As Much Privileges, So Much Responsibility : Part II

Our ancestors were prudent enough to realise that most, if not all, times a giver assumes a ‘one up’ position with respect to the receiver, who in the process loses his self respect. To guard against this eventuality, they have repeatedly warned the giver that it is his duty to give. Bhagavadgeeta articulates the proper mindset for a giver as follows:

The charity, which is done to the receiver, who deserves it at the time and place and who is unable to reciprocate the favour, by the giver out of his sense of duty, is the charity of a high order (satwikam daanam).

Bhartruhari’s subhashitsangraha maintains that doing good things is what glorifies the various action organs.

The ears are glorified by what they have heard (i.e. studied), not by the ear ornaments, a hand is decorated by the charity it does, not by the bracelet and the body of the good people is decorated by obliging others and not by the sandalwood paste applied to it.

Rgveda, mentioning the responsibilities of a householder, towards the Gods and the fellow beings exhorts,

Without offering the due share to the gods and to one’s associates, whosoever eats the food alone, is verily eating sin and sin alone. I am telling you the truth that such an ignorant person gets the food, without any (moral) right on it. Eating it (without sharing with others) is like death to him.

In a mythological story of a battle between gods and demons, the demons were gaining over the gods. Indra, the chief of the gods’ side was told by an adviser that he should wield a weapon (later to be called Vajra) which the demons have not seen or heard of so far. But, the most important raw material needed for it, was the bones of a renowned sage, by name Dadheechi. So the gods’ emissaries were sent to the sage, who after hearing the cause, volunteered to die and offer his bones to build the Vajra. The name of Dadheechi is remembered with extreme reverence even today because for the benefit of the benevolent side’s victory, he sacrificed his life.

One of the customs, which a householder is expected to follow daily, is named Vaishvadeva (holding to the conviction that every living being has a divine element in it). At noon, after the lunch is ready, he is expected to get out of the courtyard and locate any hungry being (not only human) and feed it a part of the cooked food and then only was he permitted to eat his lunch. A noteworthy feature of this custom is that at least one living being going hungry, is to be fed by the householder, before taking his lunch. The social responsibility of the modern times is confined to only fellow human beings. This daily duty of even a small householder surpassed all socialist philosophies of the modern times.

This cult of givers has always been glorified in superlative terms. It is believed that a bird in India by name, Chātaka (Pied-crested cuckoo), drinks only the rainwater as it falls from the cloud. (Perhaps because, in India, this bird species migrates from southwest to northeast in the early part of the rainy season (June to September) and back from northeast to southwest with the return monsoon.) The poet imagines that the Chātak begs from the cloud only three four drops of water to quench its thirst and the cloud (being an idol of givers), drenches the entire landscape.

Another idol of the givers is the trees.

Oh, verily the trees are highborn, (because) they support all animal life. Blessed are they, as no recipients go unsatisfied from them.

The Bhagawadgeeta adds an environmental dimension to the act of giving. The various goods and services (resources) that are available to us have not been produced exclusively by our individual efforts and enterprise alone. The cyclical mechanism of interdependence created by nature (a manifest form of the God Almighty) and reached to us by the various human organisations, (like market), have played a crucial role in the process. Hence, sustaining these natural and social mechanisms, is a boundun duty of each individual enjoying its fruits. One who does not partake this duty of keeping the cycles intact by diligently performing one’s duties as decided (by his position in the social hierarchy (Varna) and his stage in the life (Aashrama)), is a sinner, motivated by only the sensual pleasures and he lives a worthless life.

The role of giving is stressed so much, because it is usually less realised. Privileges are grabbed sooner. Responsibilities corresponding to them need exhortation.

The present generation needs these exhortations all the more. Because we are so much privilege conscious, but conveniently forget that behind every privilege, there comes a responsibility, invariably.

As Much Privileges, So Much Responsibility : Part I

An important principle that our ancestors learnt from nature and incorporated in their scriptures is that, without an exception, every privilege must be reconciled with a corresponding responsibility or a restriction.

Nature has sustained life on the earth by reconciling the strengths of the predator animals with restrictions on their using those strengths. In nature, no animal kills its prey beyond the limits of hunger and that too, in most cases, only for one meal at a time. In a South African film, Beautiful People, in a shot taken at midday on the Serengeti planes, an entire family of lions is shown resting near a waterhole and a long line of zebras, within an easy reach of a lion’s paw, drinking water fearlessly. Zebra is a delicacy for the lions. Even then, many zebras drink water, within an easy reach of any lion, only because as the commentator puts, They are sure that this is not the lunchtime of His Majesty! Please note that the only villain in world who hunts for pleasure, is the human being.

