Trantor has fallen; now let’s kick the Mule. Asimov’s Foundation as backdrop to Iranian capitalism

Isaac Asimov’s Foundation saga seems an odd place to search for inspiration in the struggle against Iranian capitalism, but bear with me please since I hope this blog will cohere by the time I am done.

At the heart of Foundation there is a genetic dynasty of Cleons who are meant to be prefect clones of their original namesake. Three of them are around at any given time representing different developmental ages, with spare copies kept in the reanimation tank in case of accidents or death. There is Brother Dawn, who is the young pop being groomed for rulership, Brother Day who makes most of the major executive decisions regarding governance, and Brother Dusk who is the old geezer, full of vindictive malice.

The Cleon Dynasty: (Left to right) Brother Dawn, Brother Day, Brother Dusk

The Galactic dynasty of Cleons (or Empire as it is known) has been around for eons, lording it over the galaxy and imposing a paternalistic-military dictatorship on all and sundry. It behaves as all powerful and all-knowing and can brook no opposition. Succumb and you may prosper under its benign tutelage; resist and you and yours will soon come to regret your transgressions.

In the twentieth century, Iran had its own dynasty of Cleons, only they were called Shahs. Their reign too was to be interrupted by mysterious forces originating from the edge of the Galaxy. The original clone was Reza Khan, a military officer in the Persian Cossack Brigade.

Reza Khan established the Pahlavi dynasty and reigned as Shah from 1925 to 1941. Under his leadership the process of primitive capital accumulation was catalysed through industrialisation and taxation. Cities were modernised, the army was trained in German techniques of warfare, and sport utilised to initiate cultural unity. He forced tribes to don a nationalistic mantle and crushed rural uprisings. The first national railway system was decreed by Reza Khan but, in reality, built with surplus value extracted from the people.  In short, he managed what the bourgeoisie was too fragmented and incompetent to do for itself; he gave Iranian capitalism a backbone.  

Ultimately Reza Khan paid the price for supporting Germany in WWII and was duly overthrown following a brief Anglo-Soviet invasion. By this time, he had alienated not just the working class and peasantry but huge segments of the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie. So, when he abdicated in favour of his son, Mohammad Reza Shah in 1941, there weren’t too many tears.

The Pahlavi dynasty wins it by a nose! Brother Dawn (Reza Pahlavi), Brother Day (Mohammad Reza Pahlavi), Brother Dusk (Reza Khan).

Mohammad Reza Shah came to something resembling power in 1941 (although in practice the allies were still in charge of most vital decisions). Amongst numerous self-aggrandizing titles he was also granted the title Aryamehr (Light of the Aryans). When in 1953 his power base was threatened by prime minister Mossadegh, the Shah was aided and abetted by a criminal gang of Anglo-American mercenaries who placed him back on the throne. For the next decade the Shah consolidated his regime and by 1963 he was ready to develop Iranian capitalism further through a series of top-down reforms. Capitalism was brought to the countryside whilst mechanisms of absolute surplus value extraction were extended in urban areas. After a decade of economic growth things began to go sour in the mid-1970s. Profits declined, bottlenecks developed, and unemployment gained the epithet of ‘scourge’ to indicate it was here for the long haul.

Even the media skills of the immaculate humanoid robot, Demerzel (aka Farah Pahlavi), the constant companion of the Cleons, and some would argue the real brain behind the throne, was not sufficient to save the dynasty from disaster.

Farah Pahlavi and Demerzel, programmed to defend Empire.

The failure of Mohammad Reza Shah’s regime to transition from the formal domination of capital over labour to the real domination of capital over labour sealed Empire’s fate. The Cleons were gone and almost overnight replaced by the Mule.

The rubric ‘Mule’ stands for mysterious peripheral forces which gather in the shadows with the aim of gaining supreme power. With its mental abilities of persuasion, the Mule recruited the weak and the impressionable. He understood that force alone cannot sustain an empire and that subjects must come to love their leaders. Mule’s telepathic powers did not merely create followers but faithful worshippers. The Mule transitioned into Ayatollah Khomeini and seized the thrown vacated by the Shah. But the Mule is a slippery character and not reducible to any one individual, hence its smooth metamorphosis into another ayatollah whose name also begins with a 'Kh', Khamenei.

A new bunch of clones replace the old Cleons: Khomeini (Father Day) and Khamenei (Father Dusk).

Whilst the Shahs’ Empire harnessed self-interest and greed, the Islamic Empire used the ‘visi-sonar’ to manipulate people’s emotions. The former attracted weak and conformist lackeys, whose support evaporated the moment crisis emerged in the 1970s. The worshippers of the Islamic dynasty are far more devoted precisely because gradually they come to love their masters. The malice of this new (theocratic) Empire of the Mule far exceeds that of the Cleons. But then so does its ineptitude. Forty-five years after the Mule reached the summit of power, Iranian capitalism is still failing to transition into the real phase of capital domination over labour.

Hari Seldon, one of the pioneers of psychohistory on trial for plagiarism

At first the Galaxy is too petrified to resist. But as the great psychohistorian Hari Seldon had predicted people gradually learn to resist both empires. His psychohistory has been described as an algorithmic science. But we think it borrowed ideas from two earlier attempts at creating deterministic outlooks, without acknowledging them (typical Hari). The first form of determinism owes a great deal to Engels and his reading of Ibn Khaldun. Engels’s deterministic anthropology was fused with Ibn Khaldun’s deterministic work in history and geography. Seldon used these models to shape a rough contour for navigating through crises.

Engels, Ibn Khaldun and Hari Seldon chinwagging about the First Crisis.

The second attempt at creating a grand science that came to influence Seldon’s psychohistory was more thorough. It came courtesy of Karl Korsch and Kurt Lewin. Korsch the great Marxist sociologist and Lewin the Gestaltist psychologist were friends. Their collaboration resulted in a mathematical synthesis of sociology and psychology, but ultimately this model too failed due to its inherent reductionism.

Years after the first model had failed Korsch, Seldon and Lewin try to fix the Prime Radiant. But it fails again.

So Seldon’s Plan was far from perfect, and its contradictions made it deviate from the ideal path for human development. Even this finalised model is not a guaranteed success. Outliers can still play havoc with the Plan and blow it off course. Here is where the Foundation (in other words, us oppositional Iranians) entre the frame. For the Foundation emerged to correct deviations in Seldon’s plan and deal with outliers. The Foundation is a practical repository of human knowledge to fight all tyrants and empires, but especially Iranian Cleons and Mules. Just like Asimov's book there are two Foundations; one constitutes Iranians living in Iran and one consists of disparate Iranians in exile. The people’s Clowns are but a small faction within these Foundations trying to shorten the age of chaos.

Will the Mule continue to rule us indefinitely? Will the Cleons make a comeback? Or will the Foundation succeed in correcting potentially disastrous deviations from the Seldon Plan?

I suspect the answer lies in the next season of Foundation or in overthrowing the mullah-bourgeoisie; whichever comes first.

Whoever has the Prime Radiant has the future.