (Numerous since 2009 to 2020), and pro-Hamas against Israel riots going on. They have been transformed into the current anti-ICE riots in Los Angeles that are spreading into other crime-riddled cities. What do they have in common?

New York's Wall Street Occupy riots

 They are remarkably similar. They are well organized and supported. The presence of young people predominates with a surprising high proportion of women. Universities seem to be the main stages with a not-all student and teacher cast. Professional agitators have been identified. The rioters are well equipped, from banners and posters to quasi-uniforms and anti-riot gear. Their jingles and catchwords are well rehearsed. They promote selected agendas of the political platform of the same party. They appear at the right moment to obliterate any civil discussion of the issue at stake. They claim to be peaceful expressions of the right to free speech but quickly turn violent, which they are prepared for from the start. They seem to receive abundant financial, media and political support. Their real identities and connections are elusive. Is all this a spontaneous coincidence?

PRO-abortion riots, part of the defeated agenda of the ERA

I make the distinction between “the mob” and a movement. The first one is a well-orchestrated, organized, funded and shielded instrument that has non-disclosed ulterior motives. The second one is an authentic expression of a group originating in a specific circumstance or grievance they want to bring the public’s attention to. What I see now are “mobs” using as masks what appears to be on the surface an apparently legitimate cause.

The "mostly peaceful" BLM riots turned into "defund the police"
Lasted for more than two months, 60 people died, and it cost over $ 2 billion 

The word “mob” may have been used for the first time during Queen Elizabeth I reign. A Jesuit ambassador of Spain paid a crowd from the pubs and brothels of London’s East End to stage a riot on the streets with the intent of disrupting the negotiations that were going on at the court to find a non-Spanish suitor for her to marry. It created a temporary disruption, and the Jesuit was found out. The same mob was paid by the court to run him out of town. By the time of the Civil War of England (1642-1651), the word was already in use to describe the rioters in London.

Chicago May Day parade workers celebration dissolved.
May Day 1 was declared by the First International Communist
to commemorate the original Chicago massacre of 60 policemen 
by a bomber during the riot

Urban riots involving large crowds have occurred frequently.  Roman historians described them with the phrase “mobile vulgus” (moving or excitable crowd). It refers to a mass of people excitedly moving on public spaces, such as streets or plazas. They are not a procession, or a parade; the first one is characterized by somber emotional displays, including music, and the second one has a joyful celebratory spirit. Food riots during famines, or for public hangings of criminals protected by the authorities in spite of public furor, or for resistance to the confiscation of food and supplies by armies, are described by many historians. I will not consider those as “mobs”, but as an authentic collective expression of grievance, even if illegal.

Anti-Vietnam War Kent State U riot

In an article published in “The Journal of British Studies” (2014) by Robert B. Shoemaker, he describes the difference between what I call “the mob” and a popular riot: “In this respect, the early eighteenth century appears as a crucial period in the long process in which the political elite lost control of  popular disturbances in London. Whereas the London riots that helped precipitate the Civil War involved a strong element of political direction and discipline, in 1780 the Gordon riots, the most violent and destructive riots in London history, had the quality of an assault on  symbols of authority. Concurrently, the early eighteenth century  witnessed not only an apparent increase in the frequency of small-scale rioting in the metropolis but also a weakening of the role of traditional rituals in disorder and an expansion of the range of grievances expressed. Although rioting was not yet seen as a significant problem in London in the early eighteenth century, these changes suggest that the growing fears of social upheaval encapsulated in the new name for rioters, the mob, would eventually be justified.” His article is titled “The London “Mob” in the Early Eighteenth Century”; he provides useful information about the grievances that generated the riots. His interpretation, as manifested in the conclusion I have underlined near the end of the paragraph I have quoted, reflects a Marxist methodology, if not an outright looking for the oppressed and the oppressors. Unless the people of the XVIII century had a looking glass into the future, how could they have “growing fears of social upheaval”.

The 1968 Paris Student riots

For the purpose of this entry, the event that Showmaker describes as having “a strong element of political direction and discipline” qualifies as a “mob”. It is a planned riot that masks the identity of the promoter and is used for an ulterior purpose. The Gordon riots were demonstrations called to protest the liberalization of anti-Catholic policies that reflected the public sentiment since the Civil War; they turned into violent riots led by religious zealots. To this day, anti-Catholic provisions are still in the British constitutional tradition. These riots would not qualify as the “mob”.

The majority of causes Shoemaker cites are presented by him as objections and resistance to the demands of the capitalist owners of the new textile mills. They were in fact, violent actions of the medieval guilds of (hand-loomed) weavers that were opposing the threats of competition. They were small capitalists, not laborers paid with wages. Cotton cloth produced at the new mills, particularly Calico prints, became popular for the consumers as the prices began to tumble and they had new and colorful prints. Since Marx had not appeared at the time, I would still classify them as movements, even if the rioters did not grasp how economics would explain the temporary transition to the full industrial age they were witnessing. Shortly after this period, labor unions began to appear formed by real laborers paid in wages by the new factories. For the first time, what we now call “consumer products” appeared, which consumers loved for their lower prices and innovations. Everyone loves lower prices, particularly low-income consumers. Obviously, the weavers were affected.

The Soviet Revolution began by using the mobs after the failures of WW I
against the installation of an elected government led by Kerensky

This same type of obtuse and self-centered resistance to change by workers affected by progress was illustrated by two recent events that were on the news. Just as the recent national elections were winding down, a port strike on the East coast was announced. What did they want? They demanded that port owners DO NOT MODERNIZE. The US ports are the worst among the industrial nations. Consumers pay for their high costs and inefficient operations. The ports have been crippled with similar obstacles for nearly sixty years. The other example is the general opposition coming from the labor unions and the socialist sectors to the innovations that MAY come from Artificial Intelligence. They will come in the form of increased productivity of labor as a result of the capital invested in the new technologies. Workers will be displaced from many jobs, but many more new jobs will be created. Again, the consumers, which are all of us, will appreciate the changes brought to their quality of life by new technology. This authentic anxiety and struggle suffered by the affected workers became the vehicle to create the “mob” and mask the goal of destroying capitalism.

