Economics of Mahaveera

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

Page 49

ECONOMICS OF NON-VIOLENCE AND PEACE
for the eradication of poverty and for securing and maintaining peace, perhaps, the world's economic problems will be resolved. But this will not be allowed to be accomplished by the vested interests, the owners of the armament industry.
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Theory of Production
Modern Economics has developed a contradiction within itself. The very rationale of what should be produced has disappeared. Intoxicants are being produced in large quantities. The production of alcoholic drinks has grown unimaginably large, leave alone the production of opium, charas, heroin and other drugs. Business worth crores is being carried on in processed tobacco (jarda) and pan masala packed in pouches. Why is all this happening? Where would jarda come from if there were no production of tobacco? If opium is not there where will all the heroin come from? There has to be a limit to production; there has to be some discretion about what should be produced. The production of articles which do not satisfy primary needs of life only leads to luxury or intoxication. In the ultimate analysis one wonders why those things should be produced which are harmful to men from any point of view.
Control Over Conscience
Today, the production of such harmful articles, which is prompted only by the urge to earn profit, has created a terrible crisis in the world. While all the nations of the world, including India, are struggling against the smuggling of intoxicating products, those producing armaments exercise control over the market. The sellers of intoxicating products have acquired control over the market. Not on the market alone, they have usurped the control over man's conscience. How a person addicted to intoxicating things becomes restless without them, he alone knows. At that time, he experiences deadly agony.
Mahavira had, therefore, said that there should be a limit to production also. Everything ought not to be produced. Intoxicating things should neither be produced nor consumed. Anything which instigates sinful action, or which is the cause of sinful action,