The higher cultural values will be put within the reach of...

The higher cultural values will be put within the reach of all alike through community support and the diffusion of education. Although communism solved some of the problems of capitalism at the cost of immense human suffering, the remedy was only partial.

Dictatorship, repression, deprival of individual freedoms, constant fear of imprisonment, torture and execution for the dissidents, loss of economic vigour due to absence of individual initiative and motivation, the debasement of man's dignity these are some of the outcomes of the socialist solution. In the view of Martyr al-Sadr, the evil of capitalism lies not in private property but in the neglect of the spiritual dimensions of man's being.

Moreover, self-seeking is inherent in human nature; it is not a product of the institution of private property, as alleged by Marx. The failure of secular democracies lies in their emphasis on individualism and their inability to stimulate and promote the higher spiritual aspect of man's self-seeking nature, whose activation is vital for arising man's altruistic potentialities so significant for society's welfare.

Marxism makes the mistake of abolishing private property while keeping intact capitalism's destructive materialistic world view. As a result, it ends up substituting a handful of bureaucrats and party officials for a handful of capitalists who wield all power and control the society's wealth and resources. Both capitalism and communism fail to present a correct world outlook and to formulate an ideology capable of solving the diverse problems of human society.

This failure is rooted in their materialist world view and their inadequate understanding of man's nature.…