What happened during Marx’s early life? socialist ideas began to spread with furor through different sects after the chaos of the first French Revolution. By the time of the third, in 1848, widespread revolts had exploded across Europe. Marx and Engels, the young German university agitators, had practiced rioting in Paris and finally were recruited by the English labor unions to write their Manifesto. It is nothing less than a plan to destroy what they called capitalism, which should properly be called the free market economy. As we have demonstrated in previous entries, they had no explanation for what would happen after. It took several decades for Engels to complete a proposal that was debunked almost immediately.

Unfortunately, by then the term “praxis” had been accepted by the practicing Marxists. It can be summarized with this description. Praxis means putting in practice the revolution. If we know the revolution against capitalism is inevitable, we can accelerate its arrival by creating the conditions for it. What could those conditions be?  Ten of the specifics were outlined in the manifesto: 1) Abolition of property in land, all belongs to the state. 2) A progressive income tax, 3) Abolition of inheritance rights, 4) Confiscation of the property of opponents and of those that leave, 5) Nationalization of financial institutions, 6) Nationalization of all media and transportation, 7) Nationalization of industries and machines, 8) Obligation to join a workers army, 9) Redistribution of the people from the cities to the rural areas, and promote agro-industrial centers, and 10) Mandatory public education.

You would be surprised to look at an audit of how far into these 10 policies for the self-destruction of the United States are already in place. It is only a matter of degree, but they are all ready to be fully weaponized should socialists take more control of the political apparatus of the state. All 10 policies are in place. Many were installed during the 1930s and 1940s. These “conditions for the revolution” can only be promoted if the structures of government are taken over first. I like to be reminded of this path with the words of Ayn Rand: “There is no difference between communism and socialism, except in the means of achieving the same ultimate end: communism proposes to enslave men by force, socialism - by vote. It is merely the difference between murder and suicide”. To take your property, the state does not have to take the property. It can just take away your rights to decide about your property by way of regulations, prohibition, limitations or taxation. Think of EPA arbitrary rules, or the powers of zoning boards.

We are mostly there in the area of public education. We have just realized how far we are into this weapon for self-destruction.  Every time you hear the executives of the AFT and the NEA speak on behalf of the 3.2 million unionized teachers, ask yourself; are they advocating to create the conditions for revolution, or for the interests of children, as they claim? Only 27 states have right-to-work laws where the workers are free to join a union or not, if their place of employment has unions. In the other states, they are mandated to join the armies of workers and to pay their dues. The largest labor unions are of government employees, the ideal army of workers already under state control, or maybe the other way around. We have just seen how much they control. We already have “death-taxes” to gradually destroy inheritances. You are probably familiar with the progressive income-tax that has created the imbalance that 2% of the taxpayers pay more than 50% of the revenue, 50% of the people on the tax rolls pay only 2%, and 30 million taxpayers do not even file as they are probably receiving benefits.

The next time there is an election, ask yourself if the policies proposed by the candidates advance Marx’s proposals, or if they intend to roll them back. Look for the masks used by democratic socialists or social democrats.

But “praxis” is the duty of any supporter of Marxism. That is what a comrade teacher can do in stealth in the classroom. That is what a comrade preacher can induce into his flock. That is what a news talking-head can transmit with his bias. That is what a simple prank caller can do to terrorize a school or a place of work. That is what a comedian or an entertainer can do with the choice of his material. That is what a Tik-Toker influencer can do with his followers. That is what a singer can do with the lyrics of his songs. That is what a college professor can do when he offers grades to his students for participating in a sit-in. That is what a librarian can do when she chooses the books to display. That is what a community organizer can do to mislead his neighbors. That is what a college student can do to display the sign he is given for the riot. That is what a person of means can do to buy the riot gear…Anything to advance the “conditions for revolution”, anything to promote social unrest, anything to create public chaos. If you have not read any of the handbooks for rioters, you should find out who Saul Alinsky was. Obama and Hillary admired him as their mentor.

Ready to provoke the police reaction ANTIFA IN GEAR

You can advance the revolution by being a discreet activist. You can make signs, you can be a courier, you can write the lyrics to a song, or the verses for a chant. You can memorize the chant. You can wear the T-shirt you are given. You can skip school or work and participate in “what is mostly a peaceful demonstration” and confront the police. You can learn to make Molotov cocktails…

The role of the agitators, locally known as community organizers or sponsors, is key for a simple reason. There is no such thing as “group-think”. Only individual persons think. The oxymoron phrase was coined by social-psychologist Irving Janis in 1952, which he popularized in 1972 in a book analyzing the fiascos in foreign policy of the United States. Other psychologists empirically proved that there is such phenomenon as subconscious social pressure which leads to conformity to the group as emotional responses and not reason. Agreeing to what someone else has proposed is not thinking. Without the agitators there is no mob.

ANTIFA present at many riots leading the violence

           

The Federalist, a conservative website magazine, reported about Woody Kaine’s arrest for counter-protesting at a pro-Donald Trump rally held in the state Capitol in Minnesota on March 4, 2017. Woody is son of Senator Tim Kaine (D VA), who was Hilary Clinton's running mate as Vice-presidential candidate. Kaine was one of six ANTIFA counter-protesters of a group of approximately 100 counter-protestors, who set off smoke bombs and fireworks inside the building. Witnesses reported seeing Antifa flags in the crowd of counter-protestors. Kaine tried to run when approached by an officer and he had to be restrained. A judge sentenced him to a year of probation. The basic facts have not been denied. He was offered a plea.

 The “mob” exists. Antifa is not an idea.

The first serious study about the “mob” was done in 1885 by Gustave Le Bon. “Psychologie des foules”  (The Crowd: A study of the Popular Mind, in English) by the French ground breaking social psychologist, “is devoted to an account of the characteristics of crowds”,  in his words. A newer synonym of crowds is “masses”. His analysis of the riots that accompanied the French Revolution is very revealing of how the Reign of Terror ruled. One of his conclusions reads: The general characteristics of criminal crowds are: “openness to influence, credulity, mobility, the exaggeration of sentiments -good or bad, the manifestation of some form of moral justification…”.             

