Business to the Buddha

Month: December 2017

  • Start the new year by giving

    Capitalism has specially fascinated me in recent past. The fascination had been such that I have believed that capitalism is an approach where we realize futility of running behind all the comforts and all the need hierarchies. If there are other economic models too that help you approach this realization, than capitalism seems to work faster. My feeling had been that the possibility of realizing that need hierarchy under a socialistic and other type of economic systems is lower compared to capitalism. This impression is based on visits to certain cities of developed – mostly – capitalistic economies.

    My opinions may be incorrect, as repeatedly pointed out in comments by Ramana uncleji. I am still analyzing why I may be incorrect in the sense that capitalism a better approach to move towards spirituality compared to other systems.

    Image result for donateOne recent incident helped me evaluate my premise bit more. I was collecting donations for an NGO – DSY. The plan was to collect about 1 lac Indian rupee within 5 days before 25th Dec. Some unexpected mail, call and chats resulted in donations. I was confident of other close friends to donate – they did not! It was utter surprise to me. I am not asking money for myself, I am giving financial details of the organization and I am also showing the work the organization has done, yet the closest of my friends are uncomfortable to donate. Impact of two of the projects are below –

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCOY-IAt5X0

    Some of my friends are MBAs and others are Engineers working in respectable organizations. They are well to do, yet they were unwilling to donate. What was the problem with them to even commit INR 1000 or say INR 5000? In fact I told a few of them if you donate INR 5000 or more you will get tax deduction under section 80G of Income tax too. The question I had in my mind was – if someone can spend few thousands on New Year eve, cannot someone commit that much or lesser for someone else? The money can help a farmer stay alive, not commit suicide or a tribal child study. Why so? Have we become so callous? Are we less compassionate in the influence of capitalism?

    Answer to the question and my recent analysis was – in many cases today’s capitalism is a constant feeling of “having less” and “willingness to have more”. I’ve been writing about this desire for more, constant running behind many things in past. I felt that it’ll get subdued over period of time under capitalism. Prosperity will help a person view futility of this constant race to get more. Because over a period of time an individual will start questioning own’s running – why? What more? Resulting in realizing futility of this rat race sooner rather than later.

    Abundance possibly is based on our sense that “I already have things in abundant supply”. Possibly, we’ll have some different economic model in future, not exactly capitalism; where contentment will be primary and give will be preferred over feeling of paucity depravity and wanting for more.

    Last not the least – I’ve extended my targets to 2 lac. By 31st March 2018 you can donate at https://www.dsyindia.org/login.php. Once you donate please share the acknowledgement with me so that I know how far I’m from my targets.

    Start the new year by giving. Wish you a Very Happy New Year. I hope few of you will think of donating besides wonderful celebration of the coming year.

    Image source – http://mike-ward.net/donate/

    Related blogs – Education, Chicken in the “poultry farm of economy”, Race – never ending, What more you need?, When will we stop?, Swasthay – dwelling in oneself, Money worth earning, A cup of tea

  • Capitalism’s possible impact

    Keynes in an essay had said “his grandchildren’s generation would only work 15 hours a week.” Apparently, that generation is in the workforce now. Are we working <2 working days a week? Far from it. According to some studies, working population of the developed countries are still working at least 34 hours a week (if not 40 hours). Possibly the prediction was incorrect by a generation.

    On a leisure weekend, we were wandering in one of the biggest cities of Latin America last month. It was our first visit to the country. We were talking about the way of living there and possible future for us. I said, in future, we may be working for enjoying what we do, not for earning our living. So, when Keynes said working 15 hours a week, it is possible that rest of the time, people do what they otherwise would want to do – it can be work too. Given a choice I would want to study, read books, wrote blogs 🙂 share my knowledge etc. Some of it I still do though, but over the weekends. Was this the future that Keynes saw as possible? I think yes.

    Uber, Apple and Google are working on autonomous cars. We’ve technology intervention in everything – industrial revolution brought partial automation, technology revolution increasing automation. It is possible that in future organizations will be minting money on robots alone. Hopefully when we reach that state, we will be beyond food, shelter and social standing. In fact that possibly can be one of the reasons for the following outcome of a research – population of developed countries are not that happy. Perhaps our mind has the habit of occupying itself. When there is nothing to be occupied with, either one is unhappy or one can think of bigger purpose in life.

    The statistics can be contested such as – how were these 50 years compared? This discontent and prosperity will surely lead to the questions towards spirituality. When a society is prosperous that is when it starts or tend to move inwards – at times capitalism it is that provides opportunity to dig deeper within [From my previous blog]. I see a lot of people pursuing Buddhism or for that matter meditation in west.

    Besides, when development will lead to unhappiness, the journey of inwards will start. People will ask question – what makes me happy? That is when people will start working for 15 hours a week for wages and rest for self. I see that as an impact of capitalism. When that happens economies would not remain purely capitalistic. There will be change in our approach of economy, it wont remain purely capitalist.

    Image Source – https://twitter.com/nareshnshahani/status/938937338431807488 tweet from – Mr Naresh Shahani.