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The System of Dependent Capitalism in Pre- And Post- Revolutionary Iran

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

M. H. Pesaran
M. H. Pesaran
Affiliation:
Trinity CollegeCambridge
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Extract

Whatever their underlying causes, social upheavals and revolutions represent violent and often anarchic manifestations of the masses' frustrations and unfulfilled aspirations in the face of nonresponsive despotic rulers with an autocratic and suppressive bureaucratic machinery. Iran's revolution of February 1979 was first and foremost a popular uprising against the dictatorial rule of the Shah. The millions of people who throughout 1978–1979 joined street demonstrations were united in what they wanted to dispose of and whom they were fighting against. Mobilized under the tactical tripartite alliance of the ulama (men of religion), the bazaris (merchants, small traders, and shopkeepers), and the intelligentsia (secular liberal reformists and leftist revolutionaries), the masses were determined to topple the Shah's rule. The demise of the old regime seemed to be the only obstacle to a promising future. Beyond this immediate aim there was, and still is, no agreement as to the root causes of the February revolution and its ultimate objectives.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 14 , Issue 4 , November 1982 , pp. 501 - 522
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

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References

NOTES

1 For a presentation of this view by non-Iranian scholars see the text of four lectures given by Algar, H., “The Islamic Revolution in Iran,” at the Muslim Institute (London, 1980),Google Scholar and the booklet by Siddiqui, K. et al. , The Islamic Revolution: Achievements, Obstacles and Goals (London, 1980). See also the introduction of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran recently translated by Algar where it is forcefully argued that “the basic characteristic of the Revolution, which distinguishes it from other movements that have taken place in Iran during the past hundred years, is its ideological and Islamic nature” (Mizan Press, Berkeley, Calif.).Google Scholar

2 On the clergy-state relations both in the past and in contemporary Iran see Algar, H., Religion and State in Iran 1785–1906 – The Role of Ulama in the Qajar Period (Berkeley and Los Angeles, Calif., 1969)Google Scholar and Akhavi, S., Religion and Politics in Contemporary Iran: Clergy-State Relations in the Pahlavi Period (Albany, N.Y., 1980).Google Scholar On the important and controversial issue of the role of the ulama in Shi⊂ite communities see particularly Lambton, A. K. S., “A Reconsideration of the Position of theMarj⊂al-taqlid and the Religious Institutions,” Studia Islamica, 20 (1964), 115–135;CrossRefGoogle ScholarKeddie, N. R., “The Roots of Ulama's Power in Modern Iran,” Studia Islamica, 29 (1969), 31–53;CrossRefGoogle ScholarAlgar, H., “The Oppositional Role of the Ulama in Twentieth-Century Iran,” in Keddie, N.R., ed., Scholars. Saints and Sufis (Berkeley and Los Angeles, Calif., 1972);Google ScholarElisha, J., “Misconceptions Regarding the Juridical Status of the Iranian ‘Ulama’,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, 10 (1979), 9–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 The fact that Shi⊃a Islam has always represented itself in the form of a protest movement has been emphasized by many writers including Keddie, N. R., “Religion and Irreligion in Early Iranian Nationalism,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 4 (1961), 265–295;CrossRefGoogle ScholarAlgar, , “The Oppositional Role of the Ulama in Twentieth-Century Iran”;Google Scholar and Ayoob, M., “The Revolutionary Thrust of Islamic Political Tradition,” Third World Quarterly, 3, 2 (04, 1981), 269–276.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 In his article Ayoob suggests, with some justification, that the adherence of Shi⊃a Iran to the doctrine of Velayat-i-Faqih may be a “Landmark in the transformation of Shi⊃a Islam from a vehicle of protest and opposition to one of established order,” ibid.

