Yousef Abazari and Arman Zakeri: “Three Decades of Religion and Neoliberalism’s Coexistence in Iran”

Note from Yousef Abazari's Channel: The article “Three Decades of Religion and Neoliberalism’s Coexistence in Iran” may seem self-evident to those who have been studying neoliberal policies in the world and Iran for years, but they are not the intended audience of this article. The audience of this article is all those who constantly ask, “What is neoliberalism?” and “Why do you use the term neoliberalism to describe the transformations of post-war Iranian society?”

This article is an educational text for those who wish to become acquainted with the contradictions of Iranian politics. We contend that most people’s attention is fixed on secondary factors influenced by these contradictions, and they know little about the nature of these contradictions, to the extent that the implementation of such policies in our society is still questioned through recourse to false analogies and expert analyses from Facebook and television.

1- No social situation is the product of a single factor. No single-factor theory is capable of explaining the totality of any situation. Our situation is no exception to this rule. The presence of religion in government, oil revenues, and dual sovereignty are factors that necessarily prevent the full establishment of utopian neoliberal policies in Iran. Nevertheless, this article claims that neoliberal policies have been one of the most important factors shaping our current situation. Policies on whose implementation Iranian governments and the ruling establishment have reached a consensus over the past three decades. Speaking of dual sovereignty regarding what is today called the implementation of neoliberal policies is misleading. Even in periods when the greatest political and cultural differences existed between the government and the ruling establishment, neither the government nor the ruling establishment ever doubted the necessity of implementing neoliberal policies or fell into disagreement over it; although they may have retreated from it due to events such as the social protests of 1993 to 1995. What makes this discussion vital for us today is that this same neoliberal agenda is still being implemented, there is no prospect of stopping it, and according to the evidence at hand, it will intensify in the near future. The present discussion is only responsible for “describing” the nature of these very policies and the results of this very consensus in Iranian society. The claims of this article may seem self-evident to those who have been studying neoliberal policies in the world and Iran for years, but they are not the intended audience of this article. The audience of this article is all those who constantly ask, “What is neoliberalism?” and “Why do you use the term neoliberalism to describe the transformations of post-war Iranian society?”

This article is an educational text for those who wish to become acquainted with the contradictions of Iranian politics. We contend that most people’s attention is fixed on secondary factors influenced by these contradictions, and they know little about the nature of these contradictions, to the extent that the implementation of such policies in our society is still questioned through recourse to false analogies and expert analyses from Facebook and television.

2- There is no such totality as “the West.” Swedish social democracy, German ordoliberalism, and American neoliberalism are not the same thing. Just as the Keynesian welfare state is not the same as Thatcherite neoliberalism. Some think that when one speaks of neoliberalism, the general condition of something called “the West” is what is meant. Over the past three decades, despite the people’s abundant interest, our society’s knowledge of the developments and conditions of various Western countries—that is, the history of the West—has been extremely superficial and confused, relying on the culture industry rather than on authoritative sources in history, economics, and sociology, even though talk of the West has so permeated our daily lives that one could claim few places in the world rival us in this regard. The totality constructed in official discourse of the “satanic West” has led to the reproduction of a mentality among Iranians that, in the same manner but in the opposite direction, imagines the West to be a finely cut diamond of all the world’s goodness, beauty, and righteousness. These mentalities are two sides of the same coin. What matters is moving beyond these ideological totalities and addressing specific instances and concrete historical developments—something that Western scholars and scientists have at least done with regard to themselves. The most radical, sharpest, and most extensive critiques of capitalism and its neoliberal version have taken place within the West itself. In modern history, the West has never ceased dialogue and even conflict over its own condition. A self-reflection that we, whatever sect we belong to and however we are characterized, have not learned. With an awareness of the discussions that have taken place in the West on this matter, we pose a simple question: What is neoliberalism?

3- Neoliberalism is the latest form of the capitalist system. For this reason, much of what Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Mauss, Simmel, Lukács, Adorno, and many others have said in their critique of capitalism and phenomena such as the extraction of surplus value, reification, commodification, the formation of the spirit of capitalism, class exploitation, and increasing inequality remains valid. But neoliberalism goes beyond the bounds of traditional forms of capitalism and the last of them, the Keynesian economy. Neoliberalism is the process of transforming all the elements of the world into commodities and all individuals into neoliberal subjects. Unlike the Keynesian economy, which, based on the idea of class compromise, tried to shield areas such as education and health from the maximization of profit, neoliberal capitalism, as evidenced by Gary Becker, subjects even emotional relationships to profit and loss and insists that a mentality must be created in which, even in the most intimate relationships, one thinks of nothing but profit and loss.

4- Historically, neoliberal economic policies were first implemented after the CIA-orchestrated coup by Augusto Pinochet in Chile. Following the oil shock and signs of crisis emerging in the Western economy, and the rise of doubts about Keynesian economics, the West could have chosen two paths. A more democratic and popular solution, and a more capitalist and anti-popular solution. The West chose the second path. Thatcher and Reagan drew on the theoretical arsenal of the Austrian and Chicago School economists to, in Thatcher's words, change the "soul" of the world. It was obvious that global bodies like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund would also become propagators of these policies, which they did. These policies, after the Washington Conference in the spring of 1989, became known as the "Washington Consensus" and have been implemented in various countries for three decades, leading to the dominance of financial capital over the global economy, and we are now facing the catastrophic results of implementing these policies worldwide. Even the International Monetary Fund acknowledged this in a report titled "Neoliberalism: Oversold?" in June 2016. This report emphasized that "wealth redistribution" has not occurred globally over the past three decades, and today we face a more unequal world than before. Also, a United Nations report titled "Extreme Poverty and Human Rights," published in September 2018, identified privatization as a dynamic of systematic human rights violations and a tool for marginalizing the poor and low-income groups (Alston, 2018). The important point is that these reports speak not of "incorrect" or "incomplete" neoliberalism and privatization—terms coined and popularized by Iranian promoters of these policies—but of the "correct" implementation of such policies in the West itself. After three decades of the correct and actual implementation of these policies, the West itself is now facing a crisis of stagnation and the rise of far-right movements in various countries such as Italy, Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria, Denmark, Hungary, Brazil, the United States, Spain, the Netherlands, France, and even Sweden. Neoliberal policies have paved the way for fascism across the globe. Leaving aside the historical relations between neoliberalism and fascism, we ask again: what is neoliberalism?

5- Although neoliberalism has simple economic principles, it is not merely economics. It is a kind of worldview, and like all worldviews, it is a prism that scatters different rays depending on the field in which it is placed. The difficulty begins when people consider it only as economics and specific to advanced countries. Neoliberal economics, due to its extreme simplicity, has been turned into a checklist, and its domestic proponents, relying on this checklist rather than on global economic science, claim this is it and that is not. They evade calling themselves neoliberal and, more importantly, imagining neoliberalism as a worldview, and they do not want—and certainly cannot—engage in philosophical, cultural, sociological, and especially theological discussions. Whereas those same simple economic principles inevitably entail all these discussions and cast their light upon all of them. The researcher's task is to pay attention to the mediations that link the particular to the universal. "Neoliberal policies" have been implemented in various countries—with varying degrees—and in combination and connection with the specific conditions of each country, they have created particular outcomes that are not exactly similar to conditions in other countries. In other words, neoliberal policies have been implemented in the United States of America, England, Cambodia, Colombia, France, Germany, Sweden, Iran, China, and many other countries, but the economic situation, the configuration of social forces, the composition of capital, the position of the state, the mode of power distribution, and the classes and individuals holding power, both at the beginning of implementing neoliberal policies and in their continuation, have not necessarily resembled one another in these countries. For this reason, we must emphasize that the implementation of neoliberal policies in the world has absolutely not been contingent upon the existence of liberal structures and laws such as established property rights, the rule of law, separation of powers, press oversight, the formation of civil society, and the like. Neoliberalism has nothing to do with "democracy" and is opposed to it. Neoliberalism is not only not an evolved stage of liberalism, but it fundamentally has nothing to do with it and sends many of the achievements of the liberal tradition up in smoke. For this reason, neoliberals in every country, whether it be England or Mozambique, demand the immediate implementation of neoliberal policies. For example, Mozambique is a country where even the sovereign functions of the state, such as security, education, tax collection, and control of maritime borders, have been handed over to the private sector. In this country, large private enterprises, often foreign, have the right to legislate and enforce these laws with the help of private police forces. (Hibou, 2004) It is based on programs of this kind that measures such as the outsourcing of fishing in the country's southern waters to China, and before that, the delegation of education to private enterprises, have begun in Iran as well. As mentioned, this program can don the garb of various traditions and attribute all its horrific outcomes to that entire tradition. Whereas these outcomes are not the destined fate of global traditions, but belong to those traditions that themselves welcome this new worldview with open arms, whether they are aware of it or not. Therefore, tradition, religion, morality, geography, and history are meaningless to neoliberals. They demand, checklist in hand, the implementation of their classified items. For instance, in the "Theoretical Foundations and Documentation of Iran's Fourth Development Plan," which was considered the theoretical framework of the plan, it is stated that "the global movement is now such that, in terms of development visions and economic models, strategies, and policies, a kind of coordination and convergence is strongly taking shape, leaving little opportunity for proposing and selecting various Russian, Chinese, Cuban, Vietnamese, Indian, Algerian, etc. models and testing the first, second, third path, and so on." (Deputy for Economic Affairs and Planning of the Plan and Budget Organization, 2004) It is further emphasized that now national sovereignties must "inevitably" "follow and obey unified notions" "in principle and strategically." The last sentence of this passage is very important. It states that if national sovereignties do not accept these unified notions now, "in the not-too-distant future," they will have no choice but to submit to them. Now the country is in the midst of a crisis where it must either inevitably submit to the logical consequences of this program, meaning either fully accept the global market led by America, or endure sanctions and the danger of war and the resulting miseries.

