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.
Saddam Hussein the Arab world. John Esposito, however, claims that "Arabs and Muslims were pulled in two directions. That they rallied not so much to Saddam Hussein as to the bipolar nature of the confrontation (the West versus the Arab Muslim world) and the issues that Saddam proclaimed: Arab unity, self-sufficiency, and social justice." As a result, Saddam Hussein appealed to many people for the same reasons that attracted more and more followers to Islamic revivalism and also for the same reasons that fueled anti-Western feelings. As one U.S. Muslim observer noted: "People forgot about Saddam's record and concentrated on America ...