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

Economy of Permanence
Again, which horticulturist will hew down a graft mango tree that yields good
fruits for the sake of firewood? Yet man is so foolish as to offer his children as
gun fodder and is even proud of doing so. Such is the potency of propaganda
glorifying violence.
It may be mentioned here in passing that apart from sentimental or religious
feelings and considerations of such principles as violence and non-violence,
slaughter of animals for food stands condemned by the above reasoning. While
the meat-eater gets the flesh, which can easily be substituted by nutrition
obtainable from other sources, nature loses valuable expressions of instinctive
life—the song of birds, the love of animals etc. which often excel the fitful
exhibits of man and are equally as irreplaceable functions as the creative
faculty in man. Flesh-eating, therefore, belongs to the Parasitic Economy of
Transience and causes avoidable destruction. It lowers the 'habitue' to the
lowest order of existence which has no dignity to it.
Applying these ideas of life to the five forms of economies, with special
reference to the creative faculty of man, he Parasitic Economy becomes the
House of Imitations, the 'redatory Economy gives us the House of Adoptions,
while the Economy of Enterprise will assume the form of the House of Material
Creations and the Economy of Gregation forms the House of Social Innovations,
and the Economy of Service which enables its devotees to project themselves
into the life of others, may be termed the House of Sublimation.
The House of imitation: Those who fall within this group do not trouble to
contribute anything themselves but take whatever they can-from others'
creations by closely imitating them. The guiding characteristic still remains
self-love and pleasure seeking by the easiest route. In effect, they live through
the lives of others. There is just existence pure and simple. They are like the
moondead or lifeless themselves-but their glory, such as they possess, is a
reflection of other people's efforts. Their own personality finds no expression.
Nothing worthwhile is to be learnt from them. It may not be wholly their fault
that they are sterile like the mule which, being hybrid, is neither a horse nor a
donkey or and is unable to reproduce itself. It lives and dies without leaving a.
www.mkgandhi.org Page 53