Entry.

Of course, a reassessment of the economic policies of Ahmadinejad’s government during the eight years he held power in the Islamic Republic of Iran requires a more detailed analytical investigation, which is usually the responsibility of economists and those who have at least a thorough understanding of Iran’s economic fluctuations during these eight years. Therefore, before beginning any discussion, it is necessary to mention that the perspective of this article is not a purely critical or even expert and analytical one, but rather a secondary reassessment from the viewpoint of an objective witness.

1- In the body, it seems that the economic disasters that occurred during the Ahmadinejad government were simply the result of his populist approach and, to put it bluntly, his and his government’s incompetence in managing the economy. However, the point here is that, in my belief, this tragedy was the result of processes that began with the implementation of neoliberal economic policies after the end of the Iran-Iraq war by development and reformist governments, and its culmination was seen in the Ahmadinejad government’s claim of justice.

It can be said that fundamentally, criticism and reconsideration of the issue of poverty in Ahmadinejad’s government, without revisiting the legacy of neoliberalism in post-war governments (especially in the economic sphere), is practically impossible. Interestingly, Ahmadinejad’s government, which in its rhetoric presented itself as a servant of the low-income class, in implementing these neoliberal policies in the economy, took the lead from the two previous governments of development and reformism; and perhaps in a phenomenological analysis, the relationship between cause and effect can be attributed to a significant portion of poverty issues resulting from this event (such as unemployment crisis, fall in the exchange rate and noticeable decline in people’s quality of life and purchasing power, etc.). However, the story of the economic policies of the ninth and tenth governments was also the story of creating a new two-faced society that cannot be ignored. On one side of Ahmadinejad’s mental scale, there was the affluent class and on the other side, the

Let’s make the issue clearer with a concrete example: A rural old woman with very low understanding of economics, practically believes in her daily conversations that the volume of thefts in different governments is taken from the pockets of people like her. The mechanism of this theft is not clear to her, but she strongly emphasizes the principle of this theft. In the midst of this, Ahmadinejad, as a symbol of righteousness, appears to be fighting against injustice and forgiving the assets of oppressors to help the needy and suffering people, in order to extort from the rich for the benefit of the poor!

Of course, the Ahmadinejad government could have focused on exposing the mechanisms that allow the upper class to commit large-scale theft, instead of introducing cases of embezzlement and corruption as a form of whistleblowing. In this sense, the function of the Ahmadinejad government was essentially to only show the tip of the iceberg to the general public; this is while a major part of this iceberg remained hidden under the veil of this same corrupt understanding of the economy.

Embezzlement and the definition of petty theft by the public from the sense of looting public wealth, in a way, mixed with the same wealth and money in Ahmadinejad’s view and definition, and took a theatrical and comic form that could be clearly seen in the introduction of some corrupt elements and the arrest of some embezzlers and profiteers (who are themselves products of government corruption)!

In this regard, it can be said that despite the maturity of the middle class in the two governments of development and reform, the Ahmadinejad government, with the mindset of targeting poverty, struck a heavier blow to the middle class, which resulted in its decline.

As previously mentioned, this process had been somewhat adopted in the post-war era and in previous governments, but it was further intensified during the Ahmadinejad government, which had previously been dominated by neoliberal policies in the economic sector in previous governments. With this explanation, it should be noted that I intend to move beyond this level and focus on the economic policies of the Ahmadinejad government in this field.

2- If we want to reconsider Ahmadinejad’s main failure in the field of economy, we will inevitably have to address the problem of stagflation, which requires specific and timely plans. Plans that can successfully create economic contraction to control “inflation” and economic expansion to prevent “recession”. This is while his shallow and impractical understanding of complex economic concepts has led to a critical crisis that has been unprecedented in the past 35 years.

The simultaneous occurrence of the two crises of “recession” and “inflation” in contemporary history reminds us of the 1930s in Europe and the rise of fascism. Economists have specific solutions for addressing the problems of recession and inflation separately, but when these two concepts attack the economy of a country at the same time, the situation becomes more difficult and complex. This is because contractionary policies to control inflation contradict expansionary policies to eliminate recession.

3- It can be boldly claimed that there is a fundamental relationship between the policies and character of a government, its literature, and of course, its other governing branches. A relationship that can be used to analyze the structure and framework of that government.

