This study entails a theoretical reading of the Iranian modern history and follows an
interdisciplinary agenda at the intersection of philosophy psychoanalysis economics and
politics and intends to offer a novel framework for the analysis of socio-economic development
in Iran in the modern era. A brief review of Iranian modern history from the Constitutional
Revolution to the Oil Nationalization Movement the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the recent
Reformist and Green Movements demonstrates that Iranian people travelled full circle. This
historical experience of socio-economic development revolving around the bitter question of Why
are we backward? and its manifestation in perpetual socio-political instability and violence is
the subject matter of this study. Michel Foucault's conceived relation between the production
of truth and production of wealth captures the essence of hypothesis offered in this study.
Foucault (1980: 93-94) maintains that In the last analysis we must produce truth as we must
produce wealth indeed we must produce truth in order to produce wealth in the first place.
Based on a hybrid methodology combining hermeneutics of understanding and hermeneutics of
suspicion this monograph proposes that the failure to produce wealth has had particular roots
in the failure in the production of truth and trust. At the heart of the proposed theoretical
model is the following formula: the Iranian subject's confused preference structure culminates
in the formation of unstable coalitions which in turn leads to institutional failure creating
a chaotic social order and a turbulent history as experienced by the Iranian nation in the
modern era. As such the society oscillates between the chaotic states of socio-political
anarchy emanating from irreconcilable differences between and within social assemblages and
their affiliated hybrid forms of regimes of truth in the springs of freedom and repressive
states of order in the winters of discontent. Each time after the experience of chaos the
order is restored based on the emergence of a final arbiter (Iranian leviathan) as the evolved
coping strategy for achieving conflict resolution. This highly volatile truth cycle produces
the experience of socio-economic backwardness and violence. The explanatory power of the
theoretical framework offered in the study exploring the relation between the production of
truth trust and wealth is demonstrated via providing historical examples from strong events
of Iranian modern history. The significant policy implications of the model are explored. This
monograph will appeal to researchers scholars graduate students policy makers and anyone
interested in the Middle Eastern politics Iran development studies and political economy.