Prepared to go violent during "peaceful demonstrations" in Oakland CA

               

A second analysis was given in “The Rebellion of the Masses” (1890) by the Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset. His point of view is that of the disappearing elite that held to the classical liberal beliefs while in the middle of a political environment in flux. Spain was facing violent riots in favor or against the monarchy, in favor or against republicanism, in favor or against communism. The chaos brought about the Spanish Civil War that resulted in an authoritarian tyranny. Ortega y Gasset’s reflections point to the key role the media has played in creating a new mass-culture of barely educated multitudes that feel empowered to use their recently acquired power. The mass-man feels qualified to have strong opinions about everything and act, regardless of his qualifications. A similar process had just happened in Italy and Germany. The old Prussian-German Empire became constitutional to no avail; its defeat during WW I led to a republic; it was quickly overtaken by socialism which brought about Adolph Hitler by popular election. Italy went through a more chaotic process from monarchy to republic to socialist anarchy, resulting in the rise of Benito Mussolini.

                A third study of the masses was provided by Hannah Arendt in “The Origins of Totalitarianism” (1951). Chapter 10’s title is a summary of our topic, “The Temporary Alliance between The Mob and the Elite”. There is no such thing as “group think”. Socrates warned the mob that voted to condemn him to death by pointing this out. Somebody always does the thinking that moves the mob. Arendt’s warnings are clear: “The mob always will shout for the strong man, the great leader, for the mob hates society from which it feels excluded”.

                In my opinion, Arendt’s preference for the use of “mob” to substitute crowds, proletariat and masses is revealing of the recognition that the original Marxist view was no longer respected. Arendt was a German Jewish philosopher, lover of Heidegger who became pro-Nazi. She managed to escape on time and wandered around Europe until moving to New York. She took refuge as a teacher at the New School for Social Research, the socialist rival enclave of the Frankfurt School operating in Columbia. Arendt was also a teacher at Yale, Chicago, and Wesleyan. Although she is considered a powerful critic of totalitarianism, she never stopped being a socialist. As most socialist, she was critical of the regimes of Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini, but never accepted the fact that such regimes are the inevitable end of any socialist scheme. Her position was ambivalent, ambiguous, and discreet. She was writing during the era of McCarthyism. Although more serious, her work puts her on the shelf by other contrite-Marxists, such as George Orwell.

                The last one is a refreshing new analysis. It takes us away from a particular political vision and back to a more clinical analysis of the behavior of people who conform what has been called the proletariat, the crowds, the masses, and the mob. “De Psychologie van Totalitarisme” (2022) by Belgian clinical psychologist Mattias Desmet, a professor at Ghent University, aims at understanding what could be the longest lasting effect of the policies to combat the Covid 19 pandemic. In his words: “The grip of governments on private life was growing tremendously fast. We were experiencing an erosion of the right to privacy, alternative voices were increasingly censored and suppressed, the number of intrusive actions by security forces was rising dramatically, and more”.  In Europe, as well as in Asia, there were violent Covid related riots in 2020 and 2021. In the United States, they were anti-lockdown protests promoted by conservative groups that ended up exposing the failed policies of public education promoted by the teachers’ labor unions. These were authentic movements and not mobs.

                Facing the possibility of the emergence of new totalitarian regimes around the world, Desmet, like Le Bon, follows his quest only to find the same “mob” playing a key role. Desmet gives us an updated diagnosis. “Dictatorships are based on a primitive psychological mechanism, namely on the creation of a climate of fear amongst the population... Totalitarianism, on the other hand, has its roots in the insidious psychological process of mass formation”.

                Desmet’s chapter six, “The Rise of the Masses” has diagnosed four symptoms that lead to the emergence of the “mob”. “The first condition is generalized loneliness, social isolation, and lack of social bonds among the population... The deterioration of social connectedness leads to the second condition: lack of meaning in life... The third condition is the widespread presence of free-floating anxiety and psychological unease within a population... The fourth condition, in turn, also follows from the first three: a lot of free-floating frustration and aggression. The link between social isolation and irritability is logical and has also been established empirically.”

           Desmet lives in the age of the internet and social media. The diagnosis he makes is a perfect description of what I began to call many years ago “the internet mob”.  The appearance of social media has changed the nature of social interaction. It does not require the “social” part; it only needs a screen and a connection. The COVID generation has shown its proclivity to isolate and still think of the anonymous contacts as friends. Video gamers believe they have friends all over the world. Flash crowds were cute artistic appearances, but quickly the idea created flash-mobs for political purposes, like creating a  public disturbance, or even calling for a riot. Apps like crowdsourcing allow fast fund-raising. Some messaging boards allow anonymity and encryption, even instant deletion. These communication tools have allowed the appearance of the “internet mob” that have been displayed throughout the campaigns of “cancel-culture”. The hit job might get started by one individual’s call for action. Once it gets going, under the protection of distance and anonymity, it takes a life of its own. The next step is short. It only takes one individual to cross back into the real world and take action against the targeted victim.             

        If there is one important fact omitted in all the analysis about the appearance of the “mob” is its potential size. I have been impressed by the presence in the "mob" of many angry women, of all ages, and by young men, many that still don’t shave. Why?

         The global population grew from 1 billion in 1800 to 1.6 billion a century later. By 2000, it had reached 6.1 billion. In 2024 it is estimated that we will exceed 8.1 billion. It had taken 1,000 years to reach one billion just two centuries ago. The population growth, our survival as a species, is a measure of success, not of failure. We have grown, not just in number, but in longevity and quality of life since the world has increasingly opened to a market economy. During the XX century, 200 million people perished by violence or starvation under the communist regimes. The current population of the United States is estimated at 340 million; 51.5% are women. The population between 10 and 25 years old is 24 million. The adult population between 26 and 64 years old is 172 million. With these statistics in mind, it is evident that the topics to lure women -a single category as birthing people (non-men)- into the mob are explained. It also explains the importance of taking over the education of uninformed, immature minds that are ready to do something relevant. Has it worked?

                Why do you think socialists want to lower the voting age to 16 years of age? Or to offer abortion on demand?

The tragic truth is that the new education that creates the “mob” is really indoctrination in what must be considered the gravest intellectual mistake. It began as another moral idea in search of a community organization that would be like paradise on Earth. Supported by the new scientific enthusiasm, it turned into an apparent theory that would be not only the explanation of history, but also be able to predict the future. Half a century after the young agitators Marx and Engels had called for the workers of the world to rise in revolution, they finally produced a belated construct of economic ideas that almost immediately were found to be in insoluble error. After a hundred years of overwhelming evidence of the record of all socialist-communist experiments, any real scientist would have concluded it was time to close the chapter. It is time to bury their works in the shelves of literary creations. The truth behind the “mob” is not the product of any worker’s exploitation. The “mob” is a tool to undermine and destroy legitimate authority, attain power, and keep it at any cost.