5 For a detailed discussion of the major socioeconomic factors argued by most secular forces to have been instrumental in bringing about the February Revolution see Halliday, F., Iran: Dictatorship and Development, 2d ed. (London, 1979);Google Scholar and “The Genesis of the Iranian Revolution,” Third World Quarterly, 1, 4 (10, 1979), 1–16;Google ScholarGraham, R., Iran, the Illusion of Power, revised edition (London, 1979);Google ScholarSaikal, A., The Rise and Fall of the Shah: 1941–1979 (London, 1980);Google ScholarWalton, T., “Economic Development and Revolutionary Upheavals in Iran,” Cambridge Journal of Economics, 4 (1980), 271–292;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Katouzian, H., The Political Economy of Modern Iran: Despotism and Pseudo-Modernism, 1926–1979 (London, 1981).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 A comprehensive account of the origins of the communist movement in Iran can be found in Zabih, S., The Communist Movement in Iran (Berkeley, Calif., 1966).Google Scholar The historical origins and development of the Organization of Iranian People's Fedai⊃i Guerrillas, or Fedai⊃i-i Khalq as it is more commonly known, are described by the organization itself in Jazani, B., Capitalism and Revolution in Iran (London, 1980), pp. iv–xvi.Google Scholar

7 Some writers such as Ayoob see the Islamic Marxists' ideologies as a ‘potent and heady mixture’ in the revolutionary struggle of the masses against their ‘impious governments’ in the Muslim world.

8 On this and related issues see Ledeen, M. A. and Lewis, W. H., “Carter and the Fall of the Shah: The Inside Story,” The Washington Quarterly, 3, 2 (Spring, 1980), 3–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 For details of the 1953 U.S. intervention in Iran see Wise, D. and Ross, T. B., The Invisible Government (London, 1962), pp. 110–114;Google ScholarTully, A., CIA: The Inside Story (London, 1962) chap. 7;Google Scholar and especially the first hand account given by Roosevelt, K., Counter-Coup: The Struggle for the Control of Iraṉ (New York, 1979), who repeatedly goes out of his way to implicate the British government in the planning and execution of the coup.Google Scholar

10 There is, of course, no shortage of theories of revolution some of which are reviewed and discussed for example by Davies, J. C., “Toward a Theory of Revolution,” American Sociological Review, 27 (1962), 5–19;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Freeman, M., “Theories of Revolution,” British Journal of Political Science, 2 (1972), 339–359.CrossRefGoogle Scholar What, however, seems to be lacking is a theoretical framework which explains the rising militancy of Islam and its interrelationship with mounting socioeconomic problems and the changing nature of imperialism and social relations. However, see Jansen, G. H., Militant Islam (London, 1979),Google Scholar for an interesting, although not very rigorous, discussion of the contemporary upsurge in Islamic militancy. A brief discussion of the general reasons behind the Islamic Revival in most Muslim countries is also given by Keddie, N. R., “Iran: Change in Islam; Islam and Change,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, 11 (1980), 527–542.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 Even the royalists with their conspiracy theories and the Muslim fundamentalists with the promise of a better life in the other world (!) can hardly afford to ignore economic fadtors and the impact that worsening economic conditions may have upon their political fortunes.

12 The idea of ‘dependent” capitalist development in the sense that it is the state and foreign capital which play the decisive role in implanting capitalist social and production relations is not new and originated in the writings of Baraṅ, P. A., The Political Economy of Growth (New York, N.Y., 1957)Google Scholar and Frank, A. G., “The Development of Underdevelopment,” Monthly Review, 18 (1966), 17–31;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Frank, , Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America: Historical Studies of Chile and Brasil (New York, N.Y., 1967).Google Scholar Our particular use of the concept of ‘dependent capitalism’ is, however, based on the work of Ashraf, A., “Historical Obstacles to the Development of a Bourgeoisie in Iran” in Cook, M. A., ed., Studies in The Economic History of the Middle East (Oxford, 1970), pp. 308–332;Google Scholar and should not be taken to mean that we fully adhere to the type of ‘dependency theories’ that have been put forward by Frank and others to explain the underdevelopment of Latin American countries. For a useful critical survey of these dependency theories see Palma, G., “Dependency and Development: A Critical Overview,” in Seers, Dudley, ed., Dependency Theory – A Critical Reassessment (London, 1981).Google Scholar

