Dharmicism: A Force of Protection against Communism and Capitalism
Disclaimer:
The writer of this article is neither a scholar of economics nor someone who knows a lot of Dharma and has very limited knowledge of these fields and has gathered it from multiple sources, any error in this article is regretted.
Introduction:
I am sure by the title I am planning to introduce a new economic system which is an alternative to the presently most talked economic systems which are capitalism and communism. However, before I define this system, it is imperative we understand the flaws of capitalism and communism. Even before understanding these flaws, it is imperative that we define them. Yes, I know most of you would know their definition ,it is still necessary to define them.
Definition of Capitalism:
Capitalism is often thought of as an economic system in which private actors own and control property in accord with their interests, and demand and supply freely set prices in markets which is termed as invisible hand which maintains equilibrium in a way that can serve the best interests of society. It also says that competition is a best system in society. The essential feature of capitalism is the motive to make a profit. It was adopted by USA
Definition of Communism:
Communism is a type of government as well as an economic system (a way of creating and sharing wealth). In a Communist system, individual people do not own land, factories, or machinery. Instead, the government or the whole community owns these things. Everyone is supposed to share the wealth that they create. It was adopted by U.S.S.R.
The flaws in the current systems
Criticism of communism
On one point I do sympathize with communism which is probably its largest irony that Marx had devised this system for only those nations which are industrialist and capitalist, the places where communism gained control were mostly agrarian, feudal or at best pre-industrial. A possible reason for this I guess is the fact that while industrial capitalism didn’t offer equality, it did offer economic upward mobility to the underprivileged sections of the society, while feudal societies had even this mobility missing which made people desperate for equality and in other words communism.
Communism largely ignores the part of worker productivity and how the provision of equal wages ruins the incentive of worker to perform their best, because it simply doesn’t matter whether they work or not, they get guaranteed wages. Also, as a communist state promise employment to everybody, it even ends up hiring the most non-productive workers who function as a parasite for the system. While one understands that starvation is a bad thing, it is in maturity one realizes that it is very important for people to realize that not working leads to starvation, because without any production you aren’t consuming anything.
Communism even ignores the simple rules of demand and supply. Till date no living person has been born who can possibly predict what would be demand of a certain product or even predict completely that which product would be prioritized over the other. In short, in communism there is always a possibility that state ends up allocating resources for producing those things that have probably no demand or negligible demand while not produce those things which have a very high demand. Even pricing of these products was something Soviet economists used to joke that one capitalist country should still be allowed to exist in order to know what is the price of a particular product. No wonder that probably its most successful state Soviet Union could only excel in defense and space sector, the sectors where demand and supply don’t have much to do.
Criticism of Capitalism
Many of us like to credit capitalism for the reduction of poverty, however there is less evidence to suggest it, because for millennia’s capitalism was the natural system that was adopted by every society however it was only after the industrial revolution, one sees reduction of poverty around the world.
It is clear that capitalism blatantly disregards human needs over profits. This is especially visible with the pharmaceutical industry, which with its patents and intellectual property rights would charge heavy prices for its medicines making them simply inaccessible to poor. What is happening even worse is, that companies like Boeing which were known to build world class commercial planes compromised with their R&D and even safety standards of their planes in order to make more profits which led to painful disasters.
Capitalism often overlooks the value of individuals with technical skills in favor of stock market brokers or investors. One might argue that a stock market broker must possess extensive knowledge of their field to achieve gains, and therefore, they deserve their rewards. However, this perspective neglects the fact that the contributions of technically skilled individuals to society and the economy are significantly more crucial than those made by stock market brokers or investors. Essentially, capitalism’s assessment of the value of work is frequently flawed. This misalignment has contributed to the decline of industrial jobs in the USA.
A common point
Hey wait, did I just make the common materialistic points against these two ideologies? I am sure readers expect better from me. It is indeed true that the flaws I stated above are correct. However, there are many flaws which are common to both these ideologies.
They both seek atomization of human society, until it gets reduced to masses of individuals for whom any kind of relationship is negligible. In western societies this is largely visible where corporates funded the feminist propaganda that divorcing your husband and not having children is a sign of empowerment leading to breakdown of family systems there. Even in the CCP led China one would watch degenerate phenomenon like cultural revolution, where the youth was successfully propagandized to report their family members for doing “thought crimes” against Chinese communism.
