Michael Roberts: Measuring a world rate of profit -again

Measuring a world rate of profit -again

Back in 2012, I made an initial attempt to go beyond measuring the rate of profit on capital in any one country and calculate a world rate of profit. Then, I argued that it was important to test Marx’s law of the tendency for the rate of profit to fall on a world level. As capitalism had spread its tentacles to all parts of the world through the 20th century, it was necessary to find better empirical support for the law by calculating a world rate because capitalism is only a ‘closed economy’ at a global level. The rate of profit in just one country or a few would not be accurate as it would not account for profits made from trade and investments abroad and each country’s rate of profit could have different trends. 

In 2020, I updated and improved my measure for global profitability significantly.  Then, my calculations were made for the average rate of profit on capital of top 19 economies (ie G20).  My data source was the Penn World Tables 10.0 series. My results confirmed Marx’s law that there was a long-term tendency for profitability to fall.  This was important because it led to the conclusion that capitalist expansion was transient and also subject to regular and recurring crises of production and investment.  Indeed, crises were necessary to ‘cleanse’ the system of old capital and lay the basis for a period of upswing in what I called the ‘profit cycle’. The world rate of profit did not fall in a straight line, as the long-term tendency to fall was interspersed with periods when profitability rose, usually after a significant slump.  This was what my graph of 2020 looked like.

In 2020, I divided the graph into four sections: the periods 1950-66, the so-called Golden Age after WW2 when profitability was high and even rose; the profitability crisis of 1966-82 when profitability globally slumped; the neo-liberal period 1982-97 when there was a (limited) recovery in the profit rate; and finally the period that I call the Long Depression from 1997, where the profit rate fell back, leading to the Great Recession of 2008-9, followed by stagnation in the rate up to 2019, just before COVID pandemic.

Then in early 2022, I published another post entitled A world rate of profit: important new evidence. That post highlighted a new study of the global rate of profit on the stock of capital invested as calculated by Deepankur Basu and colleagues at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Their data are contained on their website here.Basu et al used a different database (the Extended Penn World Tables 7.0 series) and they calculated an average global rate of profit for 25 countries. Their results supported my 2020 measurement.

Now in a new study, Pooyah Karambakhsh of Sydney University has published a comprehensive update on the measurement of a world rate of profit.  Karambakhsh explains that, while “the analysis of an individual country’s profit rate is invaluable in assessing national economic growth and crisis, I argue that assessment of the LTRFP should be done at the global level. Capitalism is in essence a global system with an intrinsic tendency toward the world market.” As Karambakhsh says, “Whatever the mechanism of value transfer, its existence indicates the possibility of discrepancies between surplus value produced and realized in each nation. A global perspective, with a “global pool of surplus value,” circumvents these discrepancies.”

Karambakhsh’ study applies multiple measures of the profit rate, including those based on the Marxian concept of productive labour. Using a sample of 32 countries, Karam also finds a downward trend in the world rate of profit between 1952 and 2019.  Most important, he shows that this decline is due to Marx’s law of profitability, namely that a rising ‘organic composition of capital’, (more investment in technology over labour) exerts a downward force on profitability over time, while a rising rate of surplus value acts as a countertendency (but only dominates in the neo-liberal recovery period 1982-97). Moreover, his data show that this falling tendency has been common among nearly all developed and developing countries. 

Karambakhsh correctly reckons that the Marxian rate of profit should incorporate the concept of productive labour. Marxian theory argues that new value and surplus value is created only in the productive sectors of the economy (eg. manufacturing, construction, transport and communications); not in unproductive sectors such as real estate, finance or government. The latter sectors merely redistribute surplus value created in productive sectors. 

So Karambakhsh tries to delineate global profitability, using four different measures: one using a detailed breakdown of productive actvities; one using a simplified measure of productive sectors; and one as an overall average of profitability including unproductive sectors; and finally one that removes the impact of depeciation (which has become an issue of controversy) and so uses gross capital stock, not net of depreciation.This measure is used by Shaikh and Tsoulfidis and Tsaliki – but only for the US, not globally. Karambakhsh weights each country’s capital stock to reach a global average profitability.