Second, out of ten times that a predator animal attacks its prey in its grazing ground, hardly one on average, becomes successful. Cheetah is the fastest animal on the surface of the earth and it can reach a sped of 120 kilometers per hour, within the first ten seconds. However, a cheetah lacks the stamina to continuously run and goes out of breath much sooner than the deer. Hence, only if he catches his prey within the first twenty seconds, will he have his meal.

Third, the birth-rate, as well as the survival rate of predator animals in nature is always much lower than that of the animals of prey.

Fourth, lioness kills the cubs of Cheetah and does not eat them. This checks the growth of the Cheetah population.

Fifth, out of say four or five cubs born to a tigress, hardly two reach adulthood.

Thus, a lion has to run faster than the slowest of the deer for survival, while a deer has to run faster than the fastest of the lions for survival. As a result, only the weakest of the deer get eliminated by their predators and the fittest survive and procreate.

A noteworthy feature of the principle of natural selection is that it is etched into the instincts. It thus becomes an inseparable part of their mind-set. All non-human beings (animals and plants) are perfectly programmed bio-robots, who behave strictly within the rules given to them by nature.

Unlike them, the human beings are endowed with the intelligence developed through an acquired information. As we developed and managed various organisations, we derived the benefits of the division of labour and specialisation at a much larger scale than the other species. To that extent, the force of instincts on our thinking and actions is weaker than that on the animals and justifiably so.

It is at this juncture that the traditional wisdom of our country becomes very crucial.

In the process of development, fostered by the division of labour and specialisation, the human society acquired greater and greater freedom from dependence on nature’s bounty for survival. From the earliest stage of depending totally on the bounty of nature we domesticated some animals, who could be used for drudgerous and and risky tasks, as well as a captive source of food. Later we, (actually the womenfolk from the prehistoric time) invented the art of cultivating land for growing grains, which, unlike meat, could last for a couple of years, without getting decayed. Thus, for the first time, there was a surplus of a durable variety of food. This permitted letting a section of the population free from the routine chore of earning/growing food and concentrate on developmental activities like observation, experimenting, documenting the findings and most importantly, teaching the young generations. This led to the exponential growth of knowledge and ultimately, its explosion.

As the acquired content of knowledge went on increasing, the instinctive (or natural) wisdom reduced in its relative importance as a basis of our decisions, With the Industrial Revolution of 1750, the mechanisation of production and transport reduced our dependence on nature further. That fostered the mindset of owning the natural resources and therefore, the reckless exploitation.

Similarly, urbanisation reduced the dependence of the individual on the society, compared to that which every individual in a small village community has. So the concern about the `responsibility to the society’ weakened, if not disappeared.

As stated repeatedly in this series, nature is both the life giver and the life sustainer for every form of life on the earth. Similarly, society, not only spared the fragile bodied human species from the cruel principle of natural selection, but also gave the human beings the capacity to prevail over all other animals.

Thus, in order that nature and society function smoothly, the human beings have to willingly put some restrictions on their own thinking and behaviour.

The first lesson from nature that we ought to learn is that everything in this world is related to every other, directly or indirectly. Nature functions through cycles of interdependence. There are food chains that begin with plants. Plants obtain sunlight and convert it into a solid matter through photosynthesis. This solid matter in the form of fruits, leaves, stems and roots is consumed by the herbivorous animals. The carnivorous animals hunt and eat the herbivores. The carnivores may be hunted by some other carnivores or their dead bodies are consumed by the scavenger animals. The faeces of all animals are either consumed by other (scavenger) animals or by insects, whose dead bodies as well as faecel matter goes back to the earth, wherefrom plants draw their nutrition.

Traditional wisdom of our country is replete with examples of the cyclical interdependence. Atharvaveda, which is the fourth Veda, contains a full ode to nature (Bhoomisookta). An ancient pharmacologist, offers prayers to the mother earth before digging into her body for obtaining medicinal roots.

Whatever I dig from you, may that grow again quickly. Never shall I hit your vitals or your heart, oh the best purifier!

Apart from the humble approach towards the earth, this ancient pharmacologist shows a deep understanding of the cyclical mechanisms of the earth. Whatever waste we dump on earth, it processes it and makes it available for use again. Hence, he calls her The most efficient cleaning agent (Wimrugwari).

Nature is our mother. Never in our tradition has it been called or referred to as our property. It begets us, nurtures us, cures us when we suffer, typically like a mother. Nature tolerates our pranks that inflict pain on it, like a loving mother.

Sage Atharva, the composer of the Bhoomisookta, articulates this relationship in very clear words.

Oh mother earth whatever energies emerge from you and from the sky, let them be bestowed on us, purify us by them. Earth is my mother and I am a son of the earth.

We, the earth’s children naturally owe a debt to the mother. Today, our mother is suffering from our atrocity towards her. It is time we realise our debt to her and repay the loan by realising our responsibility corresponding to the benefits we draw from our mother.