                It was not a famous educator who said, “Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I will have sown will never be uprooted.” It is easy to check out his name, which happens to be false. He used 146 other names. He eventually oversaw the Institute of Pedagogics in the country he ruled. And he ruled over all the teachers. Among his many works, he also created a manual for terrorists. He clearly states the purpose of terrorism is at first to provoke the over-reaction of the authorities which will de-legitimize them and become unpopular. Once in power, terrorism is used by controlling the satisfaction of necessities and raising an army of citizens committed to the revolution. The “mob” does not exist without agitators and organizers that collect the “useful idiots”, as they have been called by many totalitarian leaders, into the corrals at the campus to practice their jingles and slogans. About the resources for the revolution, he is credited with the phrase “Don’t worry, when we need the ropes, the capitalists will be the first to sell us the ones we will use to hang them”. The name of the agitator was Vladimir Ilych Ulyanov. Most people have heard of him as Lenin.

“The first condition is generalized loneliness, social isolation, and lack of social bonds among the population... The deterioration of social connectedness leads to the second condition: lack of meaning in life... The third condition is the widespread presence of free-floating anxiety and psychological unease within a population... The fourth condition, in turn, also follows from the first three: a lot of free-floating frustration and aggression. The link between social isolation and irritability is logical and has also been established empirically.”

 

ILLUSIONS, HALF-TRUTHS AND MASKS. Keywords: Fate and luck, Predestination, Fatalism, Free-Will, Religion, morality and economics, Golden Age of Islam, Ibn Khaldoun, School of Salamanca, Poverty and Islam, Islam and communism. Galileo, Descartes, Newton, Einstein

 

The Alhambra, the palace of the last Moorish kingdom in Al-Andalus, in Granada

ILLUSIONS, HALF-TRUTHS AND MASKS

A meditation about the new rise of communism in America

By Xuan Quen Santos

PART  VII

“If the soul is impartial in receiving information,

it devotes to that information the share of critical investigation

 it deserves, and its truth or untruth thus becomes clear.

However, if the soul is infected with partisanship for a particular opinion or sect, it accepts without hesitation what is agreeable to it. Prejudice and partisanship obscure the critical faculty and prevent critical investigation.

The result is that falsehoods are accepted and transmitted.”

 

Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406)

 

                The horoscope, Tarot cards, palm readers, Ouija boards, Zoltar the Fortune Teller, fortune cookies, California Psychics for just $ 1 a minute… Are you into any of these?

During Hellenistic times, temples dedicated to the goddess Tyche were established in most cities across ancient Greece. Famous for their popularity and luxury were those in Antioch and Alexandria. Her temples were usually at the market places, and her festivities took place at harvest times. The Romans changed her dress and named her Fortuna. Two thousand years later, Americans play and watch on TV how her Wheel of Fortune decides who are the lucky ones and the losers. Tyche was mostly FATE and DESTINY. Fortuna played with CHANCE. Their interests were with prosperity and material well-being, goals towards which economics can orient today with better chances of success.

The Roman Goddess Fortuna and her Wheel of Fortune
Blessings for merchants and the market

The star philosopher of those times was the mentor of Alexander the Great. We know him as Aristotle of Stagira; his influence is still with us, and his insights are reviewed at universities. As time has passed, many of his contributions that were held almost sacred have been discarded. During the Renaissance, Galileo Galilei was able to demonstrate that one of those ideas in physics was in error. While teaching at the university, he dropped simultaneously from the Tower of Pisa two cannon balls of very different size and weight, a very large one and a very small one. They hit the ground at the same time. Aristotle had affirmed, and everybody had believed, that a heavier body, such as a stone, would fall much faster than a lighter body, such as a feather. Galileo tested his ideas and gave birth to the scientific method, even though he did not have the technology and instruments to be precise. It took two more centuries for Isaac Newton to formulate the gravitational force, and then three more for Albert Einstein to think differently and question Newton. Einstein’s ideas were validated only a decade ago, after an actual astronomical event took place, long after his death. We know today that the feather and the stone would have fallen at the same speed if all the opposing forces of air had been eliminated by a total vacuum. We also know that the force of gravity bends. The search for a gravitational theory has taken 25 centuries. Aristotle used his sensorial experience, some reflection and led us to error. Galileo put the ideas to a simple test and corrected the course. Newton used empirical observations with sophisticated measuring instruments and deductive reasoning aided by advanced mathematics he had himself formulated as the inventor of one of the forms of calculus. Einstein added more detailed observations and data produced by others using advanced high-power telescopes. The gravitational theory is still in progress. The International Space Station is a permanent lab for the effects of the absence of gravitational pull on living organisms.

In two of his writings, Aristotle had dealt with what we now call economics when he was discussing concerns of how judges could solve commercial disputes. He came up with the idea that objects of commerce have two values. One is value for use, and the other is value for trade. And that was it. In addition, the general view was that things are valued by the amount of work people put into making them. Labor is most of what goes into the transformation or availability of simple agricultural and handcrafted items that are traded in primitive markets. Tools are also deposits of previous labor usually made by the same craftsman that uses them. The labor value theory seems to make common sense. These three ideas (labor as a source of value, and the mysteries of value for use and for trade) were not advanced any further until some priests and missionaries of the University of Salamanca wrote about them in the XVI century. Spain was at that moment the most powerful and wealthy empire after its colonies in America had begun to bear fruits: gold, silver, copper, gems, tomatoes, vanilla, tobacco, potatoes, chiles, corn, hardwoods… The port of Seville was the busiest in the world. It also had a great heritage in commerce.

The Court of The Lions at the Palace of The Alhambra in Granada
a symbol of the prosperity during the Golden Age of Islam

Spain had just concluded the wars against the Moors (1492) and the trade in the Mediterranean was just re-starting through Barcelona and Valencia. Southern Italy and Sicily were part of the Spanish Kingdom of Aragon. Even the Popes were Catalonian. After the war ended, the Catholic Kings begun a loyalty and faithfulness requirement from the ancient Sephardic Jews of Spain; many refused and left for Turkey, Holland and The New World. Some stayed and converted. The infamous Torquemada, the Grand Inquisitor, descended from converted Jews. The defeated Arabs, Moors and Umayyads were given a harsher test, a few left as converts to New Spain. But many stayed, and others just crossed the Strait of Gibraltar, back to North Africa. Among them were the most educated and trained officials and their emigration created a period of prosperity in North Africa, from Morocco to Egypt, the Maghreb.  A diverse culture flourished in southern Spain and took roots in its colonies in America.

