Economics of Mahaveera

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

Page 36

20
ECONOMICS OF MAHAVIRA
and take shelter in a Himalayan cave. Man has worked very hard; perhaps, the moment to take rest has now come. Acharya has said it beautifully: all activities of man are motivated for a kilogram of rice. If rice was not needed there would probably be no need for activity. Under modern industrial development, money has become such a dominant factor that man has become secondary.
Paradox of Per Capita Income and Poverty One of the objectives of Modern Economics is to raise the per capita income. Certainly, per capita income has grown fast in developed countries. And yet, it is evident at the same time that capitalism too is breathing its last. Even in developed and affluent countries, like Japan and the United States, unemployment persists. Statistics show that even there people are driven to living below the poverty line. Those who are familiar with conditions in Russia know that even during the communist rule, millions of people were without proper shelter and stories make the rounds that many lived in pipes lying on the sides of the roads. There were no houses and people were using big-size pipes as night shelters. Presently, conditions of abject poverty and starvation are witnessed. There are long queues for buying food articles after decades of communism.
If income had been distributed equally, the problem could have been resolved. But that did not happen. Gandhiji had observed that man would never be able to achieve the objective of economic equality; some individual capabilities are different, as is competence. Everybody cannot reach the same level of achievement. As a result of the prevailing economic styles, the outcome of promoting selfishness has come to a point that the entire wealth of the world has got concentrated in the hands of a few people. These affluent people have become so rich that, except ego and false pride, they do not have much in their inventory of possession. They aspire to become world's number one rich, number two rich and number three rich — that is all their goal. This is why the issue of per capita or average income is also becoming involved.