Unfortunately, data measuring the rate of profit on productive sectors has a much shorter time series and fewer countries. So in the end, Karambakhsh looks at the global average rate of profit that includes unproductive sectors. He finds that this falls over the period 1950-2019 from a peak of 11% in 1966 to 7% in 2019 – see the black line in the graph below (Figure 1a).  Moreover, he finds the same turning points in the rate as I did in my 2020 measure: 1950-66; 1966-82; 1982-97; 1997-19 (Figure 1b).  But he shows that the other measures based on productive sectors only also match closely the overall average rate (Figure 1b).  That tells me that, using the overall ‘whole economy’ measure (as I call it) of the average rate of profit is still a very good proxy for the rate a la Marx.

Figure 1. (a) Four estimates of the world rates of profit (WRP) by four definitions and (b) their normalized magnitude indexed to the year 2000.

In decomposing the components driving the rate of profit (RP), Karambakhsh finds more or less the same results as I did in 2020. He finds that the organic composition of capital (VCC), as defined by the ratio of the stock of fixed assets to the consumption of employees, rose over the period, while the rate of surplus value (RSV) varies. From 1952–1965, the world profit rate rises, and so do the rate of surplus value and the organic composition of capital. Both work toward raising the RP.  In the second period, 1965–1982, the VCC rises strongly and, supported by the fall in the RSV, lowers the RP. From 1982–1997, the neoliberal era, the RSV rises and the VCC falls slightly. As a result, the RP rises, but not enough to fully compensate for the fall of the previous period of falling profitability. In the last period 1997–2019, the RP falls, mainly driven by rising VCC, but also supported by a fall of the RSV. By 2019, the RP loses all its gains from the neoliberal period.  I found similar results in my 2020 calculations. What does this tell you?  It confirms Marx’s explanation of why the rate of profit moves. When the organic composition of capital rises faster (or falls less) than any rise (or fall) in the rate of surplus value, the rate of profit will fall and vice versa.  

Karambakhsh also shows that, although the world profit rate is a weighted average of individual countries’ profit rates, most of the countries within his sample had the same overall trend and driver as the global rate.  He concludes that “Although the studied period may not be long enough for a definitive statement about cycles, the sequence of rises and falls suggests cyclical behavior with cycles of 30–35 years.”  And he interprets Marx’s LTFRP as a “theory of the rate of profit cycle.”  Indeed,this is something that I noted and argued since I first looked at the profitability of capital (only US capital then) back as early as 2005-6 (see my book, The Great Recession) and supported by my calculations since for the world rate of profit in 2012 and 2020.

Karambakhsh uses the Penn World Tables 10.0 series, which takes his calculations only up to 2019.  We now have available the 11.0 series; this takes data up to 2023. My own calculations from the latest series show that the global rate of profit has only slightly recovered since the pandemic slump of 2020, so far.  Moreover, in my new calculations, I aggregate individual country surplus value, the stock of fixed assets and employee compensation to come up with proper global figures for Marx’s rate of profit formula, doing away with the need to weight individual country capital stocks. (I shall publish these calculations in a future paper.)

Most important for me, considering that many authors reject it, is that Karambakhsh’ results also support my view that the underlying cause of the Great Recession of 2008-9 lies with falling profitability in the decade before.  As he says “The US RP shows a clear downward trend starting in 1997, well before the latest crisis.”

Here is my own calculation for the ‘whole economy’ US rate of profit up to 2023, using the latest Penn World Tables 11.0 series and, in my case, including variable capital in the denominator.

He adds “not only did the WRP decline begin before the 2007–2009 crisis, it continued afterward. Although there was a quick bounce-back in 2010, there is no sign of overall recovery. One main driver of recoveries after crises is the destruction of capital, usually in the form of bankruptcies and devaluation of capital. Policies that prevented large-scale bankruptcies, with the aim of containing crisis contagion, likely reduced capital destruction and thereby muted post-crisis recovery in profitability.”  Exactly so – see my posts on creative destruction.

