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The Bridge of Becoming: Reimagining Work and Capital through Ibn Khaldun and Western Economic Thought

 Abstract


This study reimagines the foundational role of work in economic life through a comparative analysis of Ibn Khaldun and key Western economic thinkers, including Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Max Weber, and John Maynard Keynes. Drawing on the Systems Thinking Framework, the research positions work not merely as an economic activity but as a structuring principle that shapes civilizations, value systems, and social organization. Unlike modern paradigms that prioritize capital accumulation, this study explores how Ibn Khaldun’s pre-Enlightenment perspective centers work as the original and enduring source of value, production, and moral order. By contrasting this with Western theories that progressively decouple wealth from labor, the paper proposes a re-evaluation of economic systems toward a more equitable, sustainable, and human-centered model. The study also underscores the determinant role of the State in shaping dominant worldviews, offering a critical perspective on the institutional forces that legitimize or marginalize work within political economies.

How to Cite

The Bridge of Becoming: Reimagining Work and Capital through Ibn Khaldun and Western Economic Thought. (2025). Islam Today Journal, 20251(1), 39. https://islamtodayjournal.org/index.php/itj/article/view/22


About “The Bridge of Becoming” – Reimagining Work through Ibn Khaldun and Western Economic Thought


Ahmed E. Souaiaia’s 2025 article, “The Bridge of Becoming: Reimagining Work and Capital through Ibn Khaldun and Western Economic Thought,” presents a compelling and timely intervention in the ongoing discourse on the foundations of economic value. By placing the 14th-century North African polymath Ibn Khaldun in direct conversation with canonical Western economic thinkers—from Adam Smith and David Ricardo to Max Weber and John Maynard Keynes—Souaiaia challenges the hegemony of capital-centric paradigms and proposes instead a work-centered ontology of economic and civilizational life. This review essay critically evaluates Souaiaia’s methodology, theoretical contributions, and broader implications, situating his argument within contemporary debates about economic justice, sustainability, and the moral foundations of political economy.

Souaiaia’s central analytical tool is the “Systems Thinking Framework,” which he attributes to Ibn Khaldun’s holistic and integrative approach to social analysis. Rejecting the compartmentalized and linear assumptions of much Western economic thought, Souaiaia argues that Ibn Khaldun understood human society as a complex, interdependent system in which work (amal) functions not merely as a means of production but as a generative and moral force that sustains civilization itself. This framework allows Souaiaia to foreground work as the “structuring principle” of social organization—a claim that runs counter to Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment theories that progressively decouple wealth from labor and reify capital as an autonomous engine of growth.

Crucially, Souaiaia avoids reading Ibn Khaldun through a retroactive or anachronistic Western lens. He insists that Ibn Khaldun must be understood on his own terms, rooted in the epistemological and ethical universe of Islamic civilization, which did not treat economics as an autonomous discipline but embedded it within a broader civilizational and moral order. This methodological caution is both a strength and a necessary corrective to prior scholarship that has often celebrated Ibn Khaldun as a “precursor” to Smith or Marx—an approach Souaiaia rightly critiques as implicitly endorsing a Eurocentric teleology of intellectual progress.

At the heart of Souaiaia’s analysis is a fundamental dichotomy: work as the origin of value (Ibn Khaldun) versus capital as the engine of wealth (Western thought). He shows how, for Ibn Khaldun, all wealth—whether subsistence (rizq) or acquired (kasb)—must ultimately be traceable to human (or systemic) effort. Even trade, though non-productive, is legitimized only when it facilitates the circulation of goods produced through labor. In contrast, thinkers like Smith recast capital as the decisive factor that enables labor to become productive, thereby shifting the center of economic gravity from the worker to the holder of stock.

Souaiaia traces this epistemic shift through careful readings of key texts. He highlights how Smith’s notion of “stock” gradually eclipses labor as the source of prosperity, how Ricardo, despite his labor theory of value, treats capital as a separate and self-sustaining force, and how Weber divorces work from its material conditions to frame it as a Protestant “calling.” Even Keynes, while advocating for state intervention to stabilize employment, ultimately operates within a system that treats demand—and by extension, consumption—as the goal, not work itself as an end or ethical imperative.

One of the article’s most provocative claims is its re-evaluation of the state’s role. While Western liberalism often portrays the state as a neutral arbiter or minimal protector of property, Souaiaia shows that, for Ibn Khaldun, the state (dawla) is the determinant system that actively shapes economic reality—not by correcting market failures, but by creating the very terms through which value, legitimacy, and social order are defined. This insight anticipates, yet fundamentally differs from, Keynesianism: where Keynes sees the state as a technical manager of aggregate demand, Ibn Khaldun sees it as a civilizational architect capable of enshrining work as a universal standard of worth.

Souaiaia’s argument is philosophically rich and historically nuanced. His emphasis on the moral and existential dimensions of work offers a powerful counter-narrative to the commodification of labor in capitalist systems. Moreover, his critique of the “original state of nature” myths in both Locke and Smith exposes how theories of property often obscure histories of usurpation (ghaṣb)—including colonialism and slavery—that underwrite modern wealth.

However, the article occasionally leans into idealization. While Souaiaia rightly insists that Ibn Khaldun was not writing for a Muslim audience alone, the claim that his system is universally applicable remains underdeveloped. Could a work-centered economy function at global scale without reproducing new forms of hierarchy or exclusion? How would Ibn Khaldun’s suspicion of luxury and centralized state power reconcile with the demands of modern welfare or ecological governance? These tensions are acknowledged but not fully resolved.

Additionally, Souaiaia’s dismissal of socialism as a “modern dichotomy” may overlook useful points of convergence. While his rejection of ideological binaries is principled, some socialist and postcolonial economists (e.g., Samir Amin or E.P. Thompson) have also critiqued capital-centrism and emphasized the dignity of labor—albeit from different philosophical groundings. A more dialogic engagement with such traditions might have strengthened his case.

Souaiaia’s article is not merely an exercise in intellectual history; it is a normative plea for reorienting economic life around work as priceless—not as a commodity to be bought and sold, but as the foundational activity through which humans co-create meaning, community, and sustainability. In an era marked by climate crisis, gig economy precarity, and wealth concentration, this reimagining is both urgent and inspiring.

“The Bridge of Becoming” succeeds not because it offers a ready-made alternative model, but because it reopens the question of value itself. By recovering Ibn Khaldun not as a historical curiosity but as a living interlocutor, Souaiaia invites us to envision an economy where prosperity is measured not by GDP or capital accumulation, but by the quality, equity, and purposefulness of work. In doing so, he constructs not just a bridge between civilizations, but a pathway toward a more just and sustainable future.

  Accessibility: for those who might not be able to access the text of the article, here is an AI-generated audio summary of the work.


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