Sārvudāyā (Bihrūzī barā-yi Hamah): Persian 1403

Among the disillusionments which have afflicted humanity at different periods, the greatest perhaps, and certainly the least honorable is modern economics based on the idea that an advantageous course of action can be determined outside of the influence of a social character. Of course, as with all other disillusionments, political economy has a plausible idea of its root. Social characteristics, says the economist, are accidental and disturbing elements of human nature. But greed or the desire for progress are constant elements. Let us eliminate the changing elements, and consider man almost as a money-making machine. Let us examine by what laws of labor, of buying and selling, the most wealth can be accumulated. Once these laws have been determined, each individual will be able to integrate as much disruptive social character into them as they wish. This would be a logical method of analysis if the accidental elements introduced subsequently were of the same nature as the characters examined first. Suppose a body in motion is influenced by constant and changing forces, the simplest way to observe its course is to first trace it according to the constant factors, then to then introduce the causes of variations. However the disruptive elements of the social problem are not of the same nature as the constant elements. They alter the essence of the object examined once they have been introduced. They do not operate mathematically, but chemically, introducing conditions that make all our previous knowledge inapplicable...