Officials at every level who supported the implementation of neoliberal programs under various titles should have been aware of the consequences and should not have left the Iranian nation alone in this valley of terror, for nothing extraordinary has occurred except the revelation of the logical outcomes of this policy. Leaving aside Iran’s horrific situation, one may now ask whether there is a common denominator among the diverse conditions resulting from the implementation of these policies.

The answer is yes. Neoliberalism, by virtue of both “the content of implemented policies” and “certain outcomes produced,” is a single phenomenon everywhere in the world, and it particularly yields results that bear inevitable resemblances to one another. The French Yellow Vests lament the very same policies that workers and teachers in Iran do. Now we must explain what we mean by the content of these “implemented policies” and “outcomes produced.”

6- Neoliberalism should not be reduced to neoliberal economic policies. Neoliberalism is a worldview that encompasses all dimensions of human life, just as Gary Becker, the sociologist and economist of the Chicago School, extended the fundamental principle of neoliberalism—the endless pursuit of profit—to the relationship between mother and child, man and woman, citizen and citizen, and other micro and macro spheres. Neoliberal policies have been defined in various ways and numerous attributes have been ascribed to them. Here we will briefly point to some of the most important and general features of neoliberal policies; first, the economic policies that distinguish it from the last phase of capitalist economics, namely Keynesian economics; including:

1- The casualization of labor contracts;

2- Privatization under the title of reducing state enterprise or entrusting people’s work to the people;

3- Deregulation in various spheres of economic life;

4- State non-accountability in social services (education, health, social security, etc.);

5- Preventing the formation of associations in society;

But beyond all the aforementioned economic policies, neoliberalism is the process of simultaneously transforming all social phenomena and roles (the state, family, religion, university, father, spouse, friend, individual, etc.) into both “individual” and “firm.” The individual in the neoliberal intellectual apparatus has a specific meaning that most people are usually unaware of. In neoliberal economics, an unemployed person is just as much an individual as Bill Gates’s multi-thousand-person enterprise. The U.S. Supreme Court adopted such an interpretation of the “individual,” which, in the view of critics, left nothing but a shell of American democracy. All those currently fighting to revive democracy in America demand that this new interpretation of the Constitution be overturned. Based on this neoliberal interpretation, every firm is considered an individual and, contrary to the previous interpretation of the Constitution, can enter elections and compete for or against another candidate, and of course contribute millions of dollars to this or that campaign. According to Noam Chomsky and Bernie Sanders, this dirty money has placed American democracy in serious danger. Trump and Mrs. Clinton are the chosen ones of this dirty yet “individual” money. Therefore, in the neoliberal system, every social phenomenon must act in society as an individual, a firm. That is, it must offer itself to the market, participate in the competitive process, and seek the best performance and the greatest profit. Inevitably, its bonds with everyone and everything will be temporary and will last only as long as profitability continues; no regulations should constrain it, and it must personally take responsibility for all its failures and successes. In other words, neoliberalism is the process of constructing the “neoliberal subject.”

7- Critics of the neoliberal subject are by no means seeking to deprive people of any freedom or right to choose. Those who desire democracy do not agree that the state or any other social force should eliminate the democratic rights of individuals. Democracy means the right of all to self-determination, the enjoyment of freedom of expression and belief, fundamental rights, and the free oversight of the exercise of power. Advocates of democracy seek an effort by society to freely change an irrational social situation. It is here that critics of the culture industry and consumer society draw a precise line with two groups. On one side, with the reified mentality, and on the other, with the forces that repress individual rights and freedoms in all their governmental, religious, and non-religious forms. For this reason, the critique of the culture industry and the neoliberal subject must be undertaken from a thoroughly radical and emancipatory position, which differs fundamentally from worldviews that defend the past and opposes the revival of any past condition that reified mentalities imagine to have been “less repressive than the present.” In Iran, what is important is understanding the collusion of these two seemingly conflicting forces—a particular interpretation of religion and neoliberalism—in destroying freedom and democracy. At present, since the history of Iran and the world has been presented in a distorted manner, as Paulo Freire says, the uneducated oppressed are only capable of reproducing past societies. Devoid of any imagination, they passively surrender themselves to the images that stream toward them from every direction. Images that falsely attribute an active quality to them, whereas they are in reality mere consumers of those very images. But awakening the power of imagination through literature, philosophy, and critical social sciences makes it possible to envision a liberated future and not surrender to an eternal choice between bad and worse. The marketization of culture and the labeling of all cultural creativity as “cultural goods,” whose aim, like shoes, shirts, and rattles, is to sell more, blocks the path to any kind of inner cultivation and “Bildung.”

8- What have been the results of neoliberal policies? As explained earlier, these policies have been accompanied by different conditions in different countries and have had diverse consequences. In Sweden, despite the implementation of neoliberal policies, a significant part of the welfare state structure remains intact (Newman, 1397). In Cambodia, the implementation of neoliberal policies has led to the strengthening of the monarchy and a form of kleptocracy (Springer, 2015). In Colombia, it was the paramilitaries who, through informal ties with the political structure and influential economic groups, helped facilitate the advancement of neoliberal policies—including in the suppression of unions—and increased their own power (Hristov, 2005). In Pakistan, the army has been responsible for implementing neoliberal policies and expanding its own authority (Saif, 1389). In France, the Yellow Vests are now in the streets as a result of three decades of neoliberal policies (Mouffe, 2019). In America, these policies have produced a “powerless American citizen” who votes for Trump in search of the unattainable American dream. The unity of the objective and subjective checklist of neoliberalism does not contradict the emergence of diverse political, cultural, religious, social, and individual effects. They are two sides of the same coin. This is why we spoke of the identity of the neoliberal mind and object.

