The Economy of Permanence: A Quest for a Social Order Based on Non-violence (स्थायी अर्थतन्त्र)

Economy of Permanence

Japanese mat more than your own product. If you yourself do so, can you
blame others doing likewise? If many others follow your method of valuing
foreign articles they will also cease buying locally made screwpine mats. How
can your industry flourish with all your old customers gone? Are you not the
chief culprit to destroy your own trade?" With folded hands he accepted the
reasoning and forthwith replaced the Japanese mat by one of his own make.
The use of foreign articles deprives
our people of employment
Here is a picture in miniature of what is happening all over our country. The
standards by which we judge are not comprehensive enough. We are often led
away by low money prices ignoring the great gashes in our economic and social
organization made by such short-sighted choice of ours. The goods produced by
our own neighbours have values which are not represented in the money price.
The money value is most often the least important of all considerations,
although frequently, it is the sole factor that affects our decision. Such pure
monetary considerations may lead to the blasting of the ramifications of our
social order and spell ruin and distress all round. Money value blinds the vision
to a long range social view, so that the wielder of the axe fells the branch on
which he is standing. He is the contributing party to his own destruction and
fall. Hence an unfettered long term policy, which will ensure permanence, calls
for the application of objective criteria, taking into consideration not merely
the immediate solution of a problem but also the more lasting after effects
which may follow in the wake. No act of a single individual ends with an
isolated transaction. It has its repercussions right through society, though many
of us do not have our sight trained to perceive what follows in its train.

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