The expertise in complex trade continued past the XVI century. Toledo and Cordova had not been only Arab. For centuries they were the two most populous Jewish cities in Europe and “international” centers of culture. Cities like Cartagena had been populated by Jews since Carthaginian and Roman times, long before the Germanic Visigoth tribes arrived from northern Europe to invade Iberia. Spain began to flourish as the union of several Medieval kingdoms, and one of its roots was the seven century occupation of the Islamic Al-Andalus.

During the seven centuries the Moors (Arabs, Berbers, and Umayyads) had control of most of Hispania, known then as Al-Andalus, the region had been the center of culture and trade in the western Mediterranean. The academics of the Califate of Cordova were the bridge that generated the European Renaissance out of the Dark Ages. The Muslim libraries had preserved the ancient Indian, Persian, Greek and Roman texts and scholarly traditions that became available for translation into Latin. Even Chinese knowledge and inventions had filtered into the Arab culture by way of trade and later the Mongol invasions. This is the nurturing center that produced personalities like Maimonides and Ibn Khaldoun. This bridge of classical culture made it possible for Saint Thomas Aquinas to study Aristotle which led to major reforms in Christian Theology. European medicine was modernized by Avicenna’s treatises (Ibn Sina). It also brought the Arabic numerical system (base ten, decimal and with zero) that Arabs had taken from India, and Algebra from the Persian mathematician Musa al-Khwarizmi (his name is the English word algorithm). Fibonacci would not exist in history had he not had his experience in the Maghreb. Modern commerce, banking and economics, modern science, modern philosophy and even modern theology would not have been possible without the Hispano-Arabic-Jewish people and their diverse cultures. And this root of blood and knowledge has something to do with the School of Salamanca that flourished just after the period of the “Reconquista” of Spain.

I do not know why Hegel sub-estimated the Jewish religion’s ethical foundation other than suspecting the rising anti-Jewish sentiment in the Prussian state. With respect to Islam, the Muslim faith, I think he shared the common belief that it is essentially based on the idea of predestination. By the end of the XVII century, it was true. This idea can be abbreviated by the acceptance as fact that everything that happens has been decided or planned in advance by God or by fate and that humans cannot change it. Resignation, conformism and inaction follow. These turn into obedience to those that claim to be the messengers and have the power of enforcement. And of course, there is the power of enforcement.

The Horoscope, the ancient map of the night sky and the season

If you are into the horoscope, Tarot cards, palm readers, Ouija boards, Zoltar the Fortune Teller, fortune cookies, California Psychics for just $ 1 a minute, then you share the belief of predestination or fate. With the exceptions of the fortune cookies that Chinese restaurants offer to thank you for your patronage, and the California Psychics that are there just to take your money, all the other items in the list have a millenary origin and still play a significant role in many cultures. They were all directly tied to religious beliefs. They all led our learning about the cosmos into astrology, and now astronomy and astrophysics. There are several horoscopes, but they all originated as expressions of the calendars, lunar, solar or both. Until the printed newspapers began to disappear, looking for the horoscope was the most popular initial habit of subscribers. Even today, fairs and carnivals host booths that cater to the believers in a written destiny; you also find them in the seedy parts of towns; lotteries count on the believers of fate and luck as much as on the greed of the calculators of odds and chance.

The Fortune Teller XVI century Flemish painting
The fortune teller in art, always a Gypsy

In the West, the divine foreordaining of ALL that will happen, especially with regard to the salvation of some and not others, has been particularly associated with some teachings of St. Augustine of Hippo and of Calvin. There are still currents within Christian sects that can be categorized as believers that all is already written. Their doctrine raises important questions about free will, human responsibility, and self-determination. I am not discussing the theological implications of this belief. Understanding the definition of predestination can considerably influence individual perspectives on life and faith. I am only interested in how it affects what people do, not only in the community as a whole, but specifically in the spheres of economics and ethics.

Rene Descartes, mathematician, philosopher
the father of Rationalism

If you have not appreciated what I what been discussing in these pages, it is likely that you clicked off and went on to do something more interesting to you. If you are interested, or at least curious, or are mad as hell just waiting to see where this will end, you have already decided to spend some of your valuable time with me. I appreciate it, and also just demonstrated that you are able to make decisions. The importance of the decision, how consequential it may be or not, does not matter. You have free will. This demonstration is similar to how Descartes offered proof that he existed: “Cogito ergo sum” (I think, therefore I am). I can make an intelligent choice; therefore, I have free-will. By the way, credited as the father of “rationalism” and a philosopher of science, Rene Descartes presented several reasoned, non-religious or theological arguments for the existence of God in his work "Meditations on First Philosophy" (1641). Faith and reason are not just compatible; they have the same destination.

Galileo Galilei and his telescope

What is the Catholic church accused of in the Galileo story? That the church is closed to scientific knowledge. The details tell a different story. Galileo was a friend of the two Popes related to his famous story; they were his protectors and employers. He had built his most powerful telescope for them. Do you know that the Vatican has had an astronomical observatory for centuries? Are you aware that most religious festivities are related to cosmic observations and events? Did you know that our current calendar is based on the Gregorian Calendar issued in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII? In the West, Catholics included, we do not follow it anymore as we rely now on the latest satellite technology and an atomic clock that makes corrections of milliseconds at the end of each year. But the rest of the Christian world in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa don’t even follow the Gregorian calendar. They still follow the Julian calendar, approved by Julius Caesar more than two thousand years ago. In addition to his political and military functions, he was the Pontifex Maximus; equivalent to being the Pope of the Pagan Romans. That is why the Orthodox Churches celebrate Christmas 13 days later and their seasons are off by two weeks. Faith and science are not in opposition, but sometimes it takes time to reconcile them. The truth is one. Did you ever give a thought to the names of our months? Most of them are names of Roman gods or Roman Emperors (Janus, Mars, Juno, Julius Caesar, Caesar Augustus). Or why does December say it is the tenth month, but now it is the twelfth? (September was seven, October was eight, November was nine). Why was Galileo working for the Pope? All religious leaders search for truth. Imagine how serious his fault was that he was sentenced to pray several times a day, and to continue his research in a farm owned by the church; he was cared for in his advanced age by one of his daughters who was authorized to leave the convent to do it. On top of that, his daughter was told to “serve his sentence” and do the praying for him. It all began with another error of Aristotle that Galileo had questioned. During Galileo’s lifetime, the Vatican was involved in the Wars of Reformation, and the Popes did not want further division within the hierarchy. Galileo had agreed not to continue the public controversy in his first proceeding, an agreement he later violated. His fault was violating the agreement, and he was sentenced to pray. Most of what has been written since then is propaganda that came out of the French Revolution in order to create the “famous case” of the division between faith and science. Hasn’t modern scientific archaeology confirmed the factual and historical character of The Bible? Science seems to have taken a long time to confirm what faith has known for quite some time. The truth is one, but sometimes it takes time to agree about it.