13 See Annual Reports, Central Bank of Iran, 1349 (1970/1971), and 1356 (1977/1978).Google Scholar

14 On this see Chapter 11 of Katouzian's, book, The Political Economy of Modern Iran,Google Scholar and Chapter 3 of Zonis, M., The Political Elite of Iran (Princeton, N.J., 1971).Google Scholar

15 The import substitution industrialization strategy typically involves the replacement of imported manufactured goods by domestically produced commodities and basically relies upon tariffs and import quotas and the granting of all kinds of tax and investment incentives to local industrialists and their foreign partners. Over the last three decades many developing countries, especially in Latin America, have pursued such a strategy to overcome their growing balance of payment deficits on current account and to achieve a fast rate of industrialization. For further details see Power, J. H., “Import Substitution as an Industrialization Strategy,” Philippine Economic Journal, 5 (1966), 167–204;Google ScholarHirschman, A. D., “The Political Economy of Import-substituting Industrialization in Latin America,” Journal of Political Economy, 82 (1968), 2–32;Google Scholar and Bruton, H. J., “The Import- Substitution Strategy of Economic Development: A Survey,” Pakistan Development Review. 10, 2 (Summer, 1970), 137–143.Google Scholar

16 See Pesaran, M. H., “Income Distribution and Its Major Determinants in Iran,” in Jacqz, J. W., ed., Iran, Past, Present and Future (Aspen, Cob., 1976), pp. 267–286;Google Scholar and Pesaran, M. H and Gahvary, F., “Growth and Income Distribution in Iran,” in Stone, R. and Peterson, W., eds., Econometric Contributions to Public Policy (London, 1978), pp. 231–248.Google Scholar

17 For a detailed discussion of these types of regional disparities see Pesaran, M. H., “Social Welfare and Planning,” in the Proceedings of the Second National Seminar on Social Welfare, in Persian (Tehran, 1976).Google Scholar

18 Due to a dispute between the National Iranian Oil Company and the international oil consortium the figure of $18.7 billion represents only II months of revenues from the sales of Iranian oil in 1353 (1974/75). The revenues for the last month of 1353 were held over to the following year.

19 A comprehensive discussion of different types of bottlenecks that followed the implementation of the Revised Fifth Development Plan can be found in Halliday, , Iran: Dictatorship and Development;Google ScholarGraham, , Iran: the Illusion of Power; and the Survey published on Iran in 08 28, 1976, issue of the Economist.Google Scholar

20 A critique of import substitution industrialization strategy in the case of Latin American countries can be found in Baer, W., “Import Substitution and Industrialization in Latin America: Experience and Interpretations,” Latin American Research Review, 7 (1972), 95–122,Google Scholar and more generally in Little, I. M. D., Scitovsky, T., and Scott, M., Industry and Trade in Some Developing Countries (Oxford, 1970). Our particular criticism of this strategy is directed exclusively to the Iranian experience and should not be taken as a general critique of the import substitution strategy. On the contrary, we believe that without some kind of import restrictions industrialization in a developing country such as Iran may not be possible. It is the particular features of the Iranian experience which are of interest to us here, rather than the abstract ideological issues that inevitably surround the trade policy of developing countries in general.Google Scholar

21 During the Fifth Development Plan 75 percent of government revenues and 85 percent of the country's current foreign exchange receipts came from revenues from oil exports alone. See Table 2 in Walton, , “Economic Development and Revolutionary Upheavals in Iran,” p. 279.Google Scholar

22 This point is also discussed by Mahdavi, H., “The Patterns and Problems of Economic Development in Rentier States: The Case of Iran,” in Cook, M. A., ed., Studies in the Economic History of the Middle East (Oxford, 1970), pp. 428–467;Google Scholar and more recently by Katouzian, , The Political Economy of Modern Iran.Google Scholar