Karambakhsh interestingly brings our attention to other factors affecting the growth of profits, if not profitability. “From a Marxian perspective, productive hours are the direct producers of surplus value, and their fall indicates the decline of profitability.” He shows that the share of wages has consistently declined since 1952, while the operating surplus (profits) has remained almost constant.  Why?  Because the depreciation rate of the stock of fixed assets has increased over the decades.  If more profit has to be used just to replace depreciated capital, it will reduce new net investment and GDP growth.

Another result from Karambakhsh’ paper is that the developing world had a higher profit rate during the period than the developed capitalist economies. 

This follows Marx in that the former countries generally have less technology compared to labour (lower VCC).  But as these countries industrialise, the gap narrows in the rate of profit with the developed world.  This supports the analysis that Guglielmo Carchedi and I made in our paper on modern imperialism, where we show that the higher profit rate in the developing economies has gradually narrowed towards the global north rates particularly with the big rise in the organic composition of capital in China. Indeed, Karambakhsh shows that the rise in China’s VCC translated into a sharp 51% drop in its RP, from over 15% to less than 8%, undermining China’s role as an engine of profitability. I find a similar result using the latest Penn Tables series, with a 55% fall in the ROP since 1950 and a 2.6 times rise in the VCC.

Like other authors, Karambakhsh measures the rate of profit against only fixed assets (machinery, plant, etc), and does not include in the denominator, variable capital ie employee compensation.  Also he does not account for circulating capital (ie inventories of raw materials and components used). In my calculations, I often include variable capital.  But as Karambakhsh and other authors say, if you don’t, it does not significantly change the results, only the level of profitability, not the direction or turning points. The same applies to circulating capital, in my view – but for a different take on this, see here. 

Karambakhsh’s conclusions are pertinent. “The persistent fall in the WRP since the mid-1990s, together with the accelerating rise of depreciation from the mid-1980s and the long-run slowdown in productive hours and a growing share of hours devoted to unproductive activities, has contributed to slower capital accumulation and weaker GDP growth. These forces suggest intensified competition, higher bankruptcy risk, increased pressure on labor to extract more surplus value, and that a short-term reversal of global profitability is unlikely.”

But, he goes on: “Capitalism has strong adaptive capacities, with potential for technological and organizational shifts. In short, the evidence points to a prolonged period of constrained growth and heightened social and economic tensions, not an immediate or predetermined terminal crisis.”  I think that is right.  As I have suggested elsewhere, capitalism may yet get a new lease of life (after a slump) from the new AI technologies if they do indeed deliver higher surplus value at the expense of the shedding of labour.

To All Those that Tell Us What We already Know: Don't Like America Right Now? Don't Run, Fight Back

Richard Mellor

Celebrities are leaving the US. De Generes left for the fancy UK Cotswolds, a lovely area but she didn't like the weather and is back. Workers don't have much of a choice. I'm a dual national and I could. But only on a voluntary basis. I'm not going to leave when the going get's tough. Just like the union, we stay and we fight back to defend our interests. I'm proud to be a member of the US working -class, I'm not ashamed of that. I'm not a general. I'm not a celebrity, but most of the people that have made my life worthwhile the last 51 years are stuck here. They're working people. I ain't leaving either. If I was younger I'd be more active but as it is all I have is this, a blog and Tik Tok. When times get tough we stay and fight back.

Hegseth Forces US Army Chief of Staff to Resign. . Here's what He Should Have Done.

Richard Mellor

 

Some reports I have read say that an hour after Pete Hegseth forced him to resign, the US Army Chief of Staff, Randy George, (military officers are know to be randy)  said, "A madman is about to lead the great US military to ruin."

I cannot find any documented evidence that he said this or called Trump a madman. But If George believes this is the case and is being paraphrased in some way, rather than resign, he should have defied Hegseth and called on military personnel to do the right thing and refuse to go. Let the gangster capitalists fire him. He should call on all the remaining officers and those in leadership roles to join him in that call. If he really believes what he says, it's his duty to stop the mad man and save US and Iranian lives. Announcing what is obvious to all of us is not enough. 

It's a bit disappointing all those that have voluntarily resigned in government service due to the lunatics now running the asylum. Stay and fight. Don't make it easy for them to replace you with one of their sycophants and co-thinkers. 