Despite all the diversity in the consequences of the combination of “neoliberal policies” and “contextual conditions” in different countries, we will suffice with stating five general common features among the numerous consequences of these policies:

– Increase in class inequality;

– Dispossession of citizens in the economic sphere;

– De-citizenization in the political sphere;

– Environmental destruction;

– Formation of the neoliberal subject;

9- How have neoliberal economic policies progressed in Iran? Iran differs from other countries in that neoliberal policies have been implemented by a “religious government.” A government that, in principle, could not have had any relation to neoliberal economic policies. Just as, by virtue of the jurisprudential nature of the system that came to power after the revolution, it could not have had any relation to the cultural outcomes of neoliberal policies. An economy and culture that inevitably follow one another. Nevertheless, it is astonishing that certain neoliberal economic policies proceeded for three decades, especially after the rightward turn of the Imam’s Line forces, with the complete consensus of all political forces present within the power structure of the religious government. However, throughout this entire period, the state tried, through numerous institutions responsible for cultural policymaking, to prevent society from moving in the direction of neoliberal culture, and it failed. Newspapers like Kayhan attacked neoliberal culture with labels such as aristocracy, luxury-seeking, permissiveness, and cultural invasion, while they themselves were either defenders of neoliberal economic policies, remained silent in the face of them, or, at best, criticized their “incorrect” implementation. On the other hand, they attacked democracy and the possibility of society organizing itself, destroying the most important means of resistance against neoliberalism. In attacking democracy and organization, they were partners with the world’s neoliberals, but they did not understand that the freedoms preceding democracy are, culturally speaking, the very thing they are at odds with. What was the result? The result was what Fernand Braudel called “complementary enemies.” Kayhan’s attack on permissiveness, and the neoliberals’ defense of celebrity culture, fashion, pop music, and the culture industry under the banner of freedom of taste, meant that the more Kayhan attacked these things, the more legitimacy they gained. Ultimately, democracy and democratic oversight, which were the solution to many of our problems, were not realized. The demand for an independent judiciary, a free press, and a democratic civil society overseeing the performance of various institutions never became part of the demands of the forces supporting the state. Things reached a point where some now consider these market freedoms to be the very essence of democracy, oblivious to the fact that Hayek wrote of Pinochet’s Chile that it was freer than many countries because, after the coup, people could shop more freely. Hence, the children of the elite and celebrities are the freest individuals because they do whatever their hearts desire, but at the cost of the enslavement and servitude of people who, in the words of one multi-purpose celebrity, had better become rich or die; and Kayhan remains the defender of values and anti-democracy. The question arises: are neoliberals proponents of democracy and the people’s free right to political choices? The simple answer is: no. In the article “Economic Freedom and Representative Government” in the book In the Trenches of Freedom (Hayek, 1390), Hayek, in order to limit the people’s votes and their encroachment upon free market rules, proposes an elite assembly where only age groups of 45 to 60 have the right to elect and be elected, an assembly that can veto any potential anti-free market votes of the first assembly elected by the general populace. Hayek, like Kayhan, detests democracy—albeit for different reasons.

In recent years, numerous researchers, despite their internal differences, have explored various dimensions of neoliberal policies in Iran and today form a large group. The views of Sohrab Behdad and Farhad Nomani, the late Hossein Azimi, Fariborz Raisdana, Parviz Sedaghat, Mohammad Maljoo, Ahmad Seif, Farshad Momeni, Hossein Raghfar, Ali Dini Torkamani, Ramin Motamednejad, Reza Omidi, Nasser Fakouhi, the Neo-Shariati current, and even some statesmen like Ezzatollah Sahabi and Mir-Hossein Mousavi, and many others are noteworthy from this perspective. Nevertheless, establishing a relationship between neoliberal policies and religious government and culture is one of the most important necessities of our society today, one that our academia, except in a few rare instances, has so far neglected. In this article, we will attempt to lay the groundwork for establishing such a connection as well.

10- The coincidence of the end of the eight-year war and the passing of Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran with the collapse of the leftist camp worldwide created a vacuum in the country’s economic policymaking, which was filled by neoliberal economists—who were heavily influenced by the policies of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. In the report of the IMF mission entitled “The Islamic Republic of Iran Seeks Profound Structural and Institutional Changes,” published in July 1990 (Mordad 1369), it is stated that Iranian officials “declared their determination to move toward comprehensive macroeconomic adjustment, provide a stronger role for the private sector, and gradually eliminate economic restrictions.” (Behdad and Nomani, 2007) To grasp the level of awareness within Iran’s administrative structure regarding the implementation of these policies, we refer to the article by Mohammad-Javad Zahed Mazandarani entitled “Economic Liberalization: Freedom or Necessity (A Preliminary Report on the Seminar on Liberalization and Agricultural Development).” This article was published in the winter issue of the Journal of Economics, Agriculture and Development in 1993. This article shows that in those years, even a field such as agriculture was not immune to the ambition of implementing neoliberal policies. (Zahed Mazandarani, 1993) In this article, he reports on the undertaking of seven research projects concerning “the effects of economic liberalization on various areas of the agricultural economy and rural society.” Zahed Mazandarani emphasizes that “the government, from 1989 onward and after being completely freed from the imposed war, sought to reduce its interventions in the economic affairs of society (=liberalization) and economic adjustment by gradually implementing measures related to unifying the exchange rate and eliminating subsidies.” (Zahed Mazandarani, 1993) This article shows that even mid-level experts were informed about the program being implemented. Whether they understood its full meaning is another matter. Zahed Mazandarani lists the titles of 41 abstracts received on the topic of “economic liberalization in the agricultural sector” in this same report. The point is that with the end of the war, discursively speaking, it was not something abstract called “economic science”—which, like other sciences, has various research programs and schools—but a particular tendency within economic science, namely the neoliberal tendency, that came to dominate the country’s economic policymaking at various levels and advanced neoliberal policies in the country.

11- In the following, we will provide a summary description of these policies in the five areas mentioned earlier:

– Making labor contracts temporary

More than 90 percent of the country’s labor force is currently temporary. (Ali Rabiei, Eghtesad Online, 27/5/93) Whereas at the end of the war, over 90 percent of the labor force in Iran was employed by their employer with permanent contracts. (Kheirollahi, 2018) With the end of the war, numerous permits were issued for various organs to hire temporary labor. Manpower supply contracting companies were formed, and with the changes made to the labor law, particularly the exclusion of workshops with fewer than five employees from the scope of the entirety of the labor law during the Sixth Parliament and the exclusion of workshops with fewer than ten employees from the scope of some articles of the labor law, initially on a temporary basis during the Reformist administration and later with its stabilization during the ninth administration, the making temporary of labor contracts was accelerated. A full account of how labor laws changed is provided in the book “Classless Workers” (Kheirollahi, 2018). As a result of implementing these policies, today more than 90 percent of Iranian workers are employed by their employer with temporary contracts. Enjoying the minimum wage, insurance, bonuses, and other benefits stipulated in the labor law has faced serious challenges with the disappearance of permanent employment status. Of course, we must emphasize that making things temporary is not only related to labor contracts but extends to many dimensions of life. Education, teaching, place of residence, and social relations are all being made temporary. For instance, in Western countries, a marriage that has lasted ten years is now considered a successful marriage.

– Privatization

If privatization had a specific meaning anywhere in the world, in Iran it was mostly confined to the distribution of rent. The implementation of privatization policies began right at the start of Hashemi Rafsanjani’s administration in 1991. As they themselves have stated, those implementing these policies were aware at the time of implementation that no powerful private sector existed in Iran at that time. The only capital-owning groups back then were sovereign institutions such as the Mostazafan Foundation and Astan Quds Razavi, which had been formed on the two pillars of “confiscation” and “endowments and votive offerings.” At the end of the war, the Mostazafan Foundation alone, benefiting from 400 companies with a monopoly on the production of goods in many sectors and assets of about 12 billion dollars, was the largest economic entity in the Middle East (Behdad and Nomani, 2007). Of course, regarding the confiscations, some economic researchers such as Farshad Momeni, considering the bank debts of economic units, believe that extensive confiscations did not take place in major industries. Regardless of this difference of opinion, “foundations” and “shrines” and parts of the military forces were the three power-holding forces ready for economic activity at the beginning of the 1990s. It was with the awareness of the absence of a powerful private sector that, at the time of implementing these policies, the executors decided to implement the so-called structural adjustment policies (Ahmadi Amoui, 2006).

Note 9 of the Law of the First Economic, Social and Cultural Development Plan of the Islamic Republic of Iran states that “in implementing Article 147 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran and in order to utilize the expertise and capabilities of the Armed Forces and the Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics in the reconstruction of the country, the aforementioned executive units are permitted, considering the expertise, capabilities and capacity of the forces under their supervision, to conclude contracting agreements with executive agencies for the implementation of construction plans and projects.”