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He (King Raghu) used to collect taxes from the people for (spending the revenue for) their welfare alone, (just as) the Sun takes water from the sea (only) to return it, thousand-fold.

This couplet from Kalidasa, an ancient poet of our country, contains the modern economic principle of ‘maximum social welfare, through a budgetary transfer of purchasing power from the rich to the poor’. The Sun draws water from the seas, (which they have in plenty), to be transferred to far off places in the interior. At those places, water being relatively scarce, is much more valuable than that in the sea. The loss of water to the sea, due to this transfer, is much less than the gain from the availability of water to the land and the life forms in the interior. Thus, there is an increase in the value of the water, transferred by the Sun and wind to the far off lands in the interior.

Similarly, transferring say, Rs. 100 from a well off person, earning Rs. 10,000 by a tax, is a loss to that taxpayer of only 1% of his income. When the same Rs. 100 are spent on a poor family, earning Rs. 100, it is a tremendous gain of 100%. Hence, there is a big increase in the total social welfare.

Question: Identify the big assumption made by this principle of maximum social welfare, which does not always stand the test of validity in the world.

Economic Growth and Its Side Effects

The progress of a nation is measured in terms of its economic growth. The only available measure for assessing the economic growth is the growth of the so called Gross Domestic Product or the national income, which is the money value of the goods and services produced in the country over a financial year, counted avoiding double or multiple counting of the same good in the successive stages of its production. This is the best possible definition of the national income of a country. It has many statistical and economic problems, both on the conceptual and computational criteria. But, here we will consider only those problems which are relevant to our topic.

1. National Income is the total of the incomes of all the people in a nation. When it is computed for measuring the rate of growth of a country’s economy, its distribution over various socioeconomic strata of the society, like for example, employers Vs employees, rich Vs poor, productive Vs unproductive (like gamblers) and creative Vs counter productive (like controllers) strata is not counted. The average income (or per capita as it is called in the economic literature), is many a time deceptive if not misleading. A simple example will show how. In a group of two persons A gets Rs. 100 and B Rs. 2. Their per capita income is Rs. (100 + 2)/2 = Rs. 51. If in the next year, A’s income becomes Rs. 500 and B’s Rs. 3, the per capita income becomes Rs. (500 + 3) / 2 = Rs. 251.5. This means the Gross Domestic Income increased by [(503 - 102)/102] X 100 = 393:14% and the Per Capita income increased by [(251.5 - 51)/51] X 100 = 392:16%: Both these are fantastic rates of growth. But, can such a society stay stable? The obvious answer is ‘no’. The relatively poorer sections of the society will soon come to realise that their poverty is not exclusively due to their being relatively inefficient, but due to the social structure that does not offer them an equal opportunity to develop those abilities. In any society at any time and in any field of an economic activity there are always some early starters, who have already established themselves well in the field. Hence, a newcomer has to develop an exceptional ability to ward off their superior resistance power, which bars his/her entry into the coveted field, be it entrepreneurship, education or any other field of empowerment. The proponents of competition usually maintain that (i) it is an important natural force that chooses only the fittest individuals and species for survival and (ii) it is a socioeconomic mechanism which guarantees the principle of income distribution viz. ‘getting according to one’s ability’. Both these statements require an equality of opportunity for developing one’s own abilities, to each contender, which is hardly there in any society at any time. In his eye opening satire on Communism, viz. Animal Farm, George Orwell, has effectively presented this failure of a collectivist society as, “All animals on the Animal Farm are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

Conflict (or its civilized version, viz. competition) is an important principle of life, both in nature and in a society. But, nature has sustained life on this planet by ingeniously reconciling conflict with cooperation and interdependence of the various species. Unfortunately all branches of knowledge developed under the Cartesian Newtonian Conceptual framework, have emphasised conflict to the near complete exclusion of cooperation as a basis of life. In the field of social sciences, particularly Economics and Political Science, both in capitalist as well as communist writings, this heavy imbalance towards conflict is so obviously seen. We have noted how capitalist thinkers idealised competition as though it is the (only) value in life. But even the founder of the so called ‘Scientific Socialism’ viz. Karl Marx, used to proudly call himself a ‘social Darwinist’, because Charles Darwin propounded the principles of ‘Struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest’ in his first publication, ‘On the origin of species’ (1859). Marx recognized that Darwin’s work provided an explanation for all activities of nature, thus supporting his world view.

A serious side effect of the unwarranted stress on conflict was the mindset of fighting and conquering nature. The proponents of this view, never realised that even though we conquer nature, we will still be on the losing side, as we are an integral part of nature and not its adversaries.

This is not to suggest that conflict or competition is not an important principle of life. Conflict and cooperation (interdependence) are the two principles on which nature has built its entire superstructure. Nature could do this, because it has successfully reconciled these two principles. Similarly, society is also sustained on both cooperation and conflict, reconciled scientifically. Stressing only conflict may affect the stability of the society and balances in nature.