Seymour Hersh: THE GROUND WAR BEGINS?

 THE GROUND WAR BEGINS?

Trump has escalated the war against Iran, heedless of the lessons of the past

Seymour Hersh April 2nd  paid

President Donald Trump arrives to address the nation from the Cross Hall of the White House last night. / Photo by Alex Brandon—Pool/Getty Images.

Who was the guy pretending to be President Donald Trump on stage last night? Surely not the man who once bragged that he could shoot somebody walking down Fifth Avenue in New York City and still get elected. He was subdued as he flawlessly read a prepared speech written by his handlers that had its moments.

In this morning’s New York Times, Edward Wong assesses whether the US has achieved the goals the president set out in a February 28 video announcing the war and finds that it has fallen short. The harsh religious government in Tehran is still in power, and Iran is continuing to limit the flow of oil, gas, fertilizer, and food through the Strait of Hormuz, creating economic havoc throughout the Western world. Iranian missiles and drones are continuing to strike Israeli and America’s oil-producing allies in the Persian Gulf.

What the president’s speech last night didn’t offer were any specifics about the US troop buildup through the region, but the threat was there. “I can say tonight,” he said, “that we are on track to complete all of America’s military objectives shortly, very shortly. We are going to hit them extremely hard. Over the next two to three weeks, we’re going to bring them back to the stone ages, where they belong.”

Trump was telling the world that the ground war is on as of today, and he is in the process of sending thousands of American soldiers into the Middle East to engage on the ground, as well as in the air, against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

Thousands of US Special Operations forces—Navy SEALs and Army Rangers—are either en route or soon will be to zones within striking range of the Strait of Hormuz, the crucial choke points for the shipping of oil from the Middle East to the rest of the world.

Add the number of those en route to those already stationed in the region, and Trump easily could have fifty thousand US fighters ready to clear the Strait of Hormuz or even to dig out the partially enriched uranium Iran is believed to have tucked away in one or more of tunnels under the nuclear facilities the US and Israel attacked last June.

The 60 percent enriched uranium—requiring just a few days of enrichment to be weaponized, if centrifuges could be found (I have been told there is no evidence that Iran retains them)—would have to be encased in scores of lead caskets weighing two tons or more. The only rational way out would be via helicopter, and that could work, say the experts, since the US and Israel now control the skies over Iran. But who knows where among the many nuclear-related facilities and tunnels in Iran the astonishing cache may be? Perhaps “the Shadow knows,” as they said on my favorite Sunday evening radio show when I was a kid in Chicago in the years after World War II.

Here are some facts about prior American wars in the Middle East that the president, not known as a history buff, may not fully remember or have been told about: in 1991 the US fought in the Persian Gulf against Saddam Hussein, the president of Iraq. As many as 700,000 American troops served in that war, which America won, expelling Saddam from Kuwait. Five hundred thousand American soldiers were in the region when the war began. More than 150,000 thousand American-led coalition soldiers were deployed to the Middle East at the start of the invasion of 2003, then called Operation Iraqi Freedom.

One would hope that Trump has been fully briefed on an earlier and successful 1999 air war, led by NATO with the full backing of the Clinton administration and the US Air Force, that bombed military and civilian targets in Belgrade and other areas of the former Yugoslavia for seventy-eight days. It took that long, amid the increasing destruction of the capital city, before Slobodan Milosevic, the brutal Serbian leader, agreed to withdraw his troops from the region of Kosovo, where the majority of the population were Albanian-speaking Muslims. After he was removed from power in 2000, Milosevic was charged with a series of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide by an international tribunal at The Hague, but he died of a heart attack in prison before judgment was passed.

The president may not know that Iran, the 17th largest nation in the world, is nearly four times larger than Iraq. He may not know that Iran has one of the highest literacy rates in the Middle East, with 94 percent of adults considered to be literate. He should be aware that the disdain, fear, and worse that much or the Iranian public had for the nation’s fanatic religious leadership inevitably has been washed away by weeks of intensive US and Israeli bombing. Early promises to avoid civilian targets have evaporated and at this point there are few targets off the table.