Generally, the ninth and tenth governments are referred to as populist governments, but what kind of populism did Ahmadinejad have in the economy? The answer to this question is easy in some aspects and difficult in others.

A basic definition and framework of populism is that the government creates a completely direct and unmediated connection with the people and attempts to simplify complex economic, political, social, and other concepts to a very low and simplistic level for the people.

Perhaps if we claim that the first arm of populism is aimed at achieving economic goals, we will not have taken the wrong path. In the midst of this, the Ahmadinejad government needed to streamline its path to capture the minds of the poor masses, and this could not be achieved without eliminating the expert view of the economy. As a result, the Organization for Budget and Planning, which is the scientific backbone of the government in reviewing the country’s budget, was removed and in a nearly suicidal move, Ahmadinejad and his economic experts, by simplifying the complex concepts of “wealth” and “money”, put all rational economic relations under the influence of their populist approach. They seemed to be unaware that printing money and distributing it has no linear relationship with creating wealth.

4- The slogan of Ahmadinejad’s government was wealth distribution, but what happened that this very distribution of wealth resulted in the opposite and instead of distributing wealth, poverty was distributed?

Perhaps the answer to this question can be found in understanding the populist approach of Ahmadinejad’s government towards the economy: in this political approach, definitions are often complicated and not simplified, which can sometimes be easily understood, and this was more evident in Ahmadinejad’s economic policies in a way that his definition of justice was seen by many critics as a religious definition, and in most cases, even lower than religious definitions. In his and his government’s view, justice was summarized in arresting the rich and powerful and punishing them for their actions, and using their money to provide for the people in remote villages, just like Robin Hood did!

This socialist slogan of wealth distribution, which was the cause of his initial popularity (in 2005), was ultimately reduced to the simplistic idea of “redistributing money and cash among the poor” due to a lack of economic backing and a shallow understanding of complex concepts such as economic justice, money, capital, etc.

The expansion of poverty boundaries in society has coincided with the thinning of the middle class, due to the weakening of the middle class itself; meaning that during the Ahmadinejad administration, the middle class practically lost its boundaries with the working class (based on existing definitions).

Another point that many critics described as unripe and ineffective in the targeted subsidy plan was the literary aspect in which it was introduced to its audience: the government presented itself as the savior of the nation, intending to return the people’s capital and wealth to them through a tangible and palpable means: depositing cash and non-cash subsidies.

5.

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Another point that is worth examining is the government’s approach to framing poverty in a psychological framework for the minds of different social classes.

Ahmadinejad’s first step in this direction was to simplify and clarify the two concepts of “recession” and “inflation” in his direct speeches with the people, which generally require a broad, lengthy, and timely plan.

But the question remains, how does poverty increase in terms of psychology: instilling the idea in people’s minds that only the rich and wealthy do not need government assistance, and among them, the rest of the people need help that the government gains from fighting the wealthy and gives to the poor class.

Of course, in this process, the feeling of justice is equated with actual justice, and it is natural that instead of wealth distribution, poverty is distributed.

This poverty distribution had both psychological and material aspects, which can be seen in economic indicators such as a decrease in gross domestic product, increase in inflation, and overall economic recession, etc.

The 45,000 tomans that in previous governments were injected into the economy as non-cash subsidies instead of being directly delivered to the people, were this time given to the people in order to pave the way for increasing the psychological poverty threshold and to frame it as a credit. In simpler terms, this approach had clear consequences: making the distribution of capital tangible through direct distribution of money among the people and equating the concepts of “money” and “wealth” in the public mindset, or to put it more accurately: equating money and wealth (as tangible achievements with material values).

Exit.

It is necessary to evaluate the Ahmadinejad government in comparison to previous governments. The main point here is that the process of privatization of state-owned companies, the elimination of subsidies which was in line with the policies of structural adjustment of the economy (emphasized by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund), and the threat to job security due to the cancellation of official employment contracts, were all essentially the result of the neoliberal policies advocated by the Chicago School. Therefore, it is not enough to only attribute the events of the past eight years to the ninth and tenth governments, and the issue must be examined and analyzed at a deeper and more comprehensive level; points that can be the subject of further research.