Economics of Mahaveera

Author(s): Mahapragna Acharya
Publisher: Adarsh Sahitya Sangh

Page 35

THE ECONOMIC CONCEPT OF DEVELOPMENT
Selfishness and Cruelty
One witnessed all around a kind of competition for establishing economic imperialism. America, England, Japan, Germany all these countries want to leave others behind in this race. Technology has been used freely for expanding this economic imperialism. It has been used less for human welfare. The same is true of industrial development. It has been argued that with more development, there would be more opportunities and more employment. Compassion will come after that. On the other hand, wherever selfishness is predominant, compassion loses its impact. It is Mahavira's well established theory that cruelty increases corresponding to selfishness. As self-interest remains limited, compassion rises. It is never possible that self-interest and compassion both become dominant at the same time.
19
The Plea of Employment
The plea of employment used is also a feeble one. It is in this age of robots and computers, where a thousand workers were engaged earlier, only five would do today. How could it lead to more employment? As a result of mechanization, people are becoming more and more unemployed, while the endeavour has been to eradicate poverty' and unemployment. With more. mechanization, the robots are snatching away work from the people. As a consequence, poverty and unemployment are increasing at a high rate. One wonders where this age of electronics is leading us to. In a country like Japan, even the work of a priest is being performed by a robot. When somebody dies and his family enters the religious place for prayers, the robot greets them, gives messages of patience and offers words of condolence, gives a complete religious discourse and in the end, after giving blessings, thankfully bids farewell. All the work of the priest is done by the robot!
Man's Preference
What are man's expectations today? It appears that in the age of robots and computers, man should take the vow of silence