The following is written by my friend Sam The CEO or Sam The Oilman.
Sunday Sermon: The Economics of The Halal Scam.
Or How to Make the Clerical and Political Class Rich on the Backs of Muslims and Make Them Poorer
My thesis: The halal concept is a bureaucratic structure made up by the clerical class initially for political power. And like any creation of political power, it was not long before it became a set of regulatory rules that induces payment, i.e. corruption, in order for the ordinary citizen to exist or make an honest living.
Think about this:
1. It creates additional cost for compliance
2. The product is actually still the same but costs more to obtain Halal approval and/or certification
There is ZERO innovation or new products created that provide either a game-changing technology or societal progress for society.
It is just extra costs for the same damn thing which such extra costs goes into the pockets of the powers that be and their cronies to line-up their pockets. That includes the civil service authorities that are employed at the expense of tax-payers with no productive value.
Repeat after me: ZERO PRODUCTIVE VALUE
The Quran never asks Muslims to set up Halal certification. You only need to assess for yourself to your own confidence whether it is halal or otherwise. There is no compulsion on you or others for halal certification. It is your call. It is FOC.
But Halal certification makes money. And in our modern economics, halal certification controls whole industries and prints money for those with the power to create and maintain such systems. And muslims become poorer for it.
The Halal Banking Scam
Don't just think about food. Take the banking and investment sector. Money is money. The source of money is the same. It flows through various industries the way water meander through rivers, oceans, up to the clouds and rain back down to earth in a cycle. There is no halal water. There is no halal money. There is only money.
None of the loan you take on syariah terms makes any sense. They still charge you interest. They just don't call it interest. The Quran forbade "usury" i.e. "making obscene profits" not interest. Instead today, any cursory review shows that syariah-compliant loans often have effectively usurious interest rates compared to non-syariah loans. But why not? Because:
1. You have now entrapped muslims into a system where they think this is the only choice for the islamic ethical system of "halal" - so charge more for this monopoly. You now can funnel muslim money based on this "ethical" conundrum.
(ps. BlackRock invented its halal investment: ESG. And they have their own halal/ESG certification ratings body)
2. Just for this certification, it will naturally cost more because the money is from the same banking system but with the halal system adding another layer of costs.
This is basically re-badging a product. Import the car from China and put the Pr*t*n logo on it and call it Halal. Charge 'em more.
Conclusion
1. The Halal System is maintained to make money for the political and clerical/authority class and their cronies. Nothing more, nothing less. But the clerics can make people stupid and don't think. So what else are we going to do? S*d*mise them as much as you can.
2. A society that is this dumb, wastes time and money on unproductive economic activities - making this and that halal, having it certified halal. None of which creates anything new. There is no innovation, creativity or even productivity. It is in fact counter-productive. It is a net negative economic sector for the population as a whole. If there is innovation - it is the innovation the way scammers innovate to scam their victims. That's about it.
Such a society cannot evolve to be a civilised and progressive society because its economic focus is on a negative productivity sector with no industrial innovation and the money goes down the drain of corruption.
There is a lesson to be learnt here somewhere. If only we think.
The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.
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