It is known from American postwar studies that the daytime bombing of German cities by American and British warplanes enraged the German public and increased citizen support for the war to the point that surrender to the Allies was delayed by as much as six months. (One of the officers involved in the study was Army Captain Robert S. McNamara, who served as an unyielding secretary of defense during the worst years of the murderous Vietnam War.)

At this point, it is fair to say that Trump’s current war, undertaken in concert with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and largely, according to many press reports, at his bidding, is an unnecessary war that has more and more targeted cultural and educational sites as well as residential apartment buildings. The air war is also, as an Israeli insider and combat hero said to me the other day, “one of the most stupid wars ever fought by a superpower in history. There is no upside. Iran has not yet been able to build a bomb, and the war is destroying the West economically”—a reference to the ongoing Iranian blockade of Western oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz.

The Israeli added that the Revolutionary Guard and other pro-regime zealots “would love to have American troops” on the ground inside Iran. “It’s a gigantic trap.”

If that is so, he asked, “What is Trump going to do?” He had only one ready answer if the US invasion of Iran takes place and turns out badly: “He may just scapegoat Pete Hegseth,” the vulgar secretary of defense who has cheerfully promoted every aspect of Trump’s war, as all in the Cabinet must.

We are being led by an ignorant and unqualified president, who was nonetheless duly elected. When will someone inside the administration have the integrity and courage to invoke the Twenty-fifth Amendment?

Iranian President's Letter to the American People

Reprinted from the Meidas Touch  and On You Tube

 

BREAKING: Iran President Pezeshkian releases a lengthy public letter addressed to the American people ahead of Trump's address to the nation, defending its actions, denying it poses a threat, and blaming the U.S. for escalating conflict—while warning that continued attacks will deepen instability and resentment.

 

He warns: "Attacking Iran’s vital infrastructure—including energy and industrial facilities—directly targets the Iranian people. Beyond constituting a war crime, such actions carry consequences that extend far beyond Iran’s borders"

 

FULL LETTER BELOW:

"To the people of the United States of America, and to all those who, amid a flood of distortions and manufactured narratives, continue to seek the truth and aspire to a better life:

 

Iran—by this very name, character, and identity—is one of the oldest continuous civilizations in human history. Despite its historical and geographical advantages at various times, Iran has never, in its modern history, chosen the path of aggression, expansion, colonialism, or domination. Even after enduring occupation, invasion, and sustained pressure from global powers—and despite possessing military superiority over many of its neighbors—Iran has never initiated a war. Yet it has resolutely and bravely repelled those who have attacked it.

 

The Iranian people harbor no enmity toward other nations, including the people of America, Europe, or neighboring countries. Even in the face of repeated foreign interventions and pressures throughout their proud history, Iranians have consistently drawn a clear distinction between governments and the peoples they govern. This is a deeply rooted principle in Iranian culture and collective consciousness—not a temporary political stance.

 

For this reason, portraying Iran as a threat is neither consistent with historical reality nor with present-day observable facts. Such a perception is the product of political and economic whims of the powerful—the need to manufacture an enemy in order to justify pressure, maintain military dominance, sustain the arms industry, and control strategic markets. In such an environment, if a threat does not exist, it is invented.

 

Within this same framework, the United States has concentrated the largest number of its forces, bases, and military capabilities around Iran—a country that, at least since the founding of the United States, has never initiated a war. 

 

Recent American aggressions launched from these very bases have demonstrated how threatening such a military presence truly is. Naturally, no country confronted with such conditions would forgo strengthening its defensive capabilities. What Iran has done—and continues to do—is a measured response grounded in legitimate self-defense, and by no means an initiation of war or aggression.

 

Relations between Iran and the United States were not originally hostile, and early interactions between the Iranian and American people were not marred with hostility or tension. The turning point, however, was the 1953 coup d’état—an illegal American intervention aimed at preventing the nationalization of Iran’s own resources. That coup disrupted Iran’s democratic process, reinstated dictatorship, and sowed deep distrust among Iranians toward U.S. policies.

