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

Economy of Permanence
performed by the operators stationed all along the line. As the bare last moves
up the first man on the line, who will have by his side a pot of sticky paste and
a brush, will dab the last with the paste on the sole as it passes in front of him.
He will repeat this operation on hundreds of lasts that will move past him from
eight in the morning till five in the evening with a break for lunch in the
middle.
To repeat such actions for eight hours a day for 300 days in the year is enough
to cause a nervous strain which will send the worker to the mad house
whatever may be the wages offered.
Is it any wonder that in the most indusrialized country in the world, in the U. S.
A., more people suffer from nervous disorders than from all other forms of
ailments ?* Man's constitution is not an inanimate machine. His system calls for
a balance of operations which will exercise all his faculties. This condition can
only be ensured by a wide enough unit of work.
Too small units, which are merely processes, are highly wasteful of man power
as it puts workers out of action in a short time. A hardworking labourer is made
a wreck by the time he reaches 45 years of age. But this wastage is shifted
from the manufacturer to society by the wage system rendering it possible for
the industrialist to flourish in spite of this great loss in man power. The
employer is totally unconcerned with the destruction his system of work
causes. If one of his workers breaks down he is immediately discharged and a
more youthful one is taken on. There is no love lost. The employer thinks no
more of dispensing with a man who has wrecked his life in his service than of
throwing away a smoked bit of a cigar. If anything, in casting off such worn out
persons he stands to gain as the younger man may bring in more energy. There
is no liability attaching to the employer for so drawing the life out of his man.
Is this not a callous waste of human faculties and life? Can such waste lead us
to permanence? Any little higher wage such workers may appear to enjoy is but
the realization of present value of their life after 45 years of age.
www.mkgandhi.org Page 90