Arab Economic Ethics

A country's economic development is affected by various factors such as its development stage,resources,ethical values,degree of openness,political environment,economic policies,and the international situation.External causes are the conditions while internal causes are the basis and the decisive factors.External causes can only work through internal causes and then the two together can form the joint force for social development as proposed by Marx and Engels.Arab countries' social organization under the influence of a series of ethical values is the main internal cause of their economic development.The Arab economic ethics is formed and developed to meet the challenges of the natural environment,social life and interpersonal relationships under Arab specific historical conditions.It reflects the unique lifestyle,attitudes,development models and theoretical thinking of the Arab peoples or countries.Based on the author's professional background of Arabic language and culture,this paper explored Arab economic ethics from an innovative combined perspective of linguistics,economic ethics and cross-cultural communication.From the six aspects of theory and practice,history and reality,tradition and modernity,using economics,ethics,religious philosophy,psychology and other knowledge,the paper tried to clear up the development of Arab economic ethics and figure out their theoretical basis.Subsequently,the paper compared the ethical system that Arabs should follow and the reality in their governments' economic organization and management at the macro level,their enterprises' organization and development at the meso level,individual profit-seeking and work at the micro level.In the end,the paper elaborated on the possible directions for adjustment of Arab economic ethics under the influence of modernization and globalization.This paper is composed of six chapters.Chapter one:introduction.This chapter illuminated the significance of studying Arab economic ethics in the context of globalization and modernization,sorted out and made brief comments on domestic and foreign relevant theories and research.The introduction includes this paper's main research objects,research methods,the research framework,and primary innovation.Chapter two:Arab economic ethics.This chapter first made a brief review of the economic ethics of Arab philosophers,thinkers and ethicists from a historical perspective and found that the Arabs basically followed the principle of combining justice and benefits in the relationship between man and benefits,and the relationship between righteousness and benefits.However,this principle is polarized between single-minded pursuit and complete abandonment of material benefits,respectively reflecting the extreme materialism and extreme egoism of the Arabs.These two extreme tendencies have moderated in modern times,and have been transformed into an argument about secularity and morality.Then the chapter analyzed Arab view of rich and poor and their way of doing business in practice from the perspective of Arabic proverbs using meta-analysis,revealed Arab materialistic attitude of paying attention to righteousness when pursuing wealth.They believe the acquisition and accumulation of wealth depends on a person's good qualities.They pursue the improvement of qualities like eloquence,credibility and alertness.Businesspersons pay attention to market quotation,cash transactions,industrial investment,genuine value,interpersonal relationships,financial self-sufficiency,and so on.Consumers like high-quality goods at competitive prices following an active and moderate consumption patterns.Chapter three:economic ethics of Arab governments.This chapter first used a descriptive method to analyze Arab tribes' differentiation between inside and outside,and their looting for justice in the pre-Islamic era by collecting historical records.After the emergence of Islam,the Arabs moved from the nomadic area to the agricultural civilized area.In the war zone,they adhered to five-part distribution of trophies in accordance with the branched social structure of the nomadic society.In conquered territories,they adopted the taxation of Kharaj,Jizya and 'Ushr to achieve the moral goal of the Islamic "Ummah" based on nomadic tribal society.In conclusion,although the tax ethics of the Arab Empire is still based on the Koran and the Hadith,its moral goal is to maintain the feudal rule of the empire.Thus its ethical application interval often changes with the vicissitudes in the political arena during dynasty replacement.In terms of a government's economic functions,both ancient and modern Arabs recognize a government's moral responsibility to manage the economy and highlight a mechanism for managing,supervising,and providing services for economic development.But in modern times,the actual moral behaviors of many Arab governments are far from the theoretical moral requirements.Chapter four:Arab enterprises' business ethics.This chapter analyzed Arab enterprises' business ethics comparing its theory and practice,history and reality,and tradition and modernity regarding Arab enterprise ownership,the principle of moral relations,corporates' ethical responsibilities,and business managerial ethics.First,using statistics to summarize Arab enterprise ownership and analyze the advantages and disadvantages of Arab family enterprises.Secondly,using a descriptive method to analyze the ethical demands of Arab enterprises' moral principles for Islamic obligation theory and tribal collective conscience theory.Thirdly,generalizing the standards of Arab enterprises' ethical responsibilities,studying the moral phenomena of Islamic financial institutions which are models of Arab enterprises'social responsibilities,and finding that there is a large gap between the theory and reality of their ethical decisions concerning social responsibilities.Finally,in terms of Arab enterprises' managerial ethics,learning that the reasons for Arab family businesses' lacking intergenerational inheritance plans are not only related to the unwillingness of managers to give up power but also to the traditional ethics of even inheritance division by analyzing statistics and historical data.Overall,the research found that the moral legislation and ethical support for the organizational behavior and managerial order of modern Arab enterprises originated from the normative system of Islamic ethics,the moral regulation of Arab tribal ethics,and modern economic codes of conduct.The economic norms of Arab enterprises are constantly changing.Chapter five:Arab work ethics.Using descriptive methods,this chapter first concluded Arab worship of work and explained the commonalities between and characters of Protestant and Islamic work ethics.Then,this chapter analyzed Arab basic and work values based on the WVS database.The Arab deep-rooted tradition of tribal identity still plays a role in personal value orientation and codes of conduct after thousands of years of change.Modern Arab countries are diversified in values due to their different basic value rankings and perceptions of the importance of work,which gives inspiration to China-Arab intercultural economic cooperation.Finally,this chapter compared and analyzed the states and factors of Arab external and internal work values in different Arab countries by using the WVS database.Most Arab countries mainly use economic rewards as work incentives and focus on rational economic growth.Although most Arabs have noticed the importance of work,it is difficult to change their concept of time.Their social vitality is undermined because their sense of competition is affected by traditional tribal and gender culture and their management hierarchy has a focus on authority recognition.Chapter six:conclusion.This chapter summarized the history,main features and future of Arab economic ethics and its main characteristics,causes and future development at the macro,meso and micro levels.It also briefly introduced the academic research work that can be carried out in the future.