This law, and considering foundations and shrines as private, further opened the way for their intervention in the country’s economy. In such a situation, the establishment of any private sector by the government inevitably occurred in the shadow of “rent”: the transfer of facilities and contracts to sovereign power-holders such as the Mostazafan Foundation, the Relief Committee, shrines, military forces, influential individuals, or managers and forces close to the government. According to a report by the Majlis Research Center in 1999, titled “Evaluation of the Privatization Process in the First and Second Plans,” of the total privatization carried out in the Industrial Development and Renovation Organization of Iran between 1989 and 1998, 63.5 percent went to “institutions and organizations.” These policies have proceeded in the same manner for three decades in Iran. For example, in March 1994, the Economic Council passed a resolution allowing the government to transfer state-owned manufacturing enterprises to their managers (Rafiei, 2001). In 1994, the Law on the Method of Transferring Shares to Veterans was approved (Majlis Research Center, 1999). The Majlis Research Center has stated that “in fact, with the approval of the Veterans Law, the goal was the transfer of shares of state-owned companies (public sector) to the intended groups” (ibid.). By the end of 1995, out of 312 companies under the coverage of the National Industries Organization, 222 companies had been transferred, half of which were manufacturing (Mortazavi, 1998). In 1996 alone, 60 state-owned companies were transferred to managers who themselves played a role in their pricing (Rafiei, 2001). This issue is one of the reasons why the government’s revenue from the total transfers was very low. According to the Majlis Research Center report in 1999, in the period between 1989 and 1998, the value of transferred shares of state-owned and public sector companies to the private sector, institutions, organizations and banks was 6127.4 billion rials. The same report specifies that “the presence of share-transferring agencies in the composition of the committee related to the privatization matter caused income generation, the sale of specific companies to specific groups, and some other objectives that provoked the protest of many decision-making factors and influential groups, to manifest as the real objectives of the privatization policy… It is noteworthy that one of the very important issues that has influenced the privatization process in the country is the performance of various institutions (such as foundations) or some ministries in the matter of transferring companies” (Majlis Research Center, 1999). The seeds of the unprecedented spread of corruption and the destruction of the culture of self-sacrifice and simple living that prevailed in the first decade of the revolution were sown in these very transfers. The stigma of corruption suddenly collapsed.

For example, let us cite another instance: portions of the budget discharge report for the year 1396 (2017–2018), prepared by the Supreme Audit Court and read before the Islamic Consultative Assembly. This report serves as a very suitable benchmark for understanding how the government has performed, after all the reconsiderations and critiques, in pursuit of what is termed “genuine privatization.” A report that demonstrates that so-called “genuine privatization” is nothing more than a mirage.

“In the reviews conducted in the year 1396, in connection with the transfer of state-owned companies under the law implementing the general policies of Article 44 of the Constitution, instances contrary to laws and regulations were observed, examples of which are reported as follows:

A) Non-compliance with the executive directive on ‘the method of selecting strategic customers and verifying and monitoring eligibility’:

The transfer of companies such as Kermanshah Oil Refining, Haft-Tappeh Sugarcane, Hepco Arak, and Tabriz Machine Manufacturing, Tabriz Machine Manufacturing Foundry, and El-Goli properties, due to the buyer’s lack of expertise and sufficient eligibility, has caused losses and damages to the public treasury.

B) Adjustment of the base price of enterprises by the Divestiture Board:

The expert-assessed price of Kermanshah Oil Refining Company was approximately six hundred and seventeen billion tomans, which, with the approval of the Divestiture Board, was transferred at a 70 percent reduction to the amount of one hundred and ninety-nine billion tomans.

C) Non-compliance with the ‘Executive Bylaw on Methods of Pricing Enterprises’ and the ‘Law on Official Experts of the Judiciary’:

In this regard, the following cases are presented as examples to you, esteemed representatives:

1) Al-Mahdi Aluminum Company and Hormozal Project:

The transfer of the aforementioned companies, which were responsible for producing nearly half of the country’s required product, was carried out for the amount of nine hundred and fourteen billion tomans. Due to the non-assessment of a major portion of the assets, valued at approximately five hundred billion tomans, following the Supreme Audit Court’s pursuit and the request of a three-member expert panel, the value of the company’s shares was ultimately increased by three hundred and forty-six billion tomans after re-evaluation. However, this Court’s investigations still indicate that the aforementioned companies were transferred for two hundred and sixty billion tomans less than their real value.

2) Moghan Agro-Industry and Livestock Complex:

Considering the field investigations conducted by the Supreme Audit Court, the estimated real value of the shares of the aforementioned company was over four thousand billion tomans. The transfer of the Moghan Agro-Industry and Livestock Complex for the value of one thousand eight hundred and fifty billion tomans has caused losses and damages to the public treasury.

3) Tabriz Machine Manufacturing, Tabriz Machine Manufacturing Foundry, and El-Goli Properties Companies:

In the year 1397, the Privatization Organization proceeded to transfer the aforementioned companies based on the transfer price from the year 1394, at a value of six hundred and eleven billion tomans. The Organization’s action in using the expert-assessed prices from the year 1394 contravenes Note (1) of Paragraph (C) of Article (2) of the aforementioned Bylaw and Article (19) of the Law on Official Experts of the Judiciary regarding the legal validity period of initial expert-assessed prices, an act which has caused losses and damages to the public treasury.

4) Tourism Development Company:

In 2011, the Tourism Development Company, along with 29 provincial subsidiaries, four hotel units, the Sarein hydrotherapy complex, the Shah Abbasi Caravanserai in Kermanshah, and the Quri Qaleh Cave, was valued at one hundred and two billion tomans. Following an inquiry by the Supreme Audit Court, the transfer was annulled by the arbitration panel and revalued in 2017 at three hundred and eighty-three billion tomans. Despite the more than threefold increase in the value of the Tourism Development Company in 2017, a twenty-two-thousand-square-meter plot of land belonging to the company in Isfahan, worth approximately three hundred billion tomans, was valued at twenty-six billion five hundred million tomans. Furthermore, at least 13 items of the company’s property and assets, including two hundred and sixty-three thousand square meters of land in the provinces of Isfahan, Ilam, Gilan, Kerman, Yazd, and Hamadan, and over six hundred kilograms of silverware located in the Laleh Hotel in Tehran, were not included in the 2017 valuation. It is worth noting that with the preventive oversight of the Supreme Audit Court, the transfer of the aforementioned company has been halted.” (Summary of the 2017 National Budget Audit Report, Supreme Audit Court of Iran)

For many reasons, the Iranian bourgeoisie never possessed what Weber called the work ethic, and especially after the privatizations, nouveau riche strata dependent on power emerged who were loyal to no tradition other than that of personal gain. Of course, in the West, with the rise of neoliberalism, nouveau riche strata also emerged, whom Americans call “yuppies.” Neoliberal propagandists are the philosophers of these strata, and figures like the Berlusconis, Trumps, and Macrons are their politicians.

In Iran, the result of this process, alongside the injection of oil revenues into the country’s economy, led to the formation and strengthening of three capital-owning blocs alongside the traditional capital of the old bazaar, which has now largely been integrated into the neoliberal worldview. The first bloc consists of sovereign institutions, the second of privatized companies dependent on the state, and the third of individuals close to the power structure, whether the government or the ruling establishment. The outcome of the continued implementation of these policies between 2001 and 2015 can be seen in a report presented in July 2016 by the Privatization Organization:

As can be observed, during these years, only 18 percent of the transfers went to what is termed the “real private sector,” meaning the foundational sector. The largest portion transferred went to “military institutions, non-governmental public institutions, institutions of the Islamic Revolution, etc.”

For example, according to a performance report presented by the Mostazafan Foundation in 2011, in that year alone, the Mostazafan Foundation purchased shares of the “North Drilling Company,” one of the country’s two major oil drilling companies, and the “Qom Combined Cycle Power Plant,” the country’s second combined cycle power plant. The same report shows that 74 percent of this organization’s expenditures in 2011 were “capital expenditures” and only 14 percent were “program expenditures” for the oppressed (Mostazafan Foundation of the Islamic Revolution, 2012). Thus, the majority of the foundation’s expenditures were allocated to the investment and expansion of the Mostazafan Foundation itself in the form of various holdings, banks, insurance companies, factories, etc. For instance, Sina Bank is one of the subsidiaries of the Mostazafan Foundation, operating as a private bank in the country since 2008. Sina Insurance is another active private company of the Mostazafan Foundation. At the same time, alongside privatization, one must not overlook the role of allocated government budgets, confiscations, and endowments in increasing the economic power of sovereign institutions. The facilitation of intervention in various economic sectors, the appointment of CEOs and boards of directors of various companies, the expansion of economic activities, and extensive entry into social and cultural activities have been the result of this process. The birth and development of a multitude of news agencies, publishing houses, websites, research institutes, and even film production companies and other cultural products have been only part of the results of these policies.