23 A description of Iran's industrialization in the context of the organization of production on a world scale is given by Clawson, D., “The Internationalization of Capital and Capital Accumulation in Iran,” in Nore, P. and Turner, T., eds., Oil and Class Struggle (London, 1980), pp. 143–171. Clawson argues that capitalism was introduced into Iran by the dynamic of internationalization of capital accumulation. Without denying that ‘international capital’ did have an important role in Iran's industrialization under the Pahlavis, it is, however, rather naive to believe that without oil revenues and a dictatorship committed to ‘modernization at any cost,’ the dynamic of international capital on its own would have led the multi-national companies into Iran.Google Scholar

24 See Ashraf, “Historical Obstacles to the Development of a Bourgeoisie in Iran.”

25 For a detailed discussion of Islamic principles governing national and international economic relations see Rodinson, M., Islam and Capitalism (Austin, Tex., 1978);Google Scholar and for a Shi⊃ite interpretation Sayyid, Muhammad-Baqer Sadr'sEqtisad-i Ma in two volumes;Google Scholar and Abulhasan, Bani-Sadr'sEqtisad-i Tuhidi (in Persian).Google Scholar

26 The Sunnah refers to the totality of the ‘traditions’ which record what the prophet is supposed to have said or done. Unlike the Quran which is a well-defined document, the Sunnah is composed of a very large and not so well defined number of short texts.

27 From Rodinson, , Islam and Capitalism, p. 117.Google Scholar

28 From Ragab, I. A., “Islam and Development,” World Development, 8 (1980), 514.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

29 So far two different translations of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran into the English language have appeared. One is by Algar, H. published by Mizan Press in Berkeley, California. The other is prepared by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service reproduced in Middle East Journal, 34 (1980), 184–204. The quotation is from the latter source, p. 193.Google Scholar

30 On this aspect of the Bazargan government seePetrossian, V., “Dilemmas of the Iranian Revolution,” The World Today, 36, 1 (01, 1980), 19–25;Google Scholar and Rouleau, E., “Khomeini's Iran,” Foreign Affairs, 60 (Fall, 1981), 1–20.Google Scholar

31 The Housing Foundation was established in March 1979 by a decree from Ayatullah Khumayni himself to construct dwellings for the “Powerless Ones.” The Foundation for the Powerless Ones was set up to manage the assets of the ‘Pahlavi Foundation’ and other assets confiscated in the aftermath of the revolution. The Organization for Construction Crusade formally commenced its operation in early June 1979 with the aim of transforming and revitalizing the socioeconomic and cultural life of the rural and deprived regions of the country.

32 An interesting account of the formation of “Workers' Councils” throughout Iran in the aftermath of the revolution is given by Azad, S., “Workers' and Peasants' Councils in Iran,” Monthly Review, 32 (1980), 14–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

33 Details of how the strikes in the oil fields were organized are given by an anonymous Iranian oil worker in the book edited by Nore, Peter and Turner, Teresa entitled Oil and Class Struggle, pp. 293–301. See also Turner's article in this collection, pp. 272–292.Google Scholar

34 See Bulletin of Central Bank of Iran, the First and Second Quarters of 1359 (1980/1981), page 150 (in Persian).Google Scholar

35 Due to a dispute over prices, Iran's gas exports to the Soviet Union were stopped in early 1980.

36 The picture we have tried to depict of the present state of the Iranian economy is wholly based on official sources and is likely to be an underestimation of the depth and diversity of the economic crisis that the country is going through. For a more alarming picture see Quarterly Economic Review of Iran, 2d Quarter 1981, published by The Economist Intelligence Unit, London.Google Scholar

37 In the two months after the dismissal of Bani Sadr in June 1981, political executions have been reported at an average rate of 10 per day and will most likely continue for some time. Everyone in the country is asked to spy on their neighbors and the establishment of a new organization exclusively for the purpose of collecting information on opponents of the regime has been demanded by Ayatullah Muntaziri, the clergy tipped off as Ayatullah Khumeyni's successor.