How Inequality and Discrimination Are Produced?

According to the latest Human Development Report by the United Nations in 2018, Iran's average Gini income distribution index between 2010 and 2017 is reported at 38.8, indicating an increase in inequality compared to the previous report. It should be emphasized that reports like those from the United Nations typically use official and government statistics. The deficiencies and weaknesses of such statistics should not be overlooked, as governments often try to present a beautiful image of their performance or at least downplay shortcomings. However, the flaws of this report are not limited to these issues. A significant portion of Iran's economy is opaque, and there is no precise, transparent, and comprehensive tax system to adequately monitor revenues. Therefore, how can we expect that declared income is the actual income of citizens? Especially since, within the framework of Iran's tax system, the substantial incomes of the clerical empire in the form of endowments and religious sites—such as the province of Quds Razavi or Shah Abdol Azim—remain hidden and do not come under the tax system for transparency. The problem is not only this; the opaque distribution of resources in Iran is even broader. This inequality phenomenon is layered and includes not only income, financial, or economic inequality but also inequality in the distribution of political power, legal status, social prestige, knowledge and information, job opportunities, and other components of inequality that are overlooked in such reports. In Iran, especially within the framework of the Velayat-e Faqih regime, which is a rigid regime, the core of power, which explains a significant part of inequality in Iran, is monopolized by a portion of the clergy and their allies, namely traditional merchants, commanders of the IRGC, security institutions, and part of the bureaucracy. Considering these other dimensions, inequality is much larger than what is reflected in income statistical calculations. In this context, gender, religious, ethnic, and geographical inequalities also have a place and are sources of social tensions. Economists' efforts are often focused on the impact of economic factors and, in most cases, macroeconomic factors on income or asset distribution. However, income distribution inequality is, in fact, the intersection of multiple and diverse economic, political, and social factors. To explain income distribution inequality, various economic schools propose different methods. Here, without delving into the endless debates of these schools, we aim to clarify the causal relationship of income distribution inequality and related factors based on an empirical model, focusing on how employment opportunities are distributed (see Index No. 1). As the model indicates, income distribution is itself the product of a series of fundamental and prior economic, social, political, and legal factors that are often institutional and structural. Factors such as political power share, social status placement, and share in national income are intertwined and significant factors that can only be separated in the realm of thought and with the help of analytical tools. The primary fundamental variables are those that an individual encounters at birth and during their socialization within the family framework. Economic, political, legal, and social status inequality are among them. Simultaneously with an individual's belonging to a specific family, their racial, ethnic, and religious affiliations define their share in political, economic, legal, and social resources. The individual's gender also plays a role in this process. These affiliations determine the extent and quality of an individual's access to public services—i.e., the secondary variable of social services—such as health, educational, and communicative services, as well as their social experience and information about their surroundings. Thus, the individual's personality is shaped, laying the groundwork for the emergence of specific individual-social capabilities and competencies. Inequality in job opportunities and social roles, which are closely related, depends on the aforementioned factors as well as individual capabilities and impacts the individual's income and wealth. Therefore, inequality is not limited to job opportunity inequality but also includes inequality in capability, individual ability, social relations, and ultimately individual psychological characteristics. The specific conditions of each society cause the impact of each of these factors to vary in relation to others. Among the above variables, some, such as gender, ethnicity, and religion, are independent variables; thus, they cannot be fundamentally changed in the short term and independently without a significant transformation in the cultural and political structure. However, other variables, including those related to the distribution of political power or economic opportunities, health, and educational facilities, can be changed in the short term through legal tools, budgetary redistribution policies, or financial means. However, it seems that until the fundamental and independent variables are transformed, even assuming changes in the variables that can be changed in the short term and become independent variables, societal progress towards a balanced distribution of economic opportunities, including income, will be reversible and not sustainable. Fundamental change is contingent upon transformation in the political and social structure. The upper income layers of today's Iranian society are often not a continuation of the upper classes of pre-revolutionary Iran. Instead, this class is essentially a 'new class' comprising loyalist clerics and their allies, traditional merchants, military and paramilitary forces, technocrats, and bureaucrats, which gradually formed after the regime change post-1979. The formation of this class cannot be explained without reference to the rent from participation in state power or unequal shares in political power and social prestige. Within the framework of the Velayat-e Faqih regime and its constitution, which is based on discrimination between clerics and ordinary people, Muslims and non-Muslims, men and women, ethnicities, as well as loyalist and non-loyalist Shiites, equality is not intended to be established. The economic policies of the ruling power focus on maintaining sovereignty and preventing collapse or rebellion, not on equal distribution of opportunities. Such policies are also executed and distributed from oil resources and within the framework of future sales, and the distribution of rents and subsidies is ineffective because the fundamental problem—namely, political and status inequality—is justified and legitimate within the framework of the ruling ideology. Therefore, there is no reason to change the system of producing inequality and discrimination.