10-27-81

Collective Buying Committee Interview With Imam W. D. Muhammad

This is- the first radio program of Imam Warith Deen Muhammad on the West Coast.  Imam Muhammad was Interviewed by the Collective Buying Committee on October 27. 1981 on radio station KCST at 8:30PM.  KEST is one of the most popular radio talk stations in the Bay-Area; with a listening audience of more than two and a half million people.
The radio panelists were:  Brother Abdallah Adesanya and Sister Zarinah Bilal.

Bro. Adesanya:     
Mr. Muhammad, in September of 1979 you directed the members of the American Muslin Mission to reenter the economic program of your father, the late Honorable Elijah Muhammad.  In making this announcement, you stated that you felt your community had attained the strong moral and spiritual base necessary for success. Many of our listeners will remember the farms, restaurants, trucking firms and other businesses conducted by the Muslims during the leadership of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.  Probably most notable of the products made popular during this time was the world famous bean pie. 


Bro. Adesanya:     
Mr. Muhammad, would you explain to us and the listening audience the philosophy and concepts of the collective buying program of the American Muslim Mission as you envision them; and how does this economic program compare or differ from the economic program of your father?


Imam Muhammad: 
Thank you Brother Adesanya.  The economic program that we are advocating now, is really a collective buying program and I feel that it is no different than the program the Honorable Elijah Muhammad himself, developed or initiated; some years ago - some years back.  The purpose of the program is to get the benefit of volume purchase.  When we pool our money and make volume purchase (we get a reduced) the cost is reduced.  And in reducing the cost, if we past that on to the members then the bite of inflation is also reduced; for the members who participate in the collective buying program. It began very slowly and we like for it to move slowly because it's going to require a lot of research, a lot of study; and it's going to require a lot of discipline on the part of the purchasers, so that they don't hurt the program by burdening it with necessaries.  For example, if you have one-hundred (100) people involved in a program here, in Oakland; and they don't buy collectively, but vet they're participating in a collective buying program. 

By collectively we mean, taking advantage of the group, of the numbers, to pet the best buy from the manufacturer, or whatever.  In this case, It's produce now: we haven't gone into other things.  If they, say for example, if you have one-hundred (100) people buying fifty (50) different items you can't get the result that you would get if you had one-hundred (100) people buying one (1) item, you see. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad use to encourage his followers to pool their monies.  And he began with that particular expression, "Pool your money !"; and later he began to identify his program as blueprint - Economic Blueprint for the Black Man.  And he said the purpose of it was to get   rid of poverty in the Black community. 

There were other men of our race who advocated the same thing; pooling your resources and getting the benefit of collective effort rather than having the efforts all dispersed and uncoordinated.  It works. It works for many organizations have had similar programs and they have established big businesses with their program.  It's very close to the idea they call the cooperative buying - coop buying; but for us it's different, because our purpose is not so much to benefit a few members, it's to benefit all the members who need it and most of our members need it.  Our masjid membership is mostly people who are underemployed and out of jobs, you see.  So our program is almost. I would say, a single consumer - or simple purchaser's program  We don't intend to get any profit at all from it.


Bro. Adesanya:     
If you don't receive any profit through the program, how will it sustain itself? How will it keen operating?


Imam Muhammad: 
By reducing the cost to the member, the whole membership gain; benefit from that. And there are persons in our membership who have such a great desire to see poor people get a little breathing spell, or better situation, a better financial situation; that they will donate their time. They donate their time to see that the program works.  So we don't have to hire persons; and if we did, if we needed - say if we didn't have sufficient numbers to carry out the obligations of the program. What we would do then is select a poor member and we would give that member, perhaps, extra benefits from the program.  Not money, but extra benefits in terms of goods that he will receive for his family, perhaps, without pay.  So there's many ways to get the help that we need.  But we're lucky so far we have persons like you, yourself, directing the program and you're not demanding anything from the community.


Bro. Adesanya:     
Yes sir.


Sis. Bilal:
Do you think that the business man will be able to be involved in the collective buying program?


Bro. Imam Muhammad: 
Sure.  When the program was first conceived we hoped that the program would in some way reach the need of the poor businessman; and I feel that the program is designed to do that.  If we get sufficient numbers participating in the program, the cost for the commodities are going to be greatly reduced and this reduction will put us in the position to assist our business people in our community if they wanted to have, say, warehouse sales or flea market sales or some other sales.  Perhaps even go into business, if we get the volume.  If the volume grows we could get enough of certain commodities to store for a long period of time; and if they're not perishable, someone would be easily be able to go into business.  In fact many businesses can be created from the program.


Sis. Bilal
Do you think that this program would encourage them to lower their costs?


Imam Muhammad: 
I would hope that it would encourage them to lower their costs.  If we reduce the cost to them we would expect that they would reduce the costs to their own customers; because that's our problem.  We can't, we don't have resources to compete with businessmen who have, that have great resources.  So we open a little small store and our prices are higher because we pay a higher price for our small volume, you see; and that higher cost is past on to the consumer.  But if we could get the benefit of the numbers, that we expect from our community, then that cost would be reduced and the businessman, of who participates in our program would be in a position to sell and compete with the average businessman in the streets.


