A Year of Separation from the Great Sociologist
A Year of Separation from the Great Sociologist: According to Iran Gate, on the 8th of Farvardin 1402 (March 28, 2023), marks the first anniversary of the passing of Ali Rezaqoli, an Iranian populist researcher who connected with the masses through his two books, ‘Sociology of the Elite’s Assassination’ and ‘Sociology of Despotism,’ and did not remain confined within the limited circle of elites. Even though in his other works he demonstrated that he could speak in an elevated language if he wished, he was sometimes accused by most sociologists of being non-scientific or even populist or journalistic, because he did not flaunt his knowledge or use grandiloquent words, and he spoke and wrote clearly and straightforwardly.
On the first anniversary of his departure, and while the issue of plunder and spoils has become a central concern for experts and the public, it is not unfounded to remember him, even if it entails republishing sections of the text I wrote last year on the occasion of his commemoration at the House of Humanities Thinkers.
First, it should be known that Rezaqoli was a graduate of political science from the Faculty of Law at the University of Tehran and was pursuing his doctorate at the School of Political Studies in Paris when the 1979 revolution occurred, leading him back to Iran. However, academics distanced themselves from him as if he had no university education.
His mental preoccupation was to discover where the problem lay that kept Iran behind the doors of development. His main argument in the sociology of Iran’s economy was whether it was predatory or competitive, and in his book ‘If North Were Iranian,’ he sought to answer this question and ultimately found the secret of Iran and Iranians’ underdevelopment in the two words ‘plunder’ and ‘spoils.’ He tried to explain it with the term ‘predatory spoils’ and turned to historical sources, literature, and even myths to show how deeply ingrained it is in our culture, to the point that until we free ourselves from it, we cannot step on the path of development.
From his perspective, rent is the same as plundering resources, and because governments and those in power constantly change, yesterday’s hungry, once they reach a position, seek spoils, and plundering spoils is the same anti-development cycle.
To understand political economy, he also turned to history and literature, and even about Saadi, he believed that he was also a strong social analyst. Saadi effectively analyzed and expressed the instability at the top of the political pyramid, the instability of expertise, the rise and fall of governments, intense social and political mobility, a corrupt judicial system, and a predatory economy.
Rezaqoli explained his point in the essay ‘Predatory Institutions in Iran’s Economy’ in the book ‘If North Were Iranian,’ and one of the expressions he frequently used was the ‘transaction cost in the political market,’ which is more understandable today as Iranians realize more than ever that the root of Iran’s economic problems lies in politics.
Also, one of the readable sections of the book is dedicated to Engineer Bazargan’s view of Iran’s past society, where he quotes him saying, ‘When at Dar ul-Funun the topic of a lecture was about the secret of Iranian survival, I jokingly told the person next to me that our survival lies in our adaptability because we get along with everyone and anyone. When the Arabs come, we become more zealous than they are; when the Turks come, we praise them; we become the obedient servants of Genghis and Timur. There is no reason for us to be wiped off the face of the earth. In the Mongol invasion, everyone who resisted was destroyed except us, who surrendered and survived.’
In his belief, Iranians have only thought about survival, even at the cost of submission, not development. Essentially, the concept of plunder and spoils has left no room for thinking about development. Ali Rezaqoli was not around to see the concerns that arose following the approval of the asset monetization plan, a plan that involves the sale of government assets and has sparked fears of becoming a new source of rent. However, he had already warned about this, and on the first anniversary of his passing, it is fitting to consider this.
The decree, not in the parliament but in the Supreme Council of Coordination of Heads, should pay more attention to those warnings. Rezaqoli’s main point was that if the government organization becomes predatory, meaning it manages property rights in the worst way possible for the ruling elite and ineffectively for the populace, then institutions reward norm-breaking, predatory, and opportunistic behavior, which in turn becomes a public norm that ‘people follow the religion of their rulers.’
To avoid any misunderstanding, it is necessary to clarify that the intention of ‘plunder’ here is not to cast accusations, as the general public might label those in power as thieves. Rather, as he himself explained, the meaning of plunder is to express the height of opportunism and rent-seeking life at the expense of others, a way of livelihood in a non-competitive market without productive, constructive, and creative effort, and inconsistent with competitive market behavior but rather with the help of power and in connection with power.
These few lines are also quoted from the article ‘The Scorpion’s Hole,’ which is worth reading: When the likelihood of living through plunder is higher and the chance of getting caught is lower, individuals prefer to abandon hard work and live through plunder and fraud.
If institutions lower the cost of violations and expand the possibility of living through plunder, because people have limited intelligence and shallow understanding, they identify these paths and prefer to live a predatory, rent-seeking life. If there is no cost to changing form and becoming a boss, everyone will desire to change and become a boss because if they don’t, they haven’t lost anything, and if they do, the nation loses, and they win.