Forces close to these very institutions have also controlled the entry points into the political arena. They were the ones who always determined who could enter the realm of official politics. In return, neoliberal economic policies have led to their economic and cultural strengthening. The hidden state has grown larger and larger. The result is that, over time, the door to political engagement has been closed ever more tightly to large segments and groups of society.

These forces, by imposing various restrictive tastes, have also enervated and weakened "political reformism." To be more precise, the reformists' economy has worked against their politics. Neoliberals desire a "small" but very powerful state that, together with their desired bicameral legislature, advances "politics." This is why they dismiss not just this or that policy, but any kind of politics, as populist. This depoliticization, in harmony with the culture industry, created neoliberal subjects who were interested in nothing but their own lives, imagined politics to be an outdated and populist affair, and sought the path to salvation in following political, cultural, and Facebook celebrities. The outcome of these processes was the depoliticization of the entire society and even of politics itself. The reformists, who were among the most important groups calling society to political engagement, very quickly surrendered to the neoliberal economic programs that had to be approved and implemented within the framework of the country's macro-level laws. One of the most important insistences of the neoliberals is changing the laws and then interpreting democracy as the rule of law. All laws against the free market must be changed and replaced by free market laws. Then everyone, as good citizens, must obey their enacted laws, and, as Hayek said, care must be taken that no law is ever changed again. It was during the reformist era that laws and regulations were changed, and the ground was prepared for a major change in the interpretation of Article 44 of the Constitution with the proclamation of its general policies in 2005. Even if the reformists initially harbored dreams of democracy and culture as well, what they were ultimately remembered for was sweeping the path for the neoliberals, abandoning the project of political reform, and vacating the cultural arena in the face of market-driven and celebrity-fostering culture.

– Deregulation

Deregulation is an endless process. A process that, in the words of Murray Rothbard, can proceed to the complete dissolution of the nation-state. The views of the neoliberal anarchist Rothbard themselves demonstrate just how baseless the fabricated opposition—between the private sector and the public sector—that they have inculcated in people's minds truly is. Old liberals established this opposition between the public sphere and the private sphere, which is highly meaningful, even though it has been subject to many criticisms. But it is incorrect to say that Hayek, Mises, or Friedman desire a “small” and therefore weak state. They call for the strongest of states to overturn old liberal or social-democratic laws and to defend the altered neoliberal laws with coercive force, something they have named the rule of law. Nevertheless, everywhere in the world, even in the most neoliberal countries, the state still exists, state budgets exist, and states intervene in numerous social, cultural, economic, and military spheres based on specific regulations. The extent of their intervention in the economy and society is sometimes far greater than the interventions of third-world states. Just as, had the state not intervened in the 2008 crisis, the free market would have buried capitalism. Despite these inevitable interventions, the process of deregulation has advanced to varying degrees, particularly in the past three decades, in different countries. This very process is one of the indicators of the implementation of neoliberal policies. In Iran, studying neoliberal policies to determine the advance of deregulation in various areas such as industry, agriculture, services, culture, education, exports and imports, and especially the currency situation, requires organizing longitudinal research that can collect and present information on each of these areas separately. Before conducting such research, presenting a general picture of this domain is impossible. In what follows, we will mention the three areas of “housing,” “banking,” and “water” as highly significant examples in social and economic life that have been subject to deregulation in these three decades. The rest requires familiarity with the studies that have been conducted. For instance, the process of deregulation in the labor sphere, as far as it concerned the workforce, was explained in the “precarization” section.

The first area, land, housing, and urban management: In this area, with the cessation of state subsidies to municipalities at the end of the war, deregulation was fully implemented. It can almost be said that no regulations govern this area, and the commodification of land and housing in these three decades has led to the acceleration of processes of dispossession of citizens and de-citizenization. Such that, based on the results of censuses conducted between 1986 and 2016, the percentage of the tenant population in the entire country increased 2.5 times (from 12 percent to 31 percent) and in Tehran it doubled (from 22 percent to 44 percent). Meanwhile, according to the report contained in the Statistical Yearbook of the Country in 2016, 35 percent of household expenditure in the entire country and 44.3 percent of household expenditure in Tehran Province in 2016 was allocated to the housing sector: that is, the largest portion of a household's monthly expenses. In other words, one-third of the monthly expenses of Iranian households in 2016 was, without a doubt, sacrificed to the policies of land and housing deregulation. (Statistical Yearbook of the Country, 2016 – Household Expenditure and Income Chapter) The product of the commodification of nature and the deregulation of land has contributed to land grabbing, mountain grabbing, forest grabbing, the occupation of riverbanks and coastlines, the sale of lands on the country's islands, and environmental destruction. The black market also has its own entrepreneurs.

The second domain, banks: The privatization of banks and the establishment of private banks intensified from the early 2000s, particularly after the proclamation of the general policies of Article 44 of the Constitution. Deregulation of the banking sector and the absence of effective supervisory systems in this domain led, from the late 2000s, to the formation of a wide variety of private banks, credit institutions, interest-free loan funds, and the like. (Special Issue on the Financial Crisis and the Resistance Economy, Qalamro-e Refah Monthly, 2016) According to Central Bank data, out of 42 institutions licensed for banking activity in the country, only eight institutions—that is, 20 percent of them—are currently state-owned. Meanwhile, a large number of so-called unauthorized institutions proliferated from the 2010s onward. In the 2010s, credit institutions and banks in many cases faced problems such as embezzlement, inefficiency, and bankruptcy. Neoliberal subjects busied themselves plundering people's property, to take the money where, according to their cliché repeated a thousand times, it would be “safer.” Every entrepreneur, yuppie, and aqazadeh knows, without having read it, this insight of Georg Simmel’s that money can lose its trace. Such was the tale they told, that the country became entangled in widespread corruption, public discontent and protest, and the imposition of massive state financial budgets to pay compensation to the people. The domain of banking facilities, both state and private, has been among the most deregulated domains. Just as an example, according to the report for the formulation of the National Program to Combat Poverty, over the past 30 years, more than 80 percent of banking facilities have gone to the two wealthiest deciles, who have the highest loan repayment arrears. Meanwhile, low-income deciles have often paid their installments on time. Fifty percent of Iranian households have not used any loans over the past three decades. (Shahrvand newspaper, No. 1103, 23 December 2017; quoting the National Program to Combat Poverty; banking facilities section)

This deregulation is observable even in state banks. According to the report on the settlement of the national budget for the year 2017, “Foreign exchange resources of at least one billion and eighty-nine million dirhams and thirteen million euros in previous years at Bank Maskan, arising from the granting of foreign exchange facilities due to a lack of credit assessment and failure to obtain sufficient collateral and guarantees, have been entirely transferred to the doubtful debts category and have not been returned to date. … The facilities granted to and receivables from non-governmental persons by Bank Melli Iran in the year 2017 amounted to one hundred and twenty-two thousand billion tomans, of which, due to a lack of credit assessment and failure to obtain sufficient collateral and guarantees, ninety-two thousand four hundred billion tomans have been converted into non-performing debts.” (Summary of the report on the settlement of the national budget for the year 2017, Supreme Audit Court). These tales continue, but analyzing them within the totality of the economy and their social and psychological harms requires an immense effort.

Third, the domain of water: The story of regulation in the water domain is a very interesting case that can be used to briefly explain some unspoken methodological points of this treatise. In physics, force is one of the important concepts. But this same concept has one meaning in the system of Aristotelian thought, another meaning in Newton, and yet another meaning in Einstein. Thus, a concept has different meanings in different systems. Failure to understand this simple point has caused many casualties in science.