 

This distrust deepened further with America’s support for the Shah’s regime, its backing of Saddam Hussein during the imposed war of the 1980s, the imposition of the longest and most comprehensive sanctions in modern history, and ultimately, unprovoked military aggression—twice, in the midst of negotiations—against Iran.

 

Yet all these pressures have failed to weaken Iran. On the contrary, the country has grown stronger in many areas: literacy rates have tripled—from roughly 30% before the Islamic Revolution to over 90% today; higher education has expanded dramatically; significant advances have been achieved in modern technology; healthcare services have improved; and infrastructure has developed at a pace and scale incomparable to the past. These are measurable, observable realities that stand independent of fabricated narratives.

 

At the same time, the destructive and inhumane impact of sanctions, war, and aggression on the lives of the resilient Iranian people must not be underestimated. The continuation of military aggression and recent bombings profoundly affect people’s lives, attitudes, and perspectives. This reflects a fundamental human truth: when war inflicts irreparable harm on lives, homes, cities, and futures, people will not remain indifferent toward those responsible.

 

This raises a fundamental question: Exactly which of the American people’s interests are truly being served by this war? Was there any objective threat from Iran to justify such behavior? Does the massacre of innocent children, the destruction of cancer-treatment pharmaceutical facilities, or boasting about bombing a country “back to the stone ages” serve any purpose other than further damaging the United States’ global standing?

 

Iran pursued negotiations, reached an agreement, and fulfilled all its commitments. The decision to withdraw from that agreement, escalate toward confrontation, and launch two acts of aggression in the midst of negotiations were destructive choices made by the U.S. government—choices that served the delusions of a foreign aggressor.

 

Attacking Iran’s vital infrastructure—including energy and industrial facilities—directly targets the Iranian people. Beyond constituting a war crime, such actions carry consequences that extend far beyond Iran’s borders. They generate instability, increase human and economic costs, and perpetuate cycles of tension, planting seeds of resentment that will endure for years. This is not a demonstration of strength; it is a sign of strategic bewilderment and an inability to achieve a sustainable solution.

 

Is it not also the case that America has entered this aggression as a proxy for Israel, influenced and manipulated by that regime? Is it not true that Israel, by manufacturing an Iranian threat, seeks to divert global attention away from its crimes toward the Palestinians? Is it not evident that Israel now aims to fight Iran to the last American soldier and the last American taxpayer dollar—shifting the burden of its delusions onto Iran, the region, and the United States itself in pursuit of illegitimate interests?

 

Is “America First” truly among the priorities of the U.S. government today?

 

I invite you to look beyond the machinery of misinformation—an integral part of this aggression—and instead speak with those who have visited Iran. Observe the many accomplished Iranian immigrants—educated in Iran—who now teach and conduct research at the world’s most prestigious universities, or contribute to the most advanced technology firms in the West. Do these realities align with the distortions you are being told about Iran and its people?

 

Today, the world stands at a crossroads. Continuing along the path of confrontation is more costly and futile than ever before. The choice between confrontation and engagement is both real and consequential; its outcome will shape the future for generations to come. Throughout its millennia of proud history, Iran has outlasted many aggressors. All that remains of them are tarnished names in history, while Iran endures—resilient, dignified, and proud."

Opinion: An Open Letter To the rulers of the Arab and Muslim world

I am sharing this important open letter for the interest of our readers.  And while I agree the criticism of the Arab leaders in the Middle East is valid, sharing is not an endorsement from FFWP that leaders in the Arab and Muslim world or the western imperial nations for that matter, can resolve the crisis in the Middle East or globally. The present crises are a product of the capitalist system of production and its imperial stage; capitalism cannot solve a crisis of its own making. Only the working class internationally can find a way out of a crisis that threatens to end human civilization on this planet, either through nuclear war or environmental catastrophe. Richard Mellor, FFWP Admin Note: Thank you to David Muir for sharing.

An Open Letter To the rulers of the Arab and Muslim world

 

Ajmal Masroor

Dear Muslim leaders,

There are moments in history when silence is not counted as cautious diplomacy or wise strategy, but is instead remembered as a damning indictment of cowardice, spinelessness, and complicity in oppression that has caused so much pain and suffering. Your silence is a death sentence for the oppressed. This is that moment—when you should have chosen to rise, not cower like cowards.