2. We take raw materials and energy from nature. As these bear no price tag, the computation of the cost of production, includes only the cost of extraction of these inputs not the cost of their production to nature. It is precisely this low cost of the natural inputs that swells the profits of the entrepreneurs, who use them. However, the solid, liquid and gaseous wastes that are generated in the process of production and distribution are recklessly thrown on the environment. The cost of their management is dumped on the public authorities like the municipalities and is ultimately paid by the tax payers.

3. Nature creates new resources only by recycling resources. Through innumerable food chains, water cycle, nitrogen cycle etc. nature processes all the waste that is generated in its activities. Hence, nature does not create any wastes though each living being does. This creation, use and recycling of resources by nature and all its components, had continued for millenniums, before the industrial age began on the earth, in the year 1750. Today in the economic literature, economic development is identified with industrialisation of a country.

Industrialisation increased the demand for raw materials and sources of energy from nature. This destroyed the jungles and the life forms that lived therein, disturbed the cyclical mechanisms of resource regeneration by nature and created mountains of no biodegradable wastes like plastics, thermocoles which cannot be processed by nature. Worse still, the leftovers of the Thermonuclear electricity plants continue their radiation for 50,000 years. The increasing content of CO2 in the atmosphere, due again to the industrial activities and also the destruction of the jungles, causes global warming with disastrous effects on the weather cycles.

In short, our enthusiasm about increasing the consumer good basket has endangered the life on the earth. Unfortunately, the solution for this does not lie in better and cleaner technology. That may work only for the outward symptom of the problem rooted in our attitude towards nature.

It is here, that the traditional wisdom of our society provides a sustainable solution.

Please note that our ancestors never praised poverty or hated wealth. They knew for certain, that wealth is essential for lifting the human society above the subsistence level of animals. But they never over looked the fact that wealth or prosperity is only a means and not an end. Second, repeatedly have they exhorted the people that as the desire for more and more resources is never ending, a rational control over one’s mind, the fountainhead of all desires, is the key to a sustained happiness.

Hence, Yogawashishtham, the ancient treatise on Yoga, defines Yoga as

Yoga is controlling the tendencies of the mind.

An earlier text Kathopanishad, is more articulate on the issue of saturating warns. It wants,

No man will ever be fully satisfied, with whatever money he earns.

An anonymous poet goes into greater details. He maintains that just as a dearth of purchasing power is a horrible state of affairs, so is the availability of too much money. Like fire, money also should be earned only within moderate limits.

A lack of purchasing power as well its excess, both these are perilous, just as a lack as well as an excess of fire is dangerous.

Each one of us has to draw the lines marking the safe zone between the two perils, for oneself.

Economicism, Want Saturation and Human Welfare

The ultimate objective of economic development within the Cartesian Newtonian conceptual framework, is saturation of human wants. Even though capitalism, socialism and mixed economy, propound different methods and the resultant different socioeconomic models, their ultimate objective is the same. Raw materials and energy resources, obtained from nature, have to be used in technologically feasible and economically optimal ways, to generate goods and services, in ever increasing quantities, for ultimately saturating human wants. The three economic systems differ only in the mode of distribution of these goods and services. Whereas a capitalist economy depends on a free market mechanism, a socialist economy gets this job done through a public distribution system and the mixed economy uses a judicious mixture of these two modes. The activities required for this objective consist in searching for newer and newer sources of a variety of natural resources, developing newer and ever more efficient technologies, supported by the basic sciences and through them, improving the efficiency levels continuously and obtaining the suitable distribution systems for reaching the ever increasing flow of goods and services to the end consumers. This is what the present economics is all about.

Human wants are unlimited, they recur and also increase with an increased availability of expendable resources. Compared to the wants, the expendable resources available to the consumers are scarce. Hence, we have to scale our wants and grade them according to their relative urgency and intensity and choose among the alternative uses of the scarce economic resources, so that the maximum possible wants are satisfied within the limited budget. This, in short, is the statement and the solution of the so called economic problem, generally accepted all over the world today.

A basic question, which has to be asked here is “Is the conceptual framework, wherefrom this interpretation of economic rationality has emerged, universally and eternally true?” Even the conceptual framework of the physical and natural sciences (the so called ‘hard sciences’), developed by René Descartes and Sir Isaac Newton, has undergone a near total transformation with the Einsteinian revolution, around 1920. How can the so called soft sciences, like Economics, claim their Cartesian Newtonian conceptual framework to be both universal and eternal, when the technoeconomic and psychocultural environment in the world has undergone a total metamorphosis? Prima facie reasons seem to be,

1. the global forces whose vested interests are hinged on this conceptual framework, are economically and militarily invincible in the today’s unipolar world and

2. the proponents of this framework for the social sciences today are either ignorant of the ghastly consequences of this framework on their own children or they do not care about it.

