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

Economy of Permanence
There is no variety, no imagination, no original ideas. It is one dead level. Even
in old cemeteries one may find wonderful specimens of works of art or
sculpture, but not in a modern Bombay flat where people are supposed to 'live'.
These homes are more dead than graves. Everything is done for the consumer
by the manufacturer under the pretext of making life comfortable and easy;
such ease leads to the benumbing of the higher faculties which spells death to
progress and development.
If life is to be creative, such deadening standardization must go. There should
be plenty of scope for individual taste to express itself. Designing one's own
house or furniture is a fertile field for the play of one's personality. Under the
specious plea of simplifying one's problems, large scale manufacturers are
laying waste personality and individuality and are impoverishing life. In the U.
S. A., prefabricated houses can be built overnight. All one has to do is to ring
up the wholesale manufacturer and tell him where one wants it and which plan
one prefers, -Plan A, Plan B or Plan C. All the doors, windows etc. of each plan
are kept ready in stock. The only time needed is to assemble them like a
packing case out of boards. Even in matters of food, where one would expect
individual tastes to prevail, the manufacturers have borne down individuality by
carefully worded advertisements, setting forth fanciful food values etc. Ready
prepared foods are making their appearance also in Indian markets and homes
dealing a death-blow to the art of cooking. Every housewife should pride
herself on her culinary art. Instead we have standardized fruit preserves,
pickles, chutneys, infant and invalid semi-pre- pared foods, supplied from
factories thousands of miles from our land.
Man is so constituted that the less he thinks on problems the less he is fitted for
life. Therefore, the all considerate and thoughtful modern manufacturer, who
professes to do all the thinking for the consumer, is really crippling him. Even a
mother has to let her child attempt to walk and perhaps to fall and hurt itself
too. If she strives to take such care of her child that it should never fall, always
carries it herself, the child will never develop a sense of balance and will have
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