There should exist among the citizens neither extreme poverty nor, again, excessive wealth, for both are productive of great evil. - Plato, The Republic

COMMENT Any move for a more robust democracy and the establishment of a civil state or, in the Islamic Party of Malaysia (PAS) terminology, a state of care and opportunity, is simply futile without a comprehensive economic agenda.

The recent developments in the Middle East and North Africa post-Arab Spring suggest that any transformation of political nature would be void of values if there is no concomitant change in the economic agenda. Hence it is imperative for the Islamic party that vies the change in government to pay particular attention to this matter.

The Muslim Brotherhood, or more famously known as al-Ikhwan, is probably the most organised civil society in Egypt. It has, for example, been criticised for its economic agenda that prioritises the one percent of the population. They are known now as "the Brotherhood's one percent", a term initially coined by the world protest movement Occupy.

These one percent refer to the tiny, wealthy segment of the ruling elite that benefits from the economic policy against the 99 percent of the population that is outside the circle. There was no significant change in the neo-liberal policy of the previous regime that benefited a few wealthy entrepreneurs, with emphasis on free market and privatisation, except in curbing corrupt practices.

Critics maintained that with this neo-liberal policy, it would not lessen the burden of funding of the state but on the other hand, the private sector would be more dependent on state patronage at the expense of the taxpayers and consumers. Hence, the essence of this privatisation project mainly leads to the accumulation of the wealth of the one percent.

The liberals and free-market proponents often argue that the creation of the wealthy one percent would then in turn lift up the poor with them. However, history has shown that the greed of man will certainly promise failure for such a noble idea. The very fact that the Arab Spring revolution erupted in the Middle East and North Africa region is witness to such a failure.

Thus, an approach to just economic system that would stay true to the spirit of social justice is probably similar to the one laid out by the late Muslim Brotherhood authority in economics, Abdel-Hamid el-Ghazali.

Abdel-Hamid said: "Islam and its economic system and approach to development is a real, continuous and successful war on all forms of economic injustice - meaning exploitation - through a distinct and absolute ban on usury and deceit; monopoly and hoarding; extravagance and tricking; cheating and undervaluation; fraud and deception; bribery and nepotism. And all other forms of unjustly taking away people's money, as well as all forms of improper practices in economic activities in production, distribution and consumption."

The failed economic agenda

The main criticism against any Islamist party in the modern world today - especially the Brotherhood - is their economic policy that would set them apart from other ideological forces.

What is clear is that it would be safe to assume that there are no fundamental differences between the Islamist and those of any authoritarian regime. So one may ask a very pertinent question: Do Islamists have an economic agenda different from the one of their predecessors?

Now, the usual term being used by many Islamists is "Islamic economy", a controversial term among the academic and intellectual circles. This term basically denotes a distinct economic system that is set apart from the "capitalist and socialist ideologies".

The problem is that there is a very distinct separation between what is supposed to be Islamic values to that of the practice in such system. A clear example is that of the so-called "Islamic banks" that basically replace conventional terms with Islamic (read: Arabic) terms but seem to be more repressive than the conventional banks.

This concept of Islamic economy has turned into a very profitable business, banking on the ignorance of the masses and the deceitful usage of Arabic terminologies that are construed as Islamic.

And Islamic clerics with doctoral degrees in banking and economics are the main collaborators, since they participated in laying down the legal and doctrinal basis of the economic transactions and endorsed the banking products as syariah-compliant.

In actual sense such transactions are in direct conflict with the values of justice that underlie the basis of Islamic economy.

More apparent is the dichotomy between what is stipulated in the Islamists' economy and their actual policy. Many of the actual economic policies on the ground are not much different from the capitalist practices that prevailed during the era of the former regime.

This has led to many researchers to describe the Muslim Brotherhood's economic vision as a neo-liberal vision similar to that of its predecessor. Islamists also failed to realise that such policies were among the major causes that sparked the revolt against the previous regimes.

Why Egyptians poured onto the streets

In fact, one of the defining slogans of the Egyptian Revolution was the chant of "bread, freedom and social justice". As Oxford University Professor Walter Armbrust states: "Egypt and Tunisia are the first nations to carry out successful revolutions against neo-liberal regimes', and the failure of neoliberalism in Egypt was one of the prime motivations for people to pour out onto the streets."

Furthermore, there appears to be a separation between the Islamist ideological discourse and their economic behaviour. On one hand they talked about transparency, accountability and social justice but these are met with inflated wealth among "Islamist" businessmen at the expense of the poor.

It is basically a theory that focuses on the wealthy by increasing their numbers - by raising the ceiling that was placed on the Brotherhood's one percent - which is believed would in turn lift up the poor with them. But then the failure of these arguments and projects are the very reason why there was a revolution in the first place.

Without doubt, many Islamists derived their inspiration from the economic model provided by the Turkish Justice and Development Party (AKP) that has been touted to have successfully elevated the country's gross domestic product (GDP) and paid the last instalment of its debt to the International Monetary Fund.

However it is of note that in the last decade, Turkey has borrowed increasingly more in the international financial markets, and in particular, the foreign debt of the private sector has reached unforeseen levels. This is obviously a very fragile situation, for when the private debtors go bankrupt, the private losses are often socialised.

Through its economic policies, the AKP has been imposing its neo-liberal agenda by increasingly commercialising public services, creating areas of rent for large corporations and eroding the living standards and security of a significant part of the working class.

While Turkey's GDP has increased, the income distribution is very skewed. And if the Gini coefficient is any measure of income inequality, then India is said to beat Turkey by far, .34 to .40 in 2010 respectively, where the lower the Gini coefficient, the lower the income inequality.

Unfortunately, the delusive success story of increase in GDP has reinforced misplaced faith in the free market despite the fact that the social indicators of development, such as the number of people living below the poverty line, took a downturn after 2008. The AKP has somehow managed to amplify the neo-liberal policies that have been in existence since the 1990s.

This further attests to the fact that "Islamists" do not have their own economic agenda, apart from a continuation of the prevailing capitalist system. And the planned urban restructuring of Taksim Square and the destruction of Gezi Park has to be understood in the context of state-driven privatisation projects propelled by the underlying neo-liberal policy.

Tomorrow: The unfinished revolution

DR AHMAD FAROUK MUSA is a director at the Islamic Renaissance Front and an academician with Monash University.