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| Volume XIV, Fall 2007, Number 3 |
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EXCERPT
Islamic Social Justice, Iranian Style
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| Jahangir Amuzegar |
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Dr. Amuzegar was finance minister and economic ambassador in Iran’s pre-1979 government.
The ideal of social justice was a prime goal of Iran's 1979 revolution. The monarchy was mercilessly chastised by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini for having neglected the plight of the poor and the disenfranchised, the mostazafan. A new constitution adopted under his supervision after the revolution is replete with references to justice and equity as two of the main Quranic principles of governance. Eradication of poverty and deprivation thus became one of the Islamic Republic's principal duties and its leaders' principal aims. And the dominance of public sector over the national economy, specified in the constitution, was expected to guarantee the achievement of that objective.
The fact that, after nearly three decades of "Islamic" rule, millions of Iranians are still living below the poverty line and the gap between rich and poor has actually widened is not surprising, in view of gross economic mismanagement. The real surprise lies in the recent ideological turnaround by the regime and the candid rejection of the state as an anti-poverty agent. This review intends to (a) discuss the Islamic Republic's several privatization programs in the last 18 years to reduce state economic dominance and the way in which the 1979 Constitution has been amended to reach that goal; (b) President Ahmadinejad's cherished scheme to distribute a portion of public assets among the poor as "justice shares" (saham-e edalat); and (c) appraise the new measures' prospects for achieving the goal of social justice. |
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