The disastrous consequences of the Homo economicus syndrome and the consumerism, unleashed by it, are bound to destroy the life on this planet very soon and any corrective measures to be taken cannot be postponed even by a smallest measure of time. We have to realise that it is literally a now or never situation that we are facing.

The only workable solution of this problem is the change in our outlook towards nature and the society. Today, under the influence of the economicism, that we learnt with modern economics from the West, we have forgotten our traditional attitude of reverence for nature and society, as the manifest forms of the Ultimate Reality. It is time we have regenerated this attitude, for ours as well as our children’s survival and wellbeing.

Society is not only a social mechanism created for performing some collective activities. It is a complex organisation, consisting of many component organisations (like family, community and nation), which together have saved our species from the cruel principle of natural selection, encouraged division of labour and specialisation, which continuously increased productivity and also permitted even the handicapped people to lead an honourable life. It is because of the society that we prevail over the other animal and plant species, in spite of such a fragile physique and a total absence of any natural gift, like strong claws and sharp fangs. Specialisation led to the explosion of knowledge and the availability of all the comforts that we enjoy today. If the society were not to be formed, human species would still have been scavenger animals, living purely by escaping (not fighting) the predator animals. A well-functioning society is an essential prerequisite of civilization.

Similarly, the human society draws from nature food, fodder, firewood, fertilisers, minerals, many industrial raw materials and medicines for its use. The only mechanism which possesses the exclusive capacity to convert solar energy into matter is plants. Plants hold the groundwater and make it available during the non-rainy seasons. Plants absorb the CO2 and provide Oxygen required for sustenance of life. It is high time, we have realised that nature existed for millennia before human beings appeared on the earth and will exist (probably more happily) even when we kill ourselves through destroying the life supporting cycles, through our irrational objective of economicism, aiming at saturating our wants through consumerism. Second, want saturation is a self defeating process because, wants multiply with an increased availability of resources.

Hence, our traditional wisdom repeatedly exhorts people not to be driven by economicism, consumerism and want saturation. A verse from Brahmapurana (XII 41) articulates this in a very effective way.

The entire available stock of rice, barley, gold, animals and women in the world will not be sufficient for satisfying the desires of even one man (let alone saturating them). Knowing this for sure, a wise person is not enamoured into chasing want gratification.

Do we need to comment on these words of wisdom, particularly relevant for today’s homo sapiens sapiens?

The Want Saturation Complex Vs Dharma

Session VI (15th October 2007), presented the stand of our traditional wisdom on the need to voluntarily put rational restrictions on our desires and also on the resultant chase of resources for satisfying them. Our tradition calls these restrictions as Dharma. Dharma (duties and responsibilities) is one the two Para economic pursuits of human life, the other being moksha, i.e. salvation. Artha (resources) and Kama (desires), which happen to be the central theme of Economics, have to be achieved, strictly within the framework of the para economic pursuits. It is important to note here that the meaning of Dharma in Sanskrit is not confined to only ‘religion’ as it is interpreted in its derivative languages spoken in India today. Religion, as it is understood in the common parlance in India today, is a particular way of worship, which is a component of Dharma, not its totality. The etymological definition of Dharma, given by Mahabharat, was stated in the session VI. The comprehensive definition was given by Kanada in his Vaisheshika sootra.

Dharma is all that, by following which, we achieve both material prosperity and salvation.

Our tradition firmly believes that the ultimate objective of the human existence (i.e. life) is to realize one’s identity with the Ultimate Reality i.e. salvation. But, for qualifying oneself for the salvation, every human being is required to perform one’s duties and fulfill one’s responsibilities towards the society (the worldly responsibilities) and towards the Creator (the spiritual responsibilities). For both these, every one of us has to earn resources and spend them on activities. Our body is identified as the best instrument of performing the dual set of duties mentioned above.

The body is the best instrument for performing one’s duties and fulfilling one’s responsibilities.

Hence, it is necessary that the body is taken care of by providing adequate resources for it. However, excepting the materialist philosophers in our tradition (Chārvāk and Poorvameemānsaks), all other philosophers, social reformers and saints have repeatedly exhorted that this life is meant for performing one’s duties and fulfilling one’s responsibilities, which were clearly defined according to one’s position in the social hierarchy and the stage in life (Varnāsramadharma). Nowhere, in our traditional literature we find the gratification of wants as the objective of life, let lone saturation. On the contrary, the duties and responsibilities have been repeatedly mentioned by our scriptures and even the popular literature. Rigveda, the oldest scripture in our country, articulates these duties in three categories.