From the time people settled in the water-scarce land of Iran, they established precise regulations for water consumption that guaranteed the survival of their life, culture, and civilization. With the emergence of the modern nation-state, which introduced changes to the people’s millennia-old customary regulations, disorder in the water situation began, and conflicts over water, at times bloody, intensified. The modern nation-state could have used the latest scientific findings to improve and perfect what custom had bequeathed, but unfortunately, this did not happen. Abandoning reason to the spell of technology brought misery upon these people. As Gabriel García Márquez showed in One Hundred Years of Solitude, people regarded technology as a form of magic, not the application of science and reason, and therefore thought that by simply solving problems with technology, they would be able to turn Iran into a great civilization and the like. This fatal error began in the time of Reza Khan and has continued to this day, and it is deeply regrettable that some have labeled the sacrifice of reason at the altar of technology as our entry into the modern age and the development of Iran. The most important victim of sacrificing reason at the altar of modern technology, even with benevolent intentions such as poverty alleviation and self-sufficiency, was water in Iran. Whereas the wise use of the most advanced technologies could have saved the Iranian nation from many crises and calamities.

From the time people became technologically capable of drilling deep and semi-deep wells themselves, they forgot the hard, difficult, and extremely delicate task of protecting water. With the victory of the revolution, this forgetting was coupled with the benevolent intention of poverty alleviation, and in the following decades, with the idea of gaining more profit from water, land, and cultivation, it reached the current catastrophic moment, which has fundamentally cast doubt on the very revival of Iran’s environment.

The history of changing the regulations concerning the drilling of deep and semi-deep wells goes back to 1982, when a significant change was made to the “Fair Water Distribution” law, approved in 1968, in a note to Article 3 of this law. According to this change, the Ministry of Energy could issue legal permits for people’s unauthorized wells, provided they were not “detrimental to the public interest.” This law, in an atmosphere where the principle was poverty alleviation and self-sufficiency, practically led to massive deregulation in the water sector and the drilling of a multitude of deep and semi-deep wells across the country. Table two shows the statistics for the number of deep and semi-deep wells drilled over the past forty years:

Over a span of 40 years, the number of water wells in the country increased 14-fold, reaching 794,000. The process of legalizing unlicensed wells never stopped, and new laws facilitated it in the following decades. In 2010, a single-article bill was passed that allowed many wells to receive permits based on it. (Hamidreza Bazgasha, Iran newspaper, 18/2/1397) These laws, enacted in the heat of the deregulations recommended by neoliberals, practically deregulated the water sector. Farmers were constantly encouraged to cultivate more and enjoy more profit, and they continued drilling illegal wells. The result was that the number of water wells grew about seven times the rate of population increase, and the amount of water extraction reached five times the previous level. Considering the technology of the time, the meaning of the 1968 regulation, despite its grandiose name, was issuing permits to the select few who could manage such a task. The meaning of the parliament’s note in 1982 was issuing permits to the general public for the purpose of poverty alleviation. A benevolent act that turned into its opposite. The deregulation of 2010 was carried out in an atmosphere where all kinds of deregulations were undertaken under the title of entrusting people’s affairs to the people, and alongside the channeling of underground waters in the form of unwise dam constructions—which we will not discuss in this article—it led to the current catastrophe, for the improvement of which we must practice contentment in everything and abandon the consumerism beloved by neoliberals.

Obviously, deregulation in Iranian society, in areas such as “international economics,” has not been carried out to any great extent, and the free circulation of capital within an internationalized economic structure has not come into being—an issue that itself constitutes one of the important differences between Iran and certain countries where neoliberal economic policies have also been implemented at the international level.

– The State’s Non-Accountability in Social Services

A look at changes in the central government’s share (the part of the state responsible for providing collective services) of GDP shows that, according to a Central Bank report, this figure fell from 48 percent in 1355 [1976–77], to 20 percent in 1370 [1991–92], and finally to 24 percent in 1385 [2006–07] over the period from 1355 to 1385. (Bazmohammadi, Hossein and Akbar Cheshmi, 1385) During the same period, the size of the central government in countries such as South Korea, Turkey, France, Malaysia, and Norway followed an increasing trend, while in England it remained at the 40 percent level. (Omidi, 1397 – calculated from national budgets) The ratio of the general government budget to GDP in 2015 is compared for a number of countries in Table Three.

The figures show that after the peak share of the central government in GDP declined during the period of rising oil prices in the 50s [1970s], the central government’s share has consistently remained at around 20 percent of GDP, with few fluctuations. A figure that is far lower compared to most countries and indicates just how small the central government’s share is relative to GDP. Its meaning is simple: the state’s share in providing public services such as healthcare and education is smaller than all the countries listed in Table Three.

For example, in the field of higher education alone, free higher education shrank from 80 percent of the country’s higher education in 1369 [1990–91] to 13 percent in 1394 [2015–16]. According to statistics provided in the country’s statistical yearbooks, over 60 percent of the country’s universities in the 1393–1394 [2014–15] academic year were run by tuition-charging instructors (non-faculty educators).

– Preventing Society from Organizing

Preventing organizing means opposition to democracy. In this regard, the situation is completely clear and evident. The crackdown on workers’ trade unions and the associations of teachers, journalists, students, and intellectuals has been carried out systematically over the past four decades. In this domain, neoliberal policies have colluded with the authoritarian tendencies of the political apparatus and made conditions for society’s organizing extremely difficult. Confronting democracy means leaving society defenseless against neoliberal policies. In this respect, the 60s [1980s], by destroying all possibilities for society to organize, was one of the most important facilitators of the ground for implementing neoliberal policies.

People mistakenly think that only a specific group within the ruling establishment is responsible for preventing people from organizing. This situation, after the 60s [1980s], has reached this point through the collusion of neoliberals whose mentors compelled Pinochet to butcher organized people. One of the reified notions is precisely this word “private.” People have fallen victim to fabricated oppositions that these individuals, according to their philosophy, have put into circulation. One of these oppositions is “state versus private.” Whereas, in the face of the dualism of statism or neoliberalism, figures like Fariborz Raisdana defend democratic oversight, not statism. People think that “private” and “privatization” are not bad, and that the state’s or the ruling power’s interference in daily and nightly life is bad. They are unable to distinguish democratic freedoms from private freedom and do not grasp this statement by Hannah Arendt that speaking of private life is not democracy, and they do not know that the state or ruling power resorts to violence because of its partisanship for the private interests of a few.

12- What everyone has forgotten is that the neoliberals initially entered the arena claiming that if their prescriptions were followed, the country would have a robust economy, a flourishing industry, a dynamic commerce, and a productive agriculture, and as a result the Iranian people would be freed from dependence on oil revenues, with oil money being saved for the benefit of future generations. Yet when we look at the results of their policies after three decades, both globally and in Iran, according to all major statistical centers in the world, inequality has increased in a terrifying manner (including the IMF report; Dabla-Norris, 2015). The outcome of their policies in Iran has culminated in a horrific catastrophe. The decline of state social services, the environment, the erosion of social solidarity, and the exhaustion of the spirit and psyche have fundamentally endangered the very possibility of reproducing an entity called Iran. Not only has the country not become independent of oil revenues, but for its half-dead survival it has remained dependent on oil revenues, which must inevitably be distributed by the state. The state's policymaking for the consumption of oil revenues, as well as the transfer of some state-owned enterprises to entities under state supervision such as the Social Security Organization, has made the continuation of state intervention in certain spheres for the administration of the country unavoidable. Neoliberal policies in Iran have not only failed to reduce the intervention of the state and the ruling apparatus in the economy but have actually increased it. Moreover, based on the neoliberal principle that the wealthy should not be taxed—something Macron and Trump are currently doing—the issue of taxing the wealthy has essentially not been placed on the agenda in the Iranian state. Now, with the decline in oil revenues, the country faces a fateful dilemma.