Sis. Bilal:        
You also mentioned storing food.  For people like myself that have never really bought in bulk before will there be some type of consumer information as far as storing, properly storing food?


Bro. Imam Muhammad: 
Certainly there would be.  If we are fortunate enough to realize the program as we conceive it; there will be hardly no storing of anything at all.  Because we will take orders and we will purchase to order. We will know in advance exactly what we need; and we will make that purchase.  And the persons will receive that.  If anyone wants a quantity larger than they will - say a produce, for instance; if someone wants a larger quantity of produce than they can handle in a reasonable time, then storage will be their problem, not our problem. And we then would have to have some kind of storage information for those persons participating.


Sis. Bilal:
Thank you.  Also I wanted to ask you, what will determine the brand of merchandise or the price and the quality of the foods purchased?


Imam Muhammad:
I think the informed customer.  The informed participant will determine that.  After we have made available factual information, and then we will leave it to , the, those parti-pants to decide what articles or what items we should buy.  I would suggest that we purchase very wisely and that is economize. There are many brand-name products that are of no better quality than some non-brand, non-brand-name products.  They don't have any popular brand, brand-name; and it would be foolish to spend an extra dollar for a brand-name when you can pet the same without doing that, you see.  "No frills", we have "No frills" in Chicago.  It's a business operation similar to what we hope that this will develop into.  But it's a business; they're working for profit.  

They have non-brand names, perhaps a few brand-names, I believe; and they eliminate a lot of labor costs.  Because the customers go and get their products off the shelf and do most of the bagging, everything, themselves, you see.  And some of these operations have the customer bring their own bags.  So all of that reduce costs and I believe we can even go further in reducing costs because our community now has had many years of practice of working together and doing things together.  So if we had the space to work in, I'm sure that we would have members that would come in and they have already been in the habit of identifying with the community and with its properties and assets as owner; and that's exactly what each participant will be - the owner.  And with that mind and spirit they can cone in and just do whatever has to be done to keep the cost down.


Sis. Bilal:        
Right, you mentioned that the program is only open to Muslims, what is your reasoning for that?


Imam Muhammad: 
Well it's specifically composed, pardon me, formulated for the Muslims but I would hope that Muslims would accept their friends to participate with them if they wanted to in the program.


Bro. Adesanya:
Mr. Muhammad, you mentioned in your article in September of 1979, that the reason for reentering the economic program of the late Honorable Elijah Muhammad was because you felt the community had the necessary strong moral and spiritual base.  Why is that important?


Bro. Imam Muhammad: 
Well, I think the downfall of most businessmen, not just true for those of our community or for Afro-Americans; I think it's true for most small businessmen.  Their downfall is usually because of absence of lack of discipline, lack of discipline; Too many of us go in business and we dream, we have that dream, that we are going to now have money to do what we want to do.  And we get the gross income and we don't understand that that money in the first year or so of our business really shouldn't go into my pocket at all; it should go back into the business.  So we take that money and we spend it on the things that we've been dreaming about and in a year or so, or sometimes in a few months, we're out of business.  They say, oh boy, these people can't make it with business, you know.  Yes we can make it with business; but we don't have the business sense that those long established Irish families, Jewish families and others have, you see.  

They bring their relatives in and everything and they expect nothing, from the business, until the business gets strong.  So sometimes we can get some income right away from a business.  But most businesses, it take long time before you can develop that business and get some income from it.  You have to have investment capital.  So as a group we can muster up investment capital; and if we wisely care for this program and don't try to get anything from it, in terms of wealth or capital for ourselves; but the object of the program should be to reduce the cost of living for the individual member and let the business people then go into business with good advice and good information.  

I think a council, we should have business council for this program to assist small businessmen and we have businessmen in our community who are knowledgeable.  We have businessmen who are very successful.  And if we have to, we'll seek outside assistance, you see; and we can avoid, well, the kinds of difficulties that the average businessman Ret into Just because he doesn't have the information that he need in hand before going into business.
It seems to be a unique quality, at least in the African-American community, that we are looking at as you have envisioned the program- the non-profit motive being held by the people who participate.  Such that, the program puts a lot of faith in volunteer activity; and as you've expressed it; that faith in volunteer activity is based on knowing who owns the program and who the benefits are coming to; that the participants reap the benefit of the program.


Imam Muhammad: 
Certainly, they are the owners.  Adesanya, if we can spend a whole life, make a career of preaching good morals; of preaching religion to people - in the face of economic conditions that we have been in as far as I can go back, you know; as a race, as a people.  And now it's affecting many, many other nationalities are affected by the same conditions that we arc affected by.  If we cat spend all of our life making a career of preaching; then shouldn't we spend some time reducing the inflationary cost on peonies life and making it possible for then to have some dignity? The man has no dignity when he is dependent upon welfare, when he's out of a job; and he has to get involved in unlawful things.  

