Aparigraha the Humane Solution

Author(s): Kamla Jain
Publisher: Parshwanath Vidyapith

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APARIGRAHA - THE HUMANE SOLUTION
makes one realise that economics is changing into diseconomics, and instead of affluence helping the society in general, it helps only those who do not need wealth. The concepts of 'economy' and 'wastage' are, opposed to each other. If the term 'economy' refers to 'frugal’ ‘judicious expenditure of money', 'thrift' or 'saving' or 'the use of money with prudence', then where is the room for wastage. But if an economic system allows and glorifies wastage, then clearly non-economic factors have been introduced in a field, which originally meant to train people for social welfare. A system where more production of random articles of use for a select few and employment opportunities for some who would later deprive many others from similar employment opportunities does not seem to fit in with the social welfare scheme of economics. In such economic thought the concept of human welfare is marginalised and is made to shift to the domain of social service and social work which is thought to have nothing to do with economics.
It has to be understood that the culture of wastage is a consequence of the economic thought which favours ‘more and more production.' This is not only ethically wrong but also economically wrong. The developed countries are learning and realizing this, since they are responsible for spreading this culture. The developing countries like India, instead of aping them, should independently work for an economic system in which wastage is not acceptable in the name of economic growth. The central principle of maximizing satisfaction of needs with minimum resources should govern us at all levels, the individual, familial, societal, governmental and administrative. The normative aspect of economics is not deleted from it and ethics (more specifically altruistic ethics) and economics should go together.
Consequences of Consumerism
The spread of consumerism is rooted in a very powerfully publicised thought that more and more production is the panacea for eradicating or atleast reducing poverty, and that this alone will bring about a social and economic change. This theory has however, been seen by thinkers and analysts to be full of limitations, though it got a big boost with science and technology developing at an unexpectedly