One path is for the ruling apparatus, to compensate for the decline in oil revenue, to resort to further privatizations and even the private sale of oil—in accordance with the prescriptions of certain macro-economic documents of the country—and to continue retreating in the areas of education and health in order to earn a meager income. The neoliberal idea of the necessity of the state turning into a business enterprise increasingly compels the Iranian ruling apparatus to exert pressure on the middle and lower classes, to continue de-unionization, and, whether it wants to or not, to turn Iran into a paradise for the nouveau riche and a hell for the middle and lower classes of society. The continuation of policies stemming from the intermingling of the neoliberal intellectual system with a certain interpretation of religion has yielded results that some hastily label as plunder. Whereas these plunders are the logical consequence of adopting these policies. It is obvious that the continuation of these policies will only contribute to the deepening of the catastrophe. What will become of a country where, according to the Ministry of Welfare's "Poverty and Inequality" report in 1392 (2013/2014), nearly 35 percent of its population lived below the absolute poverty line? (Ministry of Cooperatives, Labour, and Social Welfare, 1392)

The other path is for the ruling apparatus to abandon neoliberal policies, to take the path of reconciliation with its nation and the world, to raise its issues with frankness and honesty with those strata of society that are civil by nature and seek dialogue to solve the country's problems, and to listen to the voice of organized and organizable groups in society such as teachers, workers, retirees, journalists, nurses, students, and ethnic, religious, and ideological minorities, and to strive in a democratic atmosphere, with their cooperation, to solve Iran's problems and afflictions, so that it can take the first steps in peace and tranquility to navigate this difficult juncture in Iran's contemporary history. The sole solution to our problems and difficulties is democracy.

13- Neoliberalism is a worldview. No one, especially the state, knew—and still does not know—that “capitalism” is, above all, a “spirit” that permeates every dimension of life, and its neoliberal version calls it to its ultimate end. Max Weber made this point in his work The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Weber points to the “lifestyle” of us human beings who live under the capitalist system. “This order is now bound to the technical and economic conditions of machine production which today determine the lives of all the individuals who are born into this mechanism—not only those directly concerned with economic acquisition—with irresistible force, and perhaps will continue to do so until the last ton of fossilized coal is burnt. In Baxter’s view the care for external goods should only lie on the shoulders of the saint like ‘a light cloak, which can be thrown aside at any moment.’ But fate decreed that the cloak should become an iron cage. … For of the last stage of this cultural development, it might well be truly said: ‘Specialists without spirit, sensualists without heart; this nullity imagines that it has attained a level of humanity never before achieved.’” (Weber, 2006) The more specialists without spirit and sensualists without heart dominate Iran, the more moral values decline. It is as if Ibn Khaldun predicted our fate. From asabiyyah in the early days, to the perception of culture as corruption in the middle days, to decay in the final days; Weber merely expressed it more concretely.

14- So far we have only spoken of the implementation of certain “neoliberal economic” policies. Alongside neoliberal economic policies, cultural processes have also been underway that have led to the construction of the “neoliberal subject.” An individualistic, pleasure-seeking, self-interested, and narcissistic subject who, in pursuit of the fastest possible success, beauty, and wealth, resorts to any pretext, whether legal or illegal, moral or corrupt. Such a subject has, in a continuous dialectical process, been constantly repressed by the religious state and reproduced with even greater force. Every step taken to suppress him has been a long stride toward granting him legitimacy. As Weber said, Protestantism, by transforming divine duty into everyday life, erased the distinction between the sacred and the profane that was characteristic of the traditional world. In Iran, with the generalization of the sacred and the disappearance of the distinction between the sacred and the secular, a massive desacralization took place at the hands of religion itself. Religion became present everywhere, but lost its sanctity and sanctuary. The doubling of religious days on the calendar, the vast increase in the number of mosques and religious associations, the constant presence of religion on state television and radio, the temporal and spatial expansion of “propaganda,” and the entry of religion into the most private spheres of individual life—none of these helped increase religion’s capacity to create social solidarity. (Shariati & Zakeri, 2015) Where everything is sacred, in reality nothing is sacred. Thus, religion found itself in the position of the accused for the inefficiency and systematic corruption. Religion’s ability to create moral solidarity and resist the formation of the neoliberal subject was destroyed. The results of surveys conducted over the past four decades indicate that social trust in society has more than halved between 1974 and 2014. In the 2010s, less than 20 percent of people considered each other trustworthy. (Goodarzi & Abdi, 2016; Ghaffari, 2015) The majority of people feel that negative moral values are widespread in society and that the country faces a worse future in various domains. (Goodarzi, 2003; Ghaffari, 2016) People are no longer willing to enter into social contracts with one another. Court cases have reached over 16 million. The war of all against all has begun. Guilds, syndicates, and other sectors of civil society are so frail that they lack the strength to withstand the tsunami of the “neoliberal subject.” In Iran, everyone is in some way infatuated with themselves. Will religion be able to revive morality?

In the end, the “neoliberal subject” does not attain the set of successes it chases after. The beautiful body, the advanced academic degree, the effortless job, the endless wealth, the beautiful companion, and the bloodless, heartless state alongside. Not only are all of these not attained together, but attaining any single one of them is also beyond the individual’s capacity. Thus the individual’s “self” grows weaker and weaker under the onslaught of various social, economic, political, and cultural attacks. The human being is born indebted. Indebted to the bank, indebted to wife and child and friend and family and neighbor, and most importantly, indebted to oneself. Capitalism has been deemed a religion without absolution. All responsibilities fall upon the individual alone. In neoliberalism, nothing matters except self-centeredness and a handful of abstract rules. Every individual is a rival to another and, inevitably, indifferent to the hardships of others. Compassion is a ridiculous fable and altruism is meaningless. The “essence of neoliberalism,” in Bourdieu’s phrase in an article of the same name, is the disappearance of all “collectives.” The narcissistic individual, terrified of the future, finds four paths ahead: corruption, depression, anxiety, heartless hedonism. In short: there is no such thing as society, and its dialectical correlate, the individual, does not exist either.

15- Antagonism toward the humanities in the name of religion is collusion with the neoliberals. Currents that have spoken of the “death of society” and “sociology” and have defended a kind of “particularism” and the “uniqueness” of our situation have, wittingly or unwittingly, colluded with the neoliberals. Their assault on the social sciences blinded society’s eyes, and even those of the rulers, to the most important socio-economic transformation after the revolution, namely the “neoliberal turn.” In a situation where society needed Marx, Weber, Simmel, Durkheim, and even Parsons and others more than ever to tell it what ominous fate was taking shape, they directed their attack at the social sciences, blocked the entry of qualified individuals into the university, and thus the academy remained dysfunctional and society’s eyes remained blind. But neoliberal policies marched on.

16- Neoliberal policies lead the way to fascism, because they atomize the individual and grip them with the paranoia of competition. In the absence of social organizations through which the individual can link their life with the life of another, human masses take shape that are fascinated by authority and submit to it. The “authoritarian personality” seeks its myth sometimes symbolically in religious rites, sometimes pins its hopes on the Reza Shah era past, and sometimes, through the envious adulation of sports, art, and social media “celebrities,” derives pleasure from what it lacks and harbors hatred for what it possesses. All these seemingly scattered states speak to a single social-psychological mechanism that Freud in “Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego” (Freud, 1393) and Adorno in “The Authoritarian Personality” (Adorno, 1950) and the essay “Freudian Theory and the Pattern of Fascist Propaganda” (Adorno, 1382) have analyzed well. This is how a society may suddenly become fascist. Enzo Traverso begins his book “The New Faces of Fascism” (Traverso, 2019) thus: “The rise of the radical right is one of the most important features of our present historical moment. In 2018, the governments of eight countries in the European Union (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia) are in the hands of parties that are far-right, nationalist, and xenophobic.” He continues that three countries—France, Germany, and Italy—are on the verge of sliding into the embrace of fascism, considers Trump’s election the starting point of this global current, and says that since the 1930s the world has never been this close to fascism, a fascism that Mises, in “Liberalism: In the Classical Tradition” (2002), praised with these words: “It cannot be denied that Fascism and similar movements aiming at the establishment of dictatorships are full of the best intentions and that their intervention has, for the moment, saved European civilization.” (Von Mises, 2002) This praise was bestowed upon Mussolini not only for the suppression of leftist forces, but for crushing all pro-democracy forces.

17- Thus far, to the best of our ability, we have observed precision in discussing some of the characteristics of neoliberal policies in Iran. Now it is the turn of others to express their views specifically and precisely regarding these policies, their executors, and their consequences in Iran. Describing neoliberal policies in Iran aside; how can we exit this situation? It is in answering this question that we must define our boundaries with three factions. First, those who continue to promote "economic rightism" within the country; second, those who "speak of justice-seeking"; and third, those who wish to bring freedom and democracy as a gift to Iranians alongside the US Army—the very things that were promised to Iraq.