But then the question is why? Because both these ideologies seek control over the human mind, they realize that till family as an institution survives there will still be some scope of independence because they give the humans a purpose to fight for. For capitalists, existence of family as a single economic unit means lower consumption as one would prioritize his family’s needs thereby making it difficult for them to make profits. While for communists, family system looks bad because that keeps people independent of the state and prevents them from worshipping any kind of leadership cult.
In many terms both Capitalism and Communism share in common, they both saw their genesis after the industrial revolution. One of the most striking satires on industrial capitalism was how the manager of industries used to call workers as “hands” as if they had no identity of their own. However, even for Marx this problem persisted with an amendment of making the state, owner of the industries and making sure that profit is distributed among these “hands” equally. This explains the fundamental problem of both Communism and Capitalism which is to treat humans as some soulless rational entity without any biases. In accordance to capitalism humans just aspire to make more profits nothing more than that and according to communism humans just strive for equality nothing more than that. What both these ideologies fail to realize is that humans just seek happiness and satisfaction.
There are two ways of achieving happiness and satisfaction, one is material advancement which may give someone happiness for sometimes but this method has an upper limit because resources are limited on this planet. This method also in many ways can lead to exploitation of people because on unfortunate notes one can’t expect humans to always be rational, making sure that capitalists end up selling their sub-standard products at high prices just by the hype of their brand name, or communists propagandizing them into serving genocidal leaders by making them believe that only some individuals (in most cases capitalists) are sources of their problems. Humans end up doing these things because at the end of the day only these materialist goals become their purpose of life. Second way is to furnish the human life with non-material things such as family whose love give them a purpose to live, giving them a religion which awards them a relationship with the creator of this world and above all an identity, which helps them feel different from everyone else and not just one single individual among the masses. In this way we reduce the hollowness of human life because when one is unable to achieve material success, it is these things that provide the mind a stability.
With this I am sure readers would be clear that which way is better, don’t get me wrong I am not against material advancement , it has made sure that masses are able to utilize their time in critical thinking and many other things however material advancement isn’t something that should come at the cost of non-material things because only these provide succour, comfort and relief during bad times and it is by no means a wise decision to sacrifice stability in this lust for growth
Beyond this communism and capitalism in their pure forms hardly respect environment reflecting upon there industrial past. It is seen in capitalism where their fast fashion industry ends up utilizing gallons of waters in order to execute those shiny fashion shows. Even communism depicted its harmful effects when Aral Sea which was the fourth largest lake in this world because USSR decided to divert its water for industrial purposes. In short both these materialist ideologies have no regards for environment.
In extreme forms both these ideologies show a blatant disregard and hostility for nationalism or even the idea of nation states. Communism openly calls for proletariats(workers) all over the world to unite, however we all know this is by no means possible in practical terms. What actually happen is leaders like Joseph Stalin would ask the Algerian Communist Party to support their French Colonizers, in order to win the support of French Workers. While capitalists would lobby the government into allowing illegal immigrants into nations like one has seen in the case of EU in order to get hold of cheap labor force, ignoring the kind of internal security problems they can create for a nation.
These ideologies in themselves can’t even sustain their support base, because even if they help them achieve material advancement to a certain level, they won’t still be able to satisfy the human ambitions leading to gross dissatisfaction, after all these were the same ideologies that made material success as single most important goal.
In all capitalism and communism don’t differ very much except the ownership part, where both their proponents argue regarding whose ownership is better, ownership of the private individual or ownership of the state. With this it is time we ask for an effective alternative.
Why monotheist and Abrahamic religions are another form of materialism?
This is defined in best ways by the renowned scholar and historian Sitaram Goel. In his words
“If the theologians of Christianity and Islam can be considered authoritative exponents of Monotheism it means that God or the Supreme Power or whatever the name we give to the Ultimate Reality, remains outside the Cosmos, that is, becomes extra-cosmic after the act of Creation. These theologians praise God as Omnipotent and Omniscient, but frown at any association of Omnipresence with Him. The very thought that God could be present in the human heart (antarayāmin), in the Universe (sarvanivāsin), in Nature, in animals, in plants, and even in matter is denounced by them as Pantheism which, according to them, is as great, if not greater, a blasphemy as atheism itself. Islam denounces Polytheism as shirk, that is associating creatures with the Creator, which, according to it, is the same as thing as seeing God’s presence in his creation. Looked at in this manner, an inescapable implication of Monotheism is that the Cosmos is completely denuded of any inherent Divinity, and made very, very material. There is no divinity inherent in human beings, or animals, or in material things. Monotheism thus becomes a disguised form of Materialism. What is worse, it leads to the lowest type of idolatry because it places God at the mercy of an historical person, hailed as the Prophet or the Son on whom the extra-cosmic deity must depend for communicating with his creatures. Songs and sermons in praise of a Jesus or a Muhammad soon surpass the hymns addressed to God Almighty.”
