Types of socialism and encourages the institution of a form of direct democracy based on popular committees. Critics charge that Qaddafi uses these committees as tools of autocratic political repression in practice. Scholars have highlighted the similarities between the Islamic economic system and socialist theory. For example, both are against unearned income. Islam does allow private ownership of natural resources and large industries, which are owned collectively, or at least encouraged to be so. The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party rules Syria (and ruled Iraq under Saddam Hussein), based on a tradition of secular, non-Marxist socialism. Ba'thist beliefs combine Arab Socialism, nationalism, and Pan-Arabism.
Arab socialism stressed Arab unity above else, Razzaz tried to demonstrate the interdependent nature of unity, liberty and socialism. He criticized the view that socialism had to come after Arab unity, stating "Socialism, freedom and unity are not different names for different things, ... but different facets of one basic law from which they spring." He further noted that "If I believe in man and in man's worth, then I should believe in unity, nationalism, freedom, and socialism because each of them represents a facet of man's fundamental value." Razzaz ended the article, stating that socialism had been achieved to the same