The first group is the old guard of the establishment, both Reformist and Principlist. The old guard must be asked: how far must the catastrophe proceed before they abandon the very policies that have caused this catastrophic situation?

The second group is the new guard of the establishment, a spectrum of forces close to the ruling power who today imagine themselves as advocates of social justice. They have numerous platforms at their disposal, from the state broadcasting to pre-Friday prayer sermons, universities, mosques, and cultural headquarters, without stating what the condition for the realization of justice is, or even how the first half-step toward achieving it should be taken. They must answer this question: now that the war of all against all has begun, what is their solution for ending this situation? And what affirmative plan do they have to remedy this state of affairs? And what is their relationship with "peace with the world" and "democracy in Iran"?

The third group are the expatriate neoliberals who, centered around the restoration of the monarchy, are busy lobbying with the new right-wingers, or in other words, the new fascists in the world.

18- One must defend the formation of a coalition of various groups of people to secure free education and healthcare, the right to housing, a sufficient minimum wage, insurance, and other social services for all people. The main demands of such a coalition would be "education, healthcare, housing, work, insurance, organization, freedom, and democracy" in opposition to the old and new guards.

The old and new guards aside, the expatriate neoliberals also transform democratic freedoms into private liberties and detest democracy. Although they promise democracy, the foundation of their thought is anti-democratic and against the freedoms that people need to determine their own destiny. The economic school of these expatriate liberal graduates is the same old neoliberalism that their professors have been promoting and implementing in various countries around the world for thirty years. The expatriate neoliberals believe they will overcome two obstacles that the old neoliberals have so far been unable to surmount: integration into the global market, or in other words, the realization of foreign investment, and the actualization of private liberties.

The professors of these individuals, the old neoliberals, had previously stated that now national sovereignties must "inevitably" follow and obey "unified notions" "in principle and strategy," and if they do not accept these unified notions now, "in the not-too-distant future" they will have no choice but to submit to them. (Deputy for Economic Affairs and Planning of the Plan and Budget Organization, 1383 [2004/2005])

Iran’s transformation into a vast ghetto is the result of the failure to realize that submission, because the interests of certain entrepreneurs are tied to this non-submission. The black market has its own entrepreneurs. Expatriate neoliberals imagine that by winning the friendship of America and Israel, they will open the path to foreign investment. This friendship will not be possible except through an American attack on Iran. Even Mr. Ardeshir Zahedi calls this group’s efforts treasonous. They imagine that a living, present Iran will always remain throughout history and do not know that great powers have already drawn up plans for Iran’s partition. After such an attack, or even the continuation of the sanctions regime, nothing by the name of Iran may remain. The people of Iran would do well to take a proper look at the news of Iran and the world, especially the situation in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan, which America promised to “liberate.” This group and democracy? Even if they do not know it, they will be the executors of neoliberal policies, which are the sole American option for all the countries they have invaded so far. Despite the fact that after the American attack on Iraq, American companies imposed disgraceful contracts on the Iraqi people, Trump still complains about why America did not swallow Iraq’s oil in one gulp. But where is the philosophical reason for this worldview’s opposition to democracy? Hayek, their philosopher and economist, proposed that second chamber for the very reason of vetoing the votes of ordinary people. In a “courageous” article in the second volume of the book Law, Legislation and Liberty: The Mirage of Social Justice (Hayek, 2003), he attacked democratic principles and non-free-market human rights:

Article 22 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality”;

Article 23, paragraph 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment”;

Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits”;

Article 28 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized”;

These articles are all, in Hayek’s view, meaningless. But they are precisely the clauses that give meaning to a dignified life for humankind. One must ask: is the enjoyment of the right to the free development of one’s personality, the free choice of one’s work, having just and favourable conditions of work, enjoying protection against unemployment, freely participating in cultural life, sharing in the arts and scientific advancement, and having the right to demand an order in the social and international sphere that guarantees all the rights and freedoms set forth in the articles of the Declaration of Human Rights, meaningless? If these are removed, what remains but the freedom to buy and to display it? Based on Article 28, calling for an American attack on Iran for regime change, or even American assistance for regime change, is a “treasonous” act. Just as the sanctioning of nations under various pretexts is also an act against humanity and against “the establishment of order in the social and international sphere.”

The current state of the world, according to many experts, bears a great resemblance to the 1920s and 1930s. Decades when fascism took over the reins from the then-disintegrated liberalism and handed the world’s year zero to the surviving people. A neoliberal like Mises, when he defended Mussolini’s fascism, knew why, despite all of Mussolini’s violations of democratic principles, he had to defend him.

But the second issue is that of private freedoms, the realization of which is another pretext for this group. By resorting to vulgar psychological techniques and creating nostalgia, pointing to the vulnerabilities of the middle class and certain impoverished classes in the face of these techniques, they fabricate a false past, yet say nothing of the future except the slaughter of the red and black reaction, and presumably handing over others’ property or lack thereof, and “real privatization,” and entrusting matters to proper entrepreneurs—that is, themselves. We emphasize that to resolve such conflicts, including the issue of hijab, different segments of society must engage in free dialogue with one another. Here, too, the only solution is democracy, and democracy is not the dictatorship of the majority over the minority. Safeguarding the rights of all minorities is the essence of democracy.

19- Thus far, we have tried to show how the boundary of this analytical framework is drawn against all factions that continue to prescribe “economic rightward movement” for the country. As explained, within the country, both the Reformist and Principlist factions, at their highest levels, have advanced these policies in their entirety over the past three decades and still maintain a consensus on the necessity of pursuing them. The proclamation of the general policies of Article 44 of the Constitution in 2005, the content of the former president’s “Economics in Plain Language” lessons, the repeated statements by officials on the necessity of ever-greater privatization of state-owned companies, education, and healthcare up to the end of 2019, are full-fledged examples demonstrating such a consensus. A consensus for which neoliberal scholars have provided scientific legitimacy to governments, and governments have embraced it wholeheartedly. The ultimate revision made to them is the repetition of the cliché of replacing “bad, incorrect, and non-transparent privatization” with “good, correct, transparent, and real privatization.” Today—aside from those for whom the very nature of the problem remains unclear even at the academic level—the political interests of all these groups lie in concealing the consensus that has always existed among them in implementing “neoliberal policies.” The prominence of their political differences has helped mask their economic consensus. They have never grasped that neoliberalism is a worldview, not economics. That aside, why was this catastrophic worldview chosen for development and progress in the first place? Today, the government and the ruling establishment must explain to the Iranian people why they fundamentally continue to insist on the continuation of this program in one form or another.

20- Throughout these forty years, status-holding groups have constantly lectured the Iranian people and carved out models for them. The Iranian people have not had the opportunity to speak for themselves. The current situation is a battle of these models against one another. Democracy is the only path that gives the people the opportunity to speak for themselves and articulate their own predicaments. The people—including teachers, women, workers, children, ethnic and religious minorities, nurses, journalists, and students—must be given the chance to freely form their own organizations and, in a free environment, speak about their problems and raise their demands so that, with the aid of reason, they can find solutions to improve Iran’s current condition. Only then will everyone learn not to cling to the images and models constructed for them, and, like mature individuals, contemplate their own fate, that of their compatriots, and their homeland, and, in an atmosphere free of malice, learn the ways out of this difficult situation. This is why democracy and the freedom to express opinions without fear and dread are more vital for everyone than their daily bread. For it is only on the basis of democracy that people will attain maturity. Kant defined enlightenment as emergence from immaturity, nonage, and irresponsibility, and Adorno added that democracy rests solely on education in political and social affairs and moral awareness, and to achieve this and avoid irrationality, every human being must find the capacity and courage to make full use of their rational powers. Tomorrow cannot be built on malice toward today, but rather through the imagination of a world in which the improvement of each individual’s condition is the precondition for the improvement of another’s.

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PDF file of the article by Yousef Abazari and Arman Zakeri: “Three Decades of Religion and Neoliberalism’s Coexistence in Iran”

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