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

Economy of Permanence

XII. WORK

Although a most commonly used word yet 'work' is perhaps one of the few
words whose meaning people never take the trouble to consider. What is work?
What function does it perform in the economy as ordained by nature?

One of the great problems facing the nations today is the provision of work for
the millions, so it is imperative that the significance of work should be fully
comprehended. In an earlier chapter, we considered how in natnre the various
factors that make for continuity and permanence are brought together by
natural agents to serve the eternal order of the universe-worms as fertilizers of
the soil, birds' as carriers and sowers of seeds, bees as fluidizers of plant life.
Such is work and such is the life mission of these creatures in nature.

As regards man also, we discussed what life was, and what its constituents
were, apart from mere existence. As distinct from the lower orders, man could
exercise his freewill and bring together diverse units of nature to serve their
purposes better. In so doing he himself can develop his faculties and also be
able to express his personality through the application of his scale of values in
solving the practical problems before him. This then constitutes work for man
and also its function.

For a proper understanding of what work is, it is necessary to consider the
simplest form of it in the early history of man, shorn of all its manifold and
confusing appendages with which it is enshrouded today. The origin of work, in
its purest form, can be traced to the early days of man when his ways began to
diverge from those of the instinct-driven animals when he began to make
himself tools out of stones. His work was to supply his own needs using his
intelligence forethought and resourcefulness in a way similar to how a bird
builds itself a nest and goes about in search of food. Man worked to serve and
please himself. There was no wage other than the satisfying of his personal
wants. This activity was healthy enough to sharpen his faculties and to let him
grow as a thinking animal. He brought his finds and kills home, to his simple
cave-dwelling where his woman dressed them and got them ready for eating.

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