From the time of birth, an enlightened person is tied to three types of debts, viz. the debt to the sages (the spiritual leaders), which is to be repaid by learning, debt to gods, which is to be repaid by performing one’s duties (Yajna), according to one’s position in the social hierarchy and the stage in life (Varnasramadharma) and the debt to the ancestors, which is to be repaid by continuing the family lineage.

The Bhagawadgeeta is much more articulate on this issue. In the third chapter (Karmayoga), explaining the interdependence of the divine beings (gods, whose manifest form is nature and society, as we have stated in an earlier session No. 2) and the humans, the Bhagawadgeeta (song divine) says:

When the gods are pleased by, the human beings, performing their duties, they will bestow on them, the objects of enjoyment (goods and services). (However, as a token of acknowledgment, the human beings are expected to offer back a part of the endowment to gods (i.e. to society and nature). Whosoever enjoys the entire endowment without giving back a part to the gods, is verily a thief.

Mahabharat explains to outcome of an attempt to saturate wants by an ever increasing application of the resources to them. This should teach a good lesson to the proponents of the worship of mammon (wealth) on an ever-increasing scale, for saturating human wants.

The desires never get quenched by consuming resources. They, instead get flared up like the fire on which an offering (usually ghee) is poured.

Saturation of human wants is a self defeating process. But, it has been an implicit objective of both the Capitalist and Communist economic thinking. In the next session, we will see how this mindset has caused the disruption of both, the environment and the society.

Privileges and Corresponding Responsibilities

In spite of such a fragile physique, how could the human species survive and prevail over all animal and plant species? What made it possible?

Subhuman species obtain everything required for survival and propagation, all by themselves. Man is the only animal, which depends on other (human or nonhuman) beings for a majority of his needs. This was possible because of the division of labour and the resultant specialization. Developing and managing many organizations scientifically was required as a precondition for these. Society is the largest and the most important of such organizations.

We can never be happy, all by ourselves. We cannot even tickle ourselves. Happiness increases and sorrow decreases when shared with others.

Thus, for surviving, developing and sharing our happiness and sorrow, we need the society as a framework.

Specialization provides nearly every member of the society, an opportunity to perform operationally meaningful work and to honorably earn a living, even to the handicapped people, who are therefore spared from becoming pitiable objects.

Conflict or (its civilized version, competition) is certainly an important principle of a social living. But, a society is sustained, only when competition is rationally reconciled with cooperation. Nature sustained and even today sustains life on this planet by a wonderful reconciliation of conflict and cooperation (interdependence). We must learn this lesson from nature, if we want to sustain our (human) society.

The seemingly weaker plants and animals have an important role to play in the life sustaining cycles of nature. Hence, for their protection (as a species), nature has endowed them with certain special abilities and tricks, along with imposing certain restrictions on the use of the physical strength of the powerful predator animals. They include a much lower birth rate and a high death rate (particularly in the infancy), intuitive restriction on hunting only when hungry and that too strictly for satisfying hunger only once at a time. In nature, these restrictions work through the instincts, making all nonhuman living beings, perfectly programmed bio-robots of nature, living only on the subsistence level of consumption all through the life.

The acquired content of knowledge, in the case of human beings, is much larger than the intuitive knowledge and is more dominant too. Hence, as the most privileged species, we have to consciously accept some self-imposed restrictions on our behaviour, for the sustenance of the society, which protected us from the cruel principle of natural selection and of nature, which is a source of life and nourishment for us. The traditional wisdom of our society calls these self-imposed restrictions as Dharma. Mahabharat defines Dharma as,

Rules and regulations, which hold and sustain the society, are called Dharma.

The Homo Economicus Syndrome and Bhagawadgeeta’s Analysis of a Diabolic Attitude : Part II

Summary:

In session IV, dated 28th September 2007, we saw how the replacement of ‘welfare’ by ‘optimisation of scarce resources’ as the sole objective of economic activities, culminated into confining a homo sapiens sapiens (modern wise man) to a homo economicus i.e. an economic man, whose life mission is only want-gratification by acquiring resources in a competitive environment.

The worship of competition to the complete neglect of cooperation, as a principle of life, worsened the situation, under the influence of the Cartesian Newtonian Conceptual framework. The policies of economic development, under this conceptual framework, have brought the world to the brink of extinction. As the new conceptual framework accepted by the physical sciences has not effectively been incorporated into the social sciences, the en-tire set of activities conducted by an economic man, are motivated by what Bhagawadgeeta calls a diabolic attitude. The disastrous results inevitably follow.

The Problem:

Once the materialist (sensate) outlook towards economic activities in particular and towards life in general was accepted (under the influence of the Cartesian Newtonian conceptual framework), the homo economicus syndrome prevailed over the human minds. Bhagawadgeeta analyses the behaviour of such people under its study of the divine and diabolic attitudes of the people in Chapter 16, verses 7 to 15. The characteristics of the people with a diabolic (Aasuri) attitude described in these verses, exactly match those of the Homo economicus.

