The Economic System of Islam — Page 114
114 of Baku to Iran on the ground that Iran must have the same rights as Russia. But Russia has no interest in such ‘equality’. Russia is still at an early stage of industrialisation. When it has advanced, we can expect to see that it would promote its industrial interests in other countries in a manner that has not been witnessed before. The reason is that Communism has only crushed individual capitalism, but it has nurtured and promoted collective capitalism, which is a very dangerous development. America passed the anti- trust laws precisely to curb this kind of development. State Capitalism More Dangerous Than Earlier Imperialists Experience shows that individual businesses are never as successful as companies, and companies are never as successful as trusts and trusts never as powerful as cartels. But companies that are backed or owned by state—as is the case in Russia—could assume power that no individual companies or even weak economies can achieve. Smaller economies, and even bigger economies, can manage to deal with individual private companies, but the state-run collective capitalism is altogether a different matter. Large industrial countries always sought economic influence in small and weak economies, but it still remained possible for such countries to have their own capitalists. Because competition was between individuals, some businesses in smaller countries could withstand the competition from the bigger and better organised enterprises. Great Britain is one of the most highly industrialized countries, but that did not deter firms in Holland, Belgium and