The heading of this meditation is a quote from one of the most respected Medieval scholars of the Muslim culture and the religion of Islam.

Ibn Khaldoun, philosopher, historian during the last stage of the Golden Age of Islam

Ibn Khaldun's contributions to history, sociology, and economics are profound and enduring. He supported free markets emphasizing that competition and the interaction of buyers and sellers determine prices. He also advocated for low taxes not to burden economic activity and cautioned that high taxes and excessive government interference suffocate production and lead to economic decline. His insights foreshadowed Adam Smith’s groundbreaking contributions, supply-side economics, and the Laffer curve. His ideas about the economic progress and decline of civilizations were ahead of Gibbon’s and Marx’s. But, like what happened with Aristotle, his writings on economics are buried under voluminous material dealing with other topics and they had been available only in Arabic until not long ago. What is clear from his thinking is that he was not a believer in predestination or fatalism. His quoted words are a defense of an open mind ready to analyze evidence and proof, ready to listen to criticism, ready to change. They are also a criticism to sectarianism and prejudice which stand in the way of reason and truth. No one cut his head off. Had he lived in today’s Arab Islamic sphere of influence, he likely would have asked to come to America as a refugee.

Moshe Maimonides, known as Ramban. Jewish Physician, philosopher born in Al-Andalus
Physician to the Great Saladin of Egypt during the Golden Age of Islam

Maimonides, the Sephardic Jew called Rambam from Cordova, and Ibn Khaldoun, who although born in Tunis across the Mediterranean Sea, his family had a long ascendancy in Al-Andalus and had just escaped the fall of Seville, are two important figures in the history of humanity. Both were the product of a period of Arab greatness, when free-will and personal initiative were respected. That period has long ceased to exist. Why?

French historian and philosopher Louis Rougier, in his 1971 “The Genius of the West” describes it: “From the eighth to the twelfth century the Islamic Empire, made up of many peoples, extending from the Pyrenees to the limits of China, preserved Hellenic science, enriched it with borrowings from Persia, India and even China, and finally transmitted it during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries to the Latin West. Over a period of five centuries, during which darkness settled over the West, the home of civilization was in the Near East and in Spain; its language was Arabic, and its sun was the sun of Allah… The brilliant rays of this Asiatic civilization penetrated deep into France, Italy and Sicily. Arabic and Jewish doctors from Spain settled at Salerno and Montpellier. Arabic medicine was taught at Venice and Padua down to the sixteenth century…From 1200 on, a theological reaction swept through Islam. There were no longer philosophers—the word itself became synonymous with “infidel”—and only occasionally was there a scholar like the fourteenth-century historian, Ibn-Khaldun…” About this period, Professor Rougier concludes: “Islam, returning to its sources, paralyzed inquiry with a formula which brooked no answer: Allah aalam, God knows best what is.”  Predestination and fatalism had taken over.

The dogmatic and literal ideological current of Islam is referred to as Salafi (Salafiyyah). It is characterized by its inflexibility, intolerance and anti-pluralism. Dr. Mustafa Akar, Professor of Economics and Rector at Aksaray University in Turkey, wrote “Reason versus Tradition, Free Will versus Fate” in 2016. He states that, “This school and the mentality it adopted are clearly still alive today and serve as the source of inspiration and motivation for many radical Islamic movements…such as the Taliban, Saudi-rooted Wahhabism, ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) and al-Qaida are all Salafi movements”. I would add to the list the Muslim Brotherhood, originally from Egypt. Akar identifies on the opposite side several schools of early Islamic thought that recognized free will as one of the ethical foundations taught in the Quran, among them Tawhid or Mutazilite, Ahl al-Ra’y, and a school of reason.  Akar points to the Mongol invasions of the XII century as the main cause for the disappearance of the institutions and persons whose work and ideas had led to the Arab Golden Age. Perhaps this is only a partial explanation; as it is not a single event, multiple causes may be involved.

Perhaps it is just a deflection to avoid looking at causes that emerged from within the Arab culture. One is the continuous internecine wars for control of the power of government by different tribes or religious sects. There is no clear basis in the Quran for the governmental leader to be the head of the religious institutions, or for the religious leader to be the head of the governmental structure. In fact, there is no indication that a religious leader would be established. Iran’s current theocracy is a good example of what it leads to in the latter case, and the concept of the Caliphate exemplifies the former. Although the title of Caliph has been in disuse for over a century, it was claimed by the head of ISIS in 2014. The title of Sultan has a better defined function as the head of government, even though at times it also had religious significance. The lack of clarity of functions has been a clear opportunity for some leaders to use religion as the mask of absolute authority. Islamic history has a full record of these conflicts.

The recognition of “free-will” does not need to be explicit, or in law. Its existence or negation is recognized in many other aspects of a culture, such as freedom of speech and the press, or freedom of religion, of the basic freedoms of a person by “owning” himself. Two institutions that have characterized Islam are apostasy and slavery. Apostasy is when the member of a religion abandons it or changes it for another faith. The website “Islam, Question and Answer” sponsored by an Islamic organization explains that: “The apostate is not to be put to death immediately after he falls into apostasy, especially if has doubts. Rather he should be asked to repent and be offered the opportunity to return to Islam and resolve his doubts, if any. If he persists in his apostasy after that, he is to be put to death”. The site indicates that it was founded and is supervised by Shaykh Muhammad Saalih Al-Munajjid. It is not a historical reference. It means today.