The people with a diabolic attitude, are ignorant of what they should do and what they should not. They do not possess cleanliness, nor proper behaviour nor truth.

The sole objective of life for an economic man is the gratification of wants, irrespective of what they are and what effects do they lead to. Hence harmful commodities like tobacco products and liquors are produced, advertised and sold. Products like fossil fuels which cause air pollution and also like chlorofluorocarbon, which widen the Ozone hole and nuclear power plants, causing the radiation hazard, are used only for their economic cost effectiveness, without any consideration for the disastrous effects of these on the next generation. Jungles are cut for the richer population’s fancy for new furniture every six months.

For the short-sighted objective of a conspicuous consumption of a variety of goods and services, we destroy nature’s cyclical mechanisms of recreating resources. It is a common knowledge today that, if all the people in the world today, demand the same quantity and variety of consumer goods that an average American citizen consumes, we will need seven earths to provide for that kind of demand.

Surprisingly, though during the time of Bhagawadgeeta, not even a semblance of the today’s environmental problems existed, the analysis and diagnosis of the nature and genesis of the diabolic mindset that causes the destruction of the world is unequivocally predicted. Second, the characteristics of the diabolic mindset exactly match those of the homo economicus syndrome, under the Cartesian Newtonian conceptual framework, as can be clearly seen in the following verse.

Those (people with a diabolic mindset) say that this world is unreal, (because) there is no foundation or a controller to it. Various objects in it, are unrelated to each others and what objective could there be for it to exist, other than gratification of desires?

The Cartesian Newtonian conceptual framework, dictates a reductionist approach for observing and analysing the world around us. Every phenomenon has to be broken (analysed) into its components and each component is to be studied as though it is independent of the other components.

The Einsteinian revolution in Physics has shaken the very foundation, if not the existence, of this framework. Under the new framework, everything in this universe is related to everything else. Second, the so called unbreakable, solid atom visualised by the Newtonian Physics, was found to be a space in which the negatively charged electrons orbit round the nucleus and the position of an electron at any particular point can be told only in probabilistic terms (The so called Uncertainty Principle of Heisenberg). Dr. Fritjof Capra, in his epoch making book, Tao of Physics¹ displays how the old framework of Physics has now been replaced by a new holistic framework and how the intuitive findings of the ancient (Upnishadic) Indian and Chinese thinkers, exactly match the experimental findings of the Einsteinian school.

The so called materialistic thinkers, be they Physicists, natural scientists or Economists, cannot even admit the existence of a superhuman power like God, controlling the activities of the various agents functioning in the universe, because it is beyond logic. Hence, like the people of a diabolic mindset, these scientists also deny the existence of God. However, there are many riddles in the study of the nature of reality, which cannot be comprehended (let lone analysing them) by the framework of a three dimensional universe.

The economic scientists, unfortunately have not yet come out of the old framework and so are stuck to the optimisation complex of want gratification at the individual level and want saturation on the social level.

What is the inevitable outcome of this Homo Economicus syndrome? Bhagawadgeeta warns,

With this mindset, the people with a diabolic attitude, having lost their conscience and intelligence as a result, engage themselves in horrible actions, which culminate into the destruction of the world.

Do we need to comment on this? The leaders all over the world today, enamoured by the Homo economicus syndrome, have brought the world to the brink of extinction.

1. Dr. Fritjof Capra, Tao of Physics, Sambala, USA, 1975.

The Homo Economicus Syndrome and Bhagawadgeeta’s Analysis of a Diabolic Attitude : Part I

Economics was developed as a social science nearly exclusively by the British economists, roughly between 1776 and 1930. Earlier it was referred to as Political Economy. Most continental European languages do not have an exact corresponding term for Economics.

The father of modern economics, Adam Smith, who for the first time called it as Economics and a science of wealth, in 1776, all through advocated that Economics is a branch of Ethics, a discipline studying morality and setting norms of moral (responsible) behaviour.

His was the time when Mercantilism was being slowly replaced by the emerging Capitalism, based on industrial production. He was a strong advocate of a market mechanism, free from any government interference, so that the players in the free market mechanism viz. entrepreneurs and buyers, should use the potentials of mechanised large scale productive capacity generated by the Industrial Revolution (1750), furthering one’s own self interest. He believed that, left to itself (laissez faire), the market mechanism will decide that equilibrium price, which will be attractively low enough for buyers to buy and attractively high enough for the sellers to sell, simultaneously.

We can pardon his romantic belief in the market mechanism, because the nascent capitalism that he saw, made him confuse the necessary condition of a free entry in the market, for a sufficient condition of an army of entrepreneurs flooding the market.

