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

Economy of Permanence

Thus began housekeeping as the beginning of woman's work. To this day, at least in our country, women's work follows this pure form of supplying one's needs oneself in one's own home.

Constituent Elements of work: When work is analysed it is found that it is a compound of many parts, each contributing its share towards the achievement of the final goal. In the main it consists of routine and rest, progress and pleasure. We cannot isolate any one of those from the others and constitute it into a living unit capable of existence by itself, we cannot give the routine part of it to one man and the resting part to another, neither can a third party appropriate all the pleasure to himself. In music, each note has its characteristic timing or rest, which forms an integral part of the note itself which would have no meaning without that period of rest. A man, who aspires to become a musician, has to put in hours of routine practice of scales and chords, only by so doing can he ultimately obtain the joy of rendering in music his deep emotions. This routine cannot be * detailed out to one so that another may feel the joy of success. One may passively enjoy music-tune in the radio. But, that does not make a musician of one. Similarly, everything that is worth doing demands repeated practice.

To take another example, a proper diet is constituted of roughage, nutritive elements and taste. One who desires to have the taste only without the bother of masticating the whole meal, may, with the help of modern science, get what he wants but he will not be able to sustain himself on it for any length of time. So also the roughage in our diet plays the most important part of aiding digestion and full assimilation. Similarly, all the constituent parts of work are essential to get the best out of it and to let it serve its definite purpose ordained by nature.

Since time immemorial, man has used his freewill in trying to break up work into its component parts, passing on the routine to those who are helpless to resist and appropriating to the strong the pleasures to be derived from work. The routine was shouldered on the slaves while the master enjoyed the fruits of his labour. The civilizations of Greece and Rome were based on such

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