Watercolor of a caravan of slaves in Western Africa

Islam spread slavery throughout Africa, and for captives of their wars. The last country to legally prohibit slavery was Mauretania in 1981, mostly to get a check mark from the United Nations in order to receive aid. Until the end of WW I, the slave markets of European Christian captives, men and women, existed openly under the Ottoman rule. These institutions, whether they are really proscribed now or still exist without official recognition, are a clear reflection of an absolute intolerance of free-will and the most fundamental rights of the human person. It is true that many Western nations had these institutions at one time or another but have not existed for centuries. European Wars of Religion led to the Laws of Toleration, and then to the concept of Freedom of Religion three centuries ago. The same forces of faith and belief in free-will led the West to proscribe slavery shortly after. It is important to note that European participation in the slave trade across the Atlantic began seven centuries after the Islamic, Arab and Berber slave traders had organized it. The slaves bought by Portuguese, Dutch, Spanish and English traffickers purchased them at well-organized slave markets on the south Atlantic. The did the same thing on the Indian Ocean. The African tribes that had converted to Islam enslaved the captives of the tribes that had resisted or that simply were practicing their animistic faiths. African Muslims supplied African slaves to the world.

Berber slave traders selling European women in the Tunis market
Original is a painting of Otto Pilny of the early XX century

I am sure you have heard the phrase "Laws are like sausages. It is better not to see them being made". It is often attributed to the Prussian statesman Otto von Bismarck, but its true origin is likely from American poet John Godfrey Saxe back in 1869. The reading of the proceedings of the United Nations committee in charge of drafting the Declaration of Human Rights is a perfect example of the sausages. Imagine the USA mission led by Eleanor Roosevelt from the victorious seat at the end of WW II. She was pushing the “moderate socialist” agenda of FDR unto the world. It started with language inspired by the US Constitutional documents. Then the French changed some of the language so that it sounded more like the French Revolts. The emissaries of Stalin wanted to add elements of the Soviet Constitution, and they did in part. The Chinese delegate insulted the other members by suggesting that they spend some months studying Buddhism. Others went with the flow expecting American aid after the war. The sausage was approved to great fanfare with the vote of a large number of insignificant states and the very grateful Europeans that had just been saved from defeat and were anxious to continue their policies masked by the label of democratic socialism. A few countries abstained or did not participate. The Soviet bloc rejected it. I found it interesting that Saudi Arabia voted against it, and even today is not a signatory because “it was not acceptable to Islam”. Most of the declaration is a wish list of entitlements, but the initial words of Article 1 may explain the opposition of the Saudi family (tribe) that owns the Arabian desert and the holy cities of Mecca and Medina as their personal property. Article 1 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”

The recognition that all human persons are endowed with reason and conscience is a recognition that all persons have free-will and have the right to use it. By denying its existence, which they claim their Quran’s interpretation does, puts Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabis Islamist leadership in the same non-moral direction that all Marxist proclaim. They require obedience to whatever the ruling elite demands. Enforcement means use of force.

A very detailed and extensive account of “The History of the Arab People” (1991) by Albert Hourani covers the degradation, disintegration, colonization, nationalism and their more numerous recent crises. Other authors point to the takeover by non-ethnic Arabs of the different state organizations that have existed in the Islamic regions over the centuries, such as Iranians (Persians), Egyptians (Mamelukes), and Turkish (Ottoman). The Quran did not provide guidance that envisioned a political system, and it was born in a culture that is still tribal. Other authors point to the permanent tensions that have existed since the early days of Islam between the Shia and Sunni sects. This conflict has been a continuous source of division and violence within Islam, stemming from a dispute over the rightful succession to the Prophet Muhammad after his death in 632 CE. This is what since ancient times was called a “blood feud”. It is reflected in the claims of most Sultans, Caliphs, emperors and kings that have ruled over all of Islam, or the current monarchs that claim a blood relation to Mohamed. This conflict also has an underlying source of tribal tensions within the strictly Arab nations. From the beginning there was a confrontation between the commercial interests of the tribes of the ancient city of Mecca, and those that resulted from the rise of the tribes that supported Mohamed. In pre-Islamic times, this city was a center of polytheistic worship of many animistic creeds. Control of the sanctuaries and holy places has always been a source of religious power, and also an important source of economic interests. The rituals of the mysterious Kaaba are pre-Islamic, but they merged into it as the most notorious cultural representation of Islam to the world.

The Kaaba at the center of pilgrimage in Mecca
Said to mark the site where Ibrahim (Abraham) and his son Ismail (Ismael) built
the first house of worship to Allah. The Jewish Bible identifies Ismael as the first son
of Abraham he had with an Egyptian slave of his wife
Islam recognizes Muslims, Jews and Christian as "People of The Book"
with a common Abrahamic heritage

As an economist, Akar provides the evidence that supports his assessment that the Muslim world is lagging behind in a condition he calls “poverty within abundance”. The OIC – The Organization of Islamic Countries- groups the 57 countries that have a predominant Islamic heritage. With more than 1.5 billion people, it is 22% of the world’s population, but it only shares 9% of the world’s GDP. It includes an area that has 50% of some of the world’s important energy resources. The Economic Freedom of the World Index of the Fraser Institute shows no OIC member country among the top 10, but there are 22 included in the category of “least free”, and 26 among those labeled “somewhat free”. The wealth enjoyed by some of the Islamic states originated in the exploitation of petroleum has helped them mask their condition by having low taxes because revenue is derived from oil sales. Brunei, Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia head the list. A retrospective look at the 56 countries in 1850, before the era of petroleum and the combustion engine, would place all of them among the poorest in the world.

In the index that measures quality of life in the world, HDI -Human Development Index- the bottom is occupied by Niger, Chad, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Pakistan, Indonesia and Egypt. The Islamic countries that rank high are those that subsidize their consumption with oil revenues. Everything resulting from the wealth generated by petroleum is really generated by the industrial development of the West and not due to any local improvement. In the Index of Global Innovation produced by Cornell University, the lowest ranked are Sudan, Togo, and Yemen.