Sometimes they're not unlawful but they are beneath the dignity of the individual.  And you have a strong moral, a strong moral sensitivity in the poor people, and we forget that.  They don't like to do the things they have to do.  So we have to really do whatever we can, do all we can, to bring a more human situation into existence; for our poor suffering people in these cities.  We can't do the job by ourselves but we can do something.  And the collective buying program will certainly help to alleviate the situation. I believe.


Bro. Adesanya:
It seems also that you are directing the persons who participate in the collective
buying, program to think of buying, in a different mode than they have in the past. In buying, collectively only one or two items at a time; and we're normally used to filling up a shopping basket at any of the large supermarkets.  It seems that there's a different kind of discipline that you're asking of the participants. Would you elaborate a little more on that kind of discipline?


Imam Muhammad: 
Yes, you know, we can't impose a program on people.  They have to want what we are offering them, you see.  And I find that most of the members of our organization, they really want what this program is designed for.  If we just spend or purchase instinctively, without serious thought, we buy more than what we need; we buy too many different things I might want, say- string beans today for dinner.  But I don't have to have string beans today for dinner.  I can eat peas, preen peas, today for dinner.  lf we buy collectively and we say we'll have string beans Wednesday; we'll have green peas Thursday.  Well in the run, in the long run, we get what we want any way, you see.  And pretty soon our habit, our habit   is  conforming  to  the program, the needs of the program, you know, we'd be in the habit then.  

I'd expect peas then, I don't want peas on Monday anymore, I'm in the habit now of eating peas on Thursday (chuckle) , you see.  So, if we can, if we can re-train our appetites and our habits we can get great benefit from the program. For people all purchase together and there's nothing wrong with that.  Once I wanted to have some hash-browns; and I came downstairs and ray wife was fixing french-fries.  And so I said, "I wanted, I thought I was going to have some hash-browns this morning; and you're fixing french-fries." So she said, " You want me to fix you some hash-browns?".  I said, " No, I'm not going to waste all that oil and gas.  Give me some french-fries; you already got them ready there.".  So we have to do things to reasonably bring the cost of living down for ourselves.


Bro. Adsanya:
Very wise.


Sis. Bilal:
There was also a question that was asked; whether of not this program would bring jobs into our community?"


Imam Muhammad: 
It certainly will, through the business angle of it.  That arm of the program that will be designed to assist businessmen in getting wholesale, real wholesale prices; will certainly bring jobs in, because these will be businessmen. They won't be operating not-for-profit.  They'll be paving taxes and they will be employing people. Yes, and it will bring jobs in; in fact, we have a lot of faith in that.  The bigger part of the program will be, in the long run it will be the development of businesses and jobs.


Bro. Adesanva:     
In looking at that development of businesses and jobs; do you see the collective buying program itself becoming a profit making, a profit making, venture.


Imam Muhammad: 
No, I don't.  I would hope that collective buying would never be a for profit program. That it would always be a non-for-profit program so that the many members who would never go into the hinds of businesses that the program would allow, will still be able to keep the costs of living down; because we need that very much.


Sis. Bilal:
How will you control that? Will you encourage the members to keep in mind that this is not a profit making venture?


Bro. Imam Muhammad: 
Why certainly. We would expect that our members would participate in this program with a sacred respect for the disciplines and the rules and regulations of the program. We see this as really part of our religion, in fact; economic concerns is one of the pillars of our religion. Yes.


Bro. Adesanya: 
Is it possible then that by developing the strong sense of commitment to economics that are for the upliftment of the community, as opposed to a profit motive, that this will serve as a rallying point for many others who are non-Muslins; in the Bay-Area and other areas too ...


Bro. Imam Muhammad: 
Yes, I've been told that; I've been told that. I've been asked that Question many times, in fact in Chicago I was on a program; I was asked the same question.  It is, there is a chance that people may join the program just to pet the benefit.  We're going to carefully screen people that come into this program; and they're going to have to have really very disciplined habits.  They're going to have to have a lot of self-discipline to
participate in the program.  So 1 don't think we're going to get persons that would hurt the program. And I wouldn't care how many came in if they were sincere people and if they came really from the poverty-stricken area of community of the people.


Bro. Adesanya:     
Finally, I guess as a final question; presently the program is operating on foodstuff or produce, do you see an expansion of the types of items or the types of goods and are purchases limited to our immediate locality or is there possible opportunity for international concerns here?


Bro. Imam Muhammad: 
As our demand increase we will then begin to search out manufacturers in the states who can supply us with a greater volume of commodities or items that we would be purchasing.  And I'm sure that we're going to have an occasion to look in the international trade market for some of our needs.


Bro. Adesanya:
I'd like to thank you Brother Imam for your agreeing to come sit with us in discussion. We hope that in the future weeks ahead there