Dear Muslim leaders,

Let me remind you of your humiliations. When Donald Trump openly mocked you, boasting that you were “kissing his ass,” he was not just being vulgar—he was exposing your shameless, poodle-like status. He was revealing your hypocrisy, telling you bluntly and crudely how you are perceived by those whose approval you seem to value most. He does not see you as equals, sovereign powers, or even civilised, modern, enlightened nations, but as compliant actors in a hierarchy you did not design and over which you have no control—yet you continue to uphold it. Do you have no dignity? Did your mothers not teach you basic human values?

When Steve Bannon went even further—suggesting that the children of Gulf rulers should be sent to fight American and Israeli wars—it exposed an even more disturbing reality: that your nations are viewed as instruments, your children as expendable, your honour as worthless, and your role as one that absorbs the costs of conflicts shaped elsewhere. And what was your response? Silence or sycophancy.

Instead of roaring like Umar Ibn Khattab, Ali Ibn Abi Talib, Khalid Bin Waleed, or Salahuddin Al Ayyubi, you chose cowardice. You issued measured statements, careful not to upset your patrons. You spoke in diplomatic doublespeak, hoping to appease those you depend on. You chose silence instead of the immediate and unmistakable outrage that was required. Your voices should have thundered. Your unity should have carried force. But you chose silence. What is wrong with you?

Meanwhile:

Gaza reduced to rubble

Lebanon repeatedly attacked and now invaded

Yemen devastated

Sudan torn apart

Libya destabilised

Ongoing conflict across Pakistan

All while imperialist and Zionist powers exploit you, discard you, and mock your weakness. This devastation is not abstract—it is visible, documented, undeniable. It is broadcast live for the world to see on handheld devices.

Can you imagine watching your children blown apart, your parents buried under rubble, your families violated, your communities destroyed? While you remain silent, your brothers and sisters are experiencing exactly this. Entire neighbourhoods erased. Civilians buried beneath collapsed hospitals. A humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in real time.

And yet, from those with the greatest capacity to act, what has emerged? Hesitation—carefully calibrated, politically cautious, and profoundly inadequate gestures that amount to nothing.

Dear Muslim leaders,

Do you think your silence is neutrality? You cannot be neutral in the face of genocide. You cannot remain passive while a reckless American leadership drives your region toward chaos, destruction, and long-term subjugation. Your failure lies in your inability to decide whether you stand with the oppressed or the oppressor.

Let me remind you how Western power operates. Consider the case of Karim Khan. As he pursued war crimes cases related to Gaza at the International Criminal Court, allegations against him surfaced and were quickly weaponised to undermine the process. Even though a UN investigation later found insufficient evidence, the damage had already been done: attention diverted, momentum slowed, credibility questioned. This is how accountability is disrupted—not always through direct opposition, but through delay, distraction, and erosion of trust.

And where were you? Watching. Calculating. Waiting.

You did not take Israel to the International Court of Justice or the International Criminal Court. You did not support those who did. You did not defend the integrity of the process. Instead, your silence enabled efforts to obstruct justice.

You speak of sovereignty, yet act with dependence. Understand this clearly: no one will secure your future for you. The United States will not choose you over Israel. It will sacrifice you to protect its strategic interests.

You speak of unity, yet remain divided. You cannot even tolerate your neighbouring nations. Your words of unity ring hollow when your actions promote fragmentation. Once, you lived simply—now wealth has blinded you and distanced you from your roots.

You speak of stability, yet ignore that true stability cannot be built on silence in the face of suffering, occupation, and mass violence. For decades, you have relied on external guarantees for your security. But those alliances come with limits. The weapons you buy are controlled. The intelligence you receive leaves you exposed. Respect is never given to those who do not assert themselves.

The reality is clear: you are being exploited, and you fail to recognise it.

When crises arise, you hesitate—not because you lack resources or influence, but because decisive action would require breaking patterns you have long depended on. You rely on external protection because you lack legitimacy at home. This is not just political failure—it is moral failure.

