How well does the Islamic banking and economic system work in comparison to Western systems?

Question

e.g. America, Sweden, the U.K., Japan, France, etc..

Answer 1

we dont bury our money in sand and we have banks because we have formed a society that hasnt been at constant war for 2000 years

Answer 2

Islamic law forbids interest payments, so Islamic banks do not make loans, but become a co investor in an enterprise, and are entitled to share the profits, so it works more like a stock ownership. Consumer loans can not be handled this way since there is no profit in consumption, and their is no safe investments like bonds, so it is incomplete compared to western banking standards. Most Islamic countries were controlled by western countries, and their financial systems were set up using western banking models , so Islamic banking has not really been tried in the modern world on a large scale. During the middles ages both Islam and Christian law barred interest, and economic growth rates were slow, but so was the growth rate of the whole world including China and Japan which had totally different customs.

Answer 3

Either it is integrated in with ROW already (Indonesia, Dubai, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia perhaps?) or it works on Islamic principles of trust and knowledge of who's who, no interest, and matters of other then investor return as top priority.

I don't really know more specifics, but hat is my understanding of a high level outline.