Economics of Mahaveera

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

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ECONOMICS OF MAHAVIRA
proposition: the property does not belong to the individual but to the society. The individual has no authority over it. This was and also is a very important philosophy. Whatever shape communism might have taken, the rationale and the belief which was at the back of communism cannot be undermined in its significance.
Compare the two, the philosophy of .Mahavira and the concept of communism. Mahavira says that mother is not mine, father is not mine, brother is not mine, wealth is not mine, house is not mine, wife is not mine, daughter is not mine. Communism made a similar experiment. A child is born and is separated from the family. From the very beginning, a culture is developed that 'it is not mine'. As long as the feeling of possession remains, a person will not do justice, will not be honest to the society. Wealth is not an individual's property, it belongs to the society. This is a broad philosophy that socialism gave.
If It Were Possible
However, while Mahavira's philosophy remained confined to the soul, it remained confined to the internal-self. The philosophy of socialism remained limited to externalities, remained confined only to the social environment. Both could not be synthesized. That is why the objective was not achieved fully. If both these had moved together, there would have been a change of the innerself. The body is not one's own. And, as a consequence, the external environment would have changed in a systematic way. With the realisation that wealth, prosperity and the like do not belong to the individual, perhaps, a new world would have been born. But this did not happen. Both these were not integrated. Whereas socialism imposed the principle of this is not mine' with the authority to punish, the principle of Mahavira got acceptance on the basis of a change of the heart. The latter received its acceptance at the religious level but was not adopted by the social system. If both these changes had taken place in a synthesized manner, it would have given rise to a new world system.
Poverty and unemployment were not eradicated mainly because while there is a social system, a system of the State, a