Your people see this. They see the gap between your words and your actions. They see suffering met with silence. And they are drawing conclusions—about your leadership, your responsibility, and your values.

History will judge you. It will not remember your careful diplomacy or calculated restraint. It will ask a simple question: when faced with injustice, what did you do?

You signed the Abraham Accords. You enabled destruction. You supported oppressive systems. You invested in leadership that prioritised others over you. And still, you were not valued.

Dear Muslim and Arab leaders,

There is still time to change—but not indefinitely. 

- Repent openly and apologise to the people you have abandoned

- Rebuild legitimacy through action, not statements. 

- Engage your people as representatives, not rulers. 

- Pursue cooperation as strategy, not symbolism. 

- Show that leadership is defined by conviction, not submission.

- Serve your people as humble leaders not oppressive monsters. 

Because the path you are on leads to one outcome: diminishing relevance, eroding credibility, and a legacy defined by absence at the moment it mattered most. If you continue on this path you will be remembered for being treacherous puppets. 

You can choose a different path.

But it will require something you have not yet shown: resolve.

Yours sincerely 

Ajmal Masroor

LBC Financial Times Sky News Islam Channel The Economist CNN BBC Channel 4 Al Jazeera English The Guardian Saudi Gazette Emirates

Donald Trump: A Walking Inventory of the Seven Deadly Sins

By Michael Jochum

 

The irony here isn’t subtle. It’s radioactive. In any functioning moral universe Donald Trump wouldn’t be the hero of the evangelical movement, he would be the cautionary tale they warn their children about at church camp. He doesn’t attend church. He can’t quote scripture beyond the marketing slogans his handlers spoon-feed him. The only time he bows his head is over a plate of butter-drenched pancakes at IHOP, communing not with God but with syrup and cholesterol while ordering from the senior menu like a man who thinks the Sermon on the Mount is a golf course. His personal life isn’t just un-Christian, it’s a grotesque parody of every vice Christianity supposedly condemns, performed loudly and proudly for the cameras. Lust, greed, pride, gluttony, wrath, the man isn’t fighting the seven deadly sins, he’s hosting them like permanent guests in a penthouse suite.

 

And yet this is the man staging theatrical prayer circles in the White House like some televangelist revival tent built out of gold leaf and ego. Hands on shoulders. Heads bowed. Cameras rolling. The entire spectacle has the spiritual authenticity of a late-night infomercial selling miracle water. Trump treating religion this way is almost expected, his entire life has been one long con, but watching self-described evangelical leaders gather around him like he’s the Second Coming isn’t faith. It’s idolatry with a cheap Jesus sticker slapped over naked power.

Now the rest of the world is doing what the rest of the world does when America loses its mind. They’re laughing. Not quietly either. In China the bizarre White House prayer stunt has become a full-blown social media trend. Factory bosses and office managers are gathering employees into circles, placing hands on heads and shoulders just like Trump’s little Oval Office revival, and “praying” for things like higher sales numbers and bigger profits. Entire companies are staging parody prayer services, filming them, and posting them across platforms like Douyin and Weibo where millions of people are watching and howling. 

It has become a global comedy routine, America’s president pretending to be a holy man while the rest of the planet turns the whole thing into a meme.

 

Think about what that means for a moment. The United States, once the country that lectured the world about democracy and moral leadership, is now exporting political theater so ridiculous that foreign businesses are literally recreating it as satire. Our national leadership has become a punchline. The White House has turned into a stage set for evangelical cosplay while authoritarian governments laugh at the performance.

 

And the tragedy is that Trump didn’t create this farce alone. He simply revealed how eager millions of people were to worship a man who embodies every single vice their religion claims to oppose. When a walking inventory of the seven deadly sins becomes the spiritual mascot of Evangelical Christianity, the problem isn’t just the man in the gold-plated chair.

 

It’s the congregation applauding him.

 

Donald Trump isn’t just a failed president.

 

He’s the world’s most powerful televangelist fraud, and the entire planet can see the scam.

 

—Michael Jochum, Not Just a Drummer: Reflections on Art, Politics, Dogs, and the Human Condition.