Entrepreneurship, particularly industrial entrepreneurship, demanded extraordinary skills and attitudes, which was not every mercantilist entrepreneur’s cup of tea. Hence, the so called ‘thorough going competition’ was only a facade. There were open or tacit agreements among entrepreneurs, who were birds of the same feathers, exploiting both the unorganised labour and consumers, who were not socialised enough to come together and collectively bargain with the entrepreneurs. The legal machinery banned trade unions even in the democratic countries, under the pretext of protecting free competition among workers, under laissez faire. Second, any new entrepreneurs had a tough time in getting an entry in the market, packed with the early starters.

The real witnesses to the domestic industrial capitalism getting converted into an imperial capitalism, were the so called, ‘Neoclassical economists.’ Alfred Marshall (1842-1924) witnessed the British economy of the late 19th century, growing on the capital and captive market provided by the colonies, through the so called ‘economic drain. He took on himself the responsibility of washing the blemish on Economics being a dismal (disgusting, gloomy) science, put by Carlyle (1795-1881), a Victorian thinker.

Carlyle maintained that Economics, being a science of wealth, as defined by Adam Smith, teaches people to be greedy and so it is a dismal science. Marshall tried to defend his discipline by pleading that Economics studies wealth, no doubt, but it also studies human (material) welfare as the end (aim) of the use of wealth and that is the more important part of Economics. His own disciple, Lionel Robbins in the 1920’s, however, completely dissociated Economics from welfare and gave the so called ’scarcity and optimisation’ oriented definition, which clearly reflects the influence of the Cartesian Newtonian conceptual framework. The Marshallian insistence on human welfare being the objective of economic activity put a responsibility on the various economic agents.

With the Robbinsian thrust on ‘optimisation of resource use’, the engineering aspect of economic policies, as Dr. Amartya Sen puts it, became the sole objective of economic activities to the complete exclusion of the ethical aspect. The Homo Economicus syndrome was the inevitable side effect of Neoclassical economists’ world view, based on the Cartesian Newtonian conceptual framework, which fostered the European science, technology and the world view from 18th century. Briey, we can note the distinguishing characteristics of this conceptual framework as follows:

1) René Descartes (1598-1650), a philosopher and a mathematician from France and Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1724), a physicist and mathematician from UK, developed the so called Cartesian Newtonian conceptual frame-work. They never met, but Newton picked up the baton from Descartes.

2) The framework maintains that the universe functions like a machine, strictly according to the laws of deterministic mathematics.

3) The universe is a three dimensional space. Time, which is independent of the space, flows absolutely and unidirectionally from the past to the present and the future.

4) The ‘ultimate building blocks’ of all matter are the atoms, made indivisible by the divine design. (Newton’s ‘Optiks’)

5) The observer of any scientific experiment is totally an outsider to it and so is absolved of the moral responsibility of the results of the scientific experiments.

Economics, particularly after Lionel Robbins, accepted this conceptual framework and developed the so called Homo economicus syndrome. Economic rationality, under this ‘Economic Man’ mindset, was confined to making only the economically optimum and technologically feasible use of the scarce resources, totally ignoring the social, moral and environmental effects of such a ‘rational’ acquisition and use of resources.

The sense of responsibility towards the society and environment, which existed among the pre neoclassical economic thinkers, emanated from the relatively greater dependence of the human society on nature for subsistence. With chemical fertilisers and machinery used for agriculture, it became less and less dependent on the natural factors.

Second, by that time the concept of an exclusive ownership of nature by the human society became much stronger and the environment was looked upon as an inexhaustible source of raw materials and a bottomless pit for all the effluents (wastes) that industries and growing urban population generate.

The growing prosperity of the already privileged classes in the society, enforced by the total absence of a sense of responsibility towards nature and society, provided the necessary booster for what the Bhagawadgeeta refers to as the Asuri Sampat or ‘the diabolic mindset’. We will discuss this in the session V of this series and learn how best does it identify the ‘crisis of extinction’ that the human race today is confronted with.

Untitled

“Oh mother earth, whatever I dig of you, let that quickly grow again. Oh the most efficient cleanser, never shall I hit your vitals or your heart.“

Comment:

The ancient pharmacologist who had to dig the earth for the medicinal roots, used to humbly pray the mother earth, (unlike his modern counterpart who unjustifiably considers himself the owner of nature). Second, by using the vocative ease, most efficient cleanser, the ancient pharmacologist also displayed his environmental awareness, which is sadly lacking in the modern
people. He knew that the earth (nature) accepts all the dirt and waste that we throw on it and processes them so that we get them back as useful resources again.

Question:

In the context of the phrase, `most efficient cleanser’, fully explain the following process of nature.

1. “Nature does not produce any waste, though every living being does”.
2. Waste is an inevitable outcome of a consumption or production process, which the producer finds uneconomic to use.