|
Pollution
Without
doubt, the Islamic government should treat pollution as harmful to
society. It does not treat pollution as a question of property
rights that can be settled by compensating the injured party by the
polluter. The Islamic position is that the one who causes an injury
must pay for it. Therefore, the Islamic economy can adopt either
of the following solutions:
-
Compel the polluter to adopt improved technology in order to reduce
the pollution at the source. In this way, the polluter will pay for
his pollution directly; or
-
Levy a pollution tax if the level of pollution is beyond a certain
tolerable limit. Regulating Advertising
.
One
of the distinct features of the Islamic economy is that it is a low
cost economy where simple living is a virtue. Spending beyond one's
means is a vice, and it is condemned. This is almost the reverse of
the capitalist society in which consumption per se has become a
virtue. Partly, this is because of the myopic vision of the society
that does not see beyond the life of this world, but more so because
of the demands that modern corporations have placed on creation. In
modern society, demand is created through advertising. Sometimes
advertising creates consumer demand by appealing to baser motives
such as sex, ostentation, emulation, and hypocrisy. It aims at
manipulating a gullible public into buying products at inflated
prices. Advertising is often justified by saying that it provides
information to the consumer and as a result enables him to decide
rationally about the most cost-effective option. At the microlevel
this may be partly true. But from the macroeconomic point of view,
advertising creates demand and prodigality, which is against the
norms of Islam. Advertising is supported by the availability of
interest-based credit in the form of credit cards and corporations
feel compelled to create demand to keep the system going. But the
whole mechanism of creating demand for goods that are unnecessary is
repugnant to Islam. It adds unnecessary costs to the price structure
and results in a dead weight cost upon the society. Islamic
governments should adopt the following policies to control and
regulate advertising:
-
Set up a standing commission to oversee and monitor its contents,
appeal, and format to ensure that it does not violate Islamic
values;
-
Fix the expenditure ceiling on advertising for any product to a
specified percentage of the cost of production (providing the dual
advantage of keeping prices low as well restraining the economically
powerful corporations from creating market entry barriers); and
-
Levy a tax on advertising expenditure beyond a certain limit;
alternatively, disallow such expenses beyond a certain limit as a
business expense for tax purposes.
Patents
The
patent system refers to the protection of an exclusive right to
produce a product. Governments often give such rights to innovators;
however, this system could discourage competition. What is the
Islamic position on it? The question of patent is closely linked
with intellectual property rights. Although this question has not
been discussed explicitly in the primary sources of Islam, generally
Islamic law considers intellectual property rights as sacred as
private property rights. The person who has an idea and invested
effort and money into developing it has the right to get benefit
from it. If we do not protect his right, in the long run it
discourages innovation in society. As a result, society will become
deficient intellectually. Nonprotection of patent rights can also
encourage freeloaders.
Therefore, it seems perfectly in accordance with the Shari`ah to
grant patent rights. However, some patent rights can be misused; for
example, the patent holder might use the system to handicap rivals,
create a monopoly in another market, or otherwise conspire against
the consumer. Knowing this, how can we reduce the restraining
effects of this regulation? Some proposals are the following:
-
The process of checking originality of the proposed patent should be
made quite rigorous so that only genuine addition to knowledge and
techniques are protected;
-
The life of the patent should be kept short so that the benefits of
knowledge spread to others;
-
Freeloaders and imitators should be punished so that genuine
innovators are encouraged and new products come into the market
quicker;
-
The patent holder should be made to get the patent renewed at a fee
that can be made progressive for each subsequent renewal. This would
discourage sleeping patents; and
-
The government may allocate higher funds for research and
development in the public sector and give incentives to innovators.
These innovations need not be patented.
Restrictions
on Private Property
In
an Islamic economy, individuals do not have an unrestricted freedom
to use, manipulate, transfer, or destroy property. The right to own
comes with obligations. One of the obligations is that no owner may
waste his property. The jurists have inferred from the Qur'an (4:3)
that a person who wastes his property through extravagance should be
restrained from doing so. This is known as the law of hajr. If the
government determines that the owner of a property does not have the
ability to use it prudently or intends to waste it knowingly, the
government may restrain the owner from using or transferring it. The
Islamic government could, for example, put a limit on his
withdrawals from his bank account or his right to sell some
property. This type of discretion is not available to capitalist
governments where the individual's right to property is completely
inviolable.(12)
|
