So many problems, One solution.
“45.8 million enslaved worldwide. Highest in India — 18.45 million.” — 2016 Global slavery index report.
“62 people own same as half world.” — Oxfam report.
“Rot in our medical sector: Fake surgeries, sink tests” — Read here.
“Sponsored stupid scientific researches” — Watch here.
“Synthetic milk, GM foods,etc — Poison on our plates”
“Global warming & environmental damage.” Watch Cowspiracy.
“21,000 hungry people die every day, mostly children.”
“Wars in the middle east killing & enslaving innocent people.”
The list just doesn’t end!
No amount of charity, volunteers, spreading awareness, increasing inspections & monitoring or making new policies seem to solve these problems. Why ? Because whatever we are targeting through all of the above mentioned activities is not the root of the problem. We need to collectively attack the root.
What is the one common thread that runs through all the problems ? Greed — Lust for money. World needs glitter in beauty products ? Use children in Jharkhand as slaves to mine Mica and make more profits. Need more profits for hospitals? — Conduct more useless tests & surgeries. Need more & more milk? — Make synthetic milk & mix it to get more profit. Need to sell a product to increase profits? — Sponsor a fake research & prove it good. Country needs resources & weapon industry needs profits? — Secretly encourage Wars.
But human nature is not just greed. We are more than that.
“Analysing the ethical laws of the world and comparing them with the actual state of things, two laws stand out supreme. The one, that of repelling everything from us — separating ourselves from everyone — which leads to self-aggrandisement even at the cost of everyone else’s happiness. The other, that of self-sacrifice — of taking no thought of ourselves — only of others. Both spring from the search for happiness — one, of finding happiness in injuring others and the ability of feeling that happiness only in our own senses. The other, of finding happiness in doing good to others — the ability of feeling happy, as it were, through the senses of others. The great and good of the world are those who have the latter power predominating. Yet both these are working side by side conjointly; in almost everyone they are found in mixture, one or the other predominating. The thief steals, perhaps, for someone he loves.” — Swami Vivekananda
As both powers exist in everyone, it would be wiser to design systems that nurture our good side. Everyone would live in harmony then, instead we designed a system that encourages the other one, self-aggrandisement — Hello Capitalism!
We live in an economic system that rewards problem solving with money. Basically, the system assumes that the problem solver is not interested in solving the problem and therefore it offers something extra like a chocolate cake or a car or simply in general — “Money”. In such a scenario the person who is most driven by greed to get the cake/car/money will jump at the opportunity and solve it by hook or crook to get the reward and herein lies the problem. Unethical, environmentally damaging, evil & lackadaisical solutions will be put into action (as described above), in a bid to get the reward. Thus our ever growing problems.
Great innovators didn’t innovate for the monetary rewards they would get but they did it for the joy of it. Necessity is the mother of invention; Solving problems gives joy and only that should attract people to solve them not anything else. All great things were done for the sake of those very great things not for something else. Curiosity & innovation are human nature, we do not need something extra to motivate us to solve our problems. By offering something, we only complicate our problems but inviting to the table a bunch of people who are greedy for the reward and not for solving the problem — they care less about it. In-fact these kinds of people also create problems so that they can solve them somehow and keep making money.
The alternatives are many, oldest alternative system is Socialism, which is misunderstood by many as “dictatorship” or “government owns all”, etc. — that is State Capitalism, not socialism. There are other new alternatives too, like Venus project, Dandelion project & Ubuntu. But what’s that one solution? The one solution is — “Abolish Money!“
At this point, I start to hear things like..”Money is a means of exchange, we need to have something in its place right?”, “But..but money is needed for survival you know..” , “Its an Utopian solution, it can’t be done”..”Some other thing would replace money, so you cannot do away with it”, etc.. Lets discuss all these and more. I will address them in coming posts.
Join the Unselfish Movement !
