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

Economy of Permanence
time saved by the former device, leaving the second state of the house-wife
worse than the first.
The two ways of dining
For example let us revert to our friend, the British gardener's wife. Formerly
carpets were beaten and cleaned by casual human labour. The vacuum cleaner
made its appearance. It dispensed with outside labour. A travelling salesman
would have visited the gardener's wife and waxed eloquent over the marvellous
performance of his commodity for sale-the vacuum cleaner-and would have
appealed to the thrifty house-wife by showing her how much she could save
every year by not having to call in human labour to do this heavy work of
carpet cleaning and how much such saving will amount to in her lifetime with
interest added ! As a result of this high pressure salesmanship she would go in
for a vacuum cleaner and would, no doubt, save a few shillings a year but she
has to do the cleaning herself with this 'labour-saving-device'. After a few
years, when she has saved a few pounds this way, the travelling salesman will
make his appearance again to sell her a newly invented dish washing machine.
He will again expatiate over the performance of the machine. If her savings
scraped together happen to fall short of the amount needed to pay down cash
for it, the salesman obligingly will offer an installment payment scheme or a
hire purchase system by which she pays a small deposit immediately, all that
she may have in ready cash and the machine is left with her for use for which
she should have to pay a small hire annually for five or seven years, after which
the whole machine will become her sole property. She falls a victim to this
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