I hope this explains my stance why I regard the monotheistic religions responsible for the eventual growth of materialism.
Dharmicism
It would be gross on my part if I don’t give credit to the person who originally coined this term, Anurag Saxena, Regional CEO with World Education Foundation. I know many would still not be in favour of seeing economics and faith together, saying that both are very different fields but whether accepted or not, it is the faith that can bring satisfaction to everyone irrespective of their economic status and prevent them from engaging in any kind of irrational behaviour when one deals with material things.
Hindu Dharma doesn’t see itself separate from Artha(finance), it is seen as one of the four Purusharths (purposes). Dharma also doesn’t see Artha only in mere terms of wealth as seen when we manifest Goddess Lakshmi into 8 forms called as AshtaLakshmi.
Each form of Ashta Lakshmi represents a different aspect of wealth and prosperity. Here are the eight forms:
- Adi Lakshmi (Primordial Lakshmi): The primal mother goddess.
- Dhana Lakshmi (Wealth Lakshmi): The goddess of wealth and prosperity.
- Dhanya Lakshmi (Grain Lakshmi): The goddess of agricultural wealth.
- Gaja Lakshmi (Elephant Lakshmi): The goddess of animal wealth, particularly elephants.
- Santana Lakshmi (Progeny Lakshmi): The goddess of progeny and fertility.
- Veera Lakshmi (Courage Lakshmi): The goddess of courage and valor.
- Vijaya Lakshmi (Victory Lakshmi): The goddess of victory and success.
- Vidya Lakshmi (Knowledge Lakshmi): The goddess of knowledge and education.
Each form is worshipped for specific blessings, contributing to a holistic view of prosperity and well-being.
It is also our Dharma which gives us learnings like “Shubh Labh”, which allows us to celebrate profits but only if it is earned through righteous means or even “Ridhi Sidhi” which emphasizes upon the combination of wealth and prosperity, intellect and spiritual power.
As a warning I warn its future practitioners from encouraging devotees from expecting material benefits from the Almighty because if we go down this path, we will be no different than materialists and after all it is itself evident that our material advancement solely depends upon us.
I also do not wish to repeat the exact same economic practices of Ancient India, because whether we like it or not industrialization for every nation is a must, so I would just modify and mould these practices in such a way that even industrialization is encouraged and Dharma is not harmed.
With this I start building up what should happen under this new system according to me:
1) Changing the education system: To teach finance and Dharma together, in some examples I can offer we can teach how Mahabharata developed the consensus the bad times and good times will come to one like a circle and one must not let them impact there thinking, they must not be ensured that good times will always exist and bad times will always persist. It took a John Maynard Keynes for the west to institute the fact that every economy will see upturns and downturns, and one must stimulate it in such way that both don’t have much impact on our living. Even Arthashastra would be a good recommendation and should be taught in higher classes.
2) Giving up the notion that land as the primary form of wealth: I know that most people see land as some kind of security, in the era of agriculture this thinking wasn’t wrong because at the end of the day your income depended upon how much land you owned, however in an industrial era, even a small piece of land can be very much productive if the factory is run with efficient machinery. It is simply not possible to distribute land in this nation because the population is quite huge and land distributed would be so small that it won’t be productive for agriculture as well.
3) Preserving few parts of Varnashram Dharma: It has already been acknowledged in Manusmriti that Mahayantra(great machine) pralay will happen which would lead to extinction of many varnas(occupations). In simple word Manusmriti had predicted long back that thanks to advancement of technology a lot of jobs would become residual and irrelevant. However, I believe some varnas which require artistic skills such as carpentry, blacksmiths and weavers should be kept conserved and must be provided with government aid so they are able to export their products. A reason for this demand also stems for the fact that in these materialistic ambitions we have already lost a sense of architecture as seen when one sees the architecture of the recently revived Nalanda University.