Compare this information and comments with those provided by the study of Asmus and Grudem in “The Poverty of Nations” mentioned in previous pages. There is great correlation between Islam and poverty, just as there is between Christian values and prosperity. If Islam is predestination and fatalism, regardless of its theological foundation, it leads to un-economic use of the only sources of wealth: human creativity and freedom to exchange.

For the most part, historians recognize several facts about the Arab emergence, its golden age, and its decline. It appeared in a moment of history when the Roman Empire to the west, and the Byzantine and Persian empires to the north and east had collapsed. Two elements were imposed on the conquered people, the Arabic language and the Quran as the backbone of morals and law. Always in a minority in the conquered lands, ethnic Arabs co-opted the local elites and governed with violence. In a way, they re-created the stable environment of the Pax Romana that integrated an enormous market even though they did not have a uniform currency. The Greek, Persian and Roman coinage had similar weight standards and continued their existence beyond their original minting. The Quran includes many rules related to commerce that already existed and were common practice. That made it easy to follow.

There is much that this view of intellectual history overlooks. Nevertheless, there is enough evidence that supports some very broad conclusions. 1) Hegel was in error by excluding Judaism and Islam from belonging to religions of a higher order where human freedom can be realized. Islam can be qualified as having fallen in a period of decline. Can it be reversed?  2) During the Golden Age of Islam, Europe, mostly by way of Al-Andalus was influenced out of the Dark Ages by a flood of new and re-discovered knowledge that led to the Renaissance. 3) The Renaissance, with a vision of a New World in geography, the invention of the printing press with movable characters, paper and ink from China, mathematics from Persia and India, and a renewed thirst for knowledge, made a great leap forward into what we call Western Civilization. It may be an error to call it with such a narrow name. Chaldeans, Persian, Jews, Christians, Arabs, and even Greeks, Romans and Turks all have origins at the crossroads of Asia, Africa and Europe. Their roots are our roots and a good way up the trunk into our most valued traditions of the west.

Just like Galileo had dared to question Aristotle’s ideas about gravity and the solar system, some scholars revisited his ideas on what happens in the market when people exchange. Others questioned his concept of a “just war” that the Catholic kings, and the earlier Crusaders had relied upon to force people to accept baptism, or to enslave them. The first group opened the minds into the foundations of economic science. The second group began the discussions that initially were labeled natural rights and now are called human rights and international law in general. They are now known as the School of Salamanca, or as the Late Scholastics of the University of Salamanca. They demonstrated before the royal court that the Indians of America were persons, they could choose freely, formed families, many had sophisticated forms of government, and an established culture. That was evident to the missionaries even if the Bible had no mention of them or of that part of the world. In other words, the Indians of America had free will too. The enslavement of the indigenous people was declared unlawful in 1542. They pronounced the King of Spain as a subject under the law, long before Charles I of England was tried by Parliament and executed. These groundbreaking religious scholars are now recognized as an important part of the Renaissance that led to The Enlightenment.

The central library of the University of Salamanca in Spain
A repository of ancient manuscripts, books and incunables

The real founders of economic science and natural law jurisprudence wrote hundreds of years before Adam Smith and John Locke. They were not economists or attorneys as such, but moral theologians, missionaries, and doctors of canon law. They trained in the tradition of Saint Thomas Aquinas, following ancient Christian avenues to   investigate and expand all the sciences on the firm ground of reason, logic and natural law. Many drew from their own experience as missionaries in distant lands, including the new American continent. Many came from families impacted by the recent wars between Arabs and Christians. Others had a Jewish or mudejar heritage. Salamanca itself, an ancient Celtic city, had been occupied by Roman legions, Visigoth armies, and Muslim invaders; they all had left their imprint in the University of Salamanca, chartered formally in 1218, but established a century earlier. Their work in the early Renaissance filtered throughout Europe by way of visiting teachers from other scholarly centers, but mostly by the hundreds of students that went on to teach at other institutions in France, Holland, Italy and Germany.

The priests of Salamanca did not elaborate a complete doctrine of economics, but they established the foundations that led to the modern economic theories that explain how the market works. Ending the discussions about “just prices”, they demonstrated and declared that those are the market prices that appear as a result of competing sellers and buyers. Value was attributed to each person’s judgment of the utility of a good and depending on how much was available. This anticipated by centuries the subjective theory of marginal utility of value. They defended sound money policies and what we would now call international free trade. They expanded on Aristotle’s explanation of the importance of ownership of property as opposed to common tenancy, anticipating the description of what today is known as “the tragedy of the commons”.

The original work of the Scholastics was written in the late Medieval Latin that was already in the process of transforming into the modern Romance languages. Gradually, their works disappeared in the archives and old libraries with books no one could read, but their ideas had spread. The first translations of one of them, Francisco de Vitoria, became available only in the early XX century, and in English not until 1991. Economics had not been recognized as a separate field of study. Their innovative ideas remained veiled in titles such as “Handbook for Confessors and Penitents”.

It is clear to me that the part of humanity that has moved away from determinism, materialism, predestination and that, in general, negated the empowering force in creativity and innovation of free-will, has found ways to raise the standard of living and quality of life of all the people; but most significantly, it has lifted those that occupied the bottom of the ladder, the lower caste, the serfs, the wrong tribe, and the destitute in the cultures that still deny its existence, whether it is a political regime, or a religious regime, or just the state apparatus of power under the mask of righteousness.

Can Islam recover its inner force that led to its Golden Age? Can the Islamic leaders recognize again that all human persons have free-will? Can the Muslim political leaders pave the way to a new form of organization that will return their humanity to their people? Imagine how many wars and violence around the world this would stop. Imagine the Muslim world raised from poverty, not because of the ephemeral wealth of petroleum for a very reduced tribal minority, but because each Muslim person will use its given talents towards the benefit of their communities.

Can a Renaissance of the Islamic faith happen in the West? Where are the Islamic voices of reason and faith in America? There are more than 5 million Muslims in the country, a very large number of them have come as refugee immigrants. Why did they come here and not to an Islamic country? 

Imagine all American Muslims exercise their liberty within the United States Constitution and rediscover the ethical Quranic roots guided by the ancient teachings of the Tawhid, Mutazilite, and Ahl al-Ra’y schools. Imagine all the refugees from the endless wars use this opportunity to leave behind the sectarian doctrines and tribal traditions and hatreds to renew their faith and express their interior liberty in their new country.