4) Free Temples: This is not only from a religious angle, but the very fact is that temples helped in huge community services such as running gurukuls which would teach children or would even be involved in medical care of those in need and even ran kitchens for our munis. Unfortunately, even after independence we didn’t set these temples free to do these services again.
5) 25% of investment by Venture Capitalists must be given to industrial startups: Venture Capitalists today mostly focus on apps, websites, and fintech startups. They are free to do so, however, with a focus on industrialization coming first the government should create quotas like they would for banks to foster startups that offer ingenious solutions to industrial issues. This has to be done because todays capitalism doesn’t find it very attractive to invest in industries.
6) FDI must be encouraged: While opening up this nation for FDI was a great decision in 1991, it must also be recognized that more than the FDI we must strive for the technology transfer from MNCs because only then will we able to make real gains. Beyond it we must try to adopt systems similar to FEC yuan of China as I explained in my previous article https://medium.com/@spdatasc/a-recap-of-1991-l-p-g-reforms-c0a4fe8bf505 in order to protect our local industries.
7) Worker cooperative must be encouraged for industries: This is a policy that was favored by the RSS & Indian nationalist economist Dattopant Thengadi in his “Third Way of Economics”, where he suggests workers should be part of corporate decision-making with seats on the board, and in other cases should directly own and control enterprises for a truly Hindu path to India’s development. This was something that was effectively used in SFR Yugoslavia and Kibbutz model of Israel.
8) Respect Prakriti: Even in this important quest for development, especially in sensitive regions such as Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Unrestrained tourism & development which is not sensitive to the ecology of a place have consequences for the local and others. This is already visible in places like Joshimath where ruthless urbanisation led to drainage of groundwater and at the end the place is seeking. It must be recognized that it was already warned by ancestors that Joshimath shouldn’t have heavy human settlements but government didn’t pay heed to it. We some from a nation where feeding cow or any activity that helps those who can’t speak for themselves earns someone punya. In short environmentalism and dharmicism can’t be seen as separate fields. I ask for stopping any kind of projects in ecologically sensitive areas unless important to national security.
9) A far better judicial system: One of the basic requirements of every economy is contract enforcement, however we know how effective our judiciary is in ensuring this agenda, it is quite funny that in pre-invasion times when khap panchayats had the onus to do so it was far more time bound than the currently colonized judiciary.
10) Spending on Productive things: Government must spend on infrastructure that gives heavy returns to the state. We must also spend on health and education; however, it must be effective. Countries like Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan all spent heavily on proper healthcare and education for its citizens, with vocational education being a big part of this. This point here is important, because many of our elites have drunk the kool-aid of “university education for 50% of our population”. Frankly this is an insane proposal, and will worsen the jobs crisis in our nation by also accelerating elite overproduction which, as the great Peter Turchin says, is a precondition for some of the most bloody and violent revolutions in history. While universities need to be improved, and woke curriculum like gender studies needs to be replaced by dhārmik studies, a majority of the population would rather be better off with vocational and technical education. Also, in healthcare the spendings should mostly be focused on building healthcare infrastructure rather than starting some new insurance policies. R&D spendings in the republic have been a travesty and it is funny that even princely state like the Wodeyars of Mysore were far more dedicated to it when they built institutions like IISc. We should now focus on encouraging it, especially in area like defence and clean energy
11) Extending the size of tax base: It is another tragedy of the current republic that paying taxes is seen as some kind of oppression by the state, something for which state is itself responsible thanks to its corrupt nature. However, the only long-term way to break this situation is to make sure that majority of our population pays direct tax because only then they can effectively claim ownership over state institution and feel entitled for good public services. Till that doesn’t happen we will still see the huge mounts of corruption in public services because public will remain tolerant to it.
This list is by no means fully comprehensive, but serves as a general guideline on what India should do under the new system. I do not say that there won’t be any chinks in the process of implementing this economic system, it may even need some further addition to meet the outcomes envisioned, however time has some to acknowledge that civilizations are strengthened when they are built on continuity. Beyond this, we are finally having a system that treat humans as creatures who have their own emotions and relationships and not someone who would always goes after his or her material ambitions. It is finally a system that actually practices to reat environment as a divine entity and respects it, unlike those double speaks of WEF who would lecture the poor to consume less in order to reduce carbon footprint while they themselves travel in private jet.
Source of inspirations: