The Capitalist Age(1)
By Shrii Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar Both the warrior class and the intellectual class like to enjoy material wealth, though their methods of accumulating material objects are different. The capitalists/ business class, however, are more interested in possessing material objects than enjoying them. Looking at their possessions, or thinking about them, gives them a certain peace of mind. So in the Age of Capitalism the practical value of material goods is less than at any other time. They gradually become inert both literally and in financial terms. This is the greatest curse of the Commercial Age, because the less the mobility of material goods, that is, the greater their stagnation in different spheres, the more harmful it is for the common people. In the warrior and intellectual Ages it is very rare for people to die of starvation while grains rot in the warehouses. Although there is disparity of wealth in the Warrior(2) and Intellectual Ages, warriors and intellectuals do not kick others into a pit of privation, poverty and starvation while they themselves enjoy their wealth. This is because they see other people as tools to be used for the purpose of exploitation, but do not see them as the wellspring of exploitation as capitalists do. To a capitalist, the laborers/workers, the warrior/military class and the intellectuals are not only tools to be used for exploitative purposes, they are the wellspring of exploitation as well. The capitalists gain material objects of enjoyment through the physical efforts of others; or directly through mental efforts; or sometimes through such physical efforts, sometimes through mental efforts, and sometimes through both simultaneously, according to the situation. So in this respect the capitalists are similar to the intellectuals. However, the difference is that when the intellectuals acquire objects of enjoyment, they do not let others know that that is their intention; they resort to various types of logic, quote from the scriptures, fake indifference, and employ many other techniques. The capitalists do not do such things. In this regard at least, they are more straightforward than the intellectuals. They do not hide their intentions, which are to accumulate an increasing number of objects of enjoyment. As intellectuals are to some extent guided by conscience, they do not utilize their intellects solely to accumulate objects of enjoyment. If they develop a greater degree of conscience or if their intellects increase, they will often neglect to do this altogether. But this never happens with capitalists, first of all because they are somewhat lacking in conscience. And secondly, if any of them do have a bit more conscience, they will satisfy it by making donations according to their convenience, priorities or inclination, but they will never stop accumulating objects of enjoyment. A capitalist with a conscience may donate a hundred thousand rupees at a moment's notice, but while buying and selling he will not easily let go of even a [single penny]. The consequences of accumulating material objects of enjoyment are not the same for capitalists as they are for intellectuals, either. Because they generally spend some time thinking about higher pursuits, intellectuals do not ideate on objects of enjoyment. But capitalists do. As a result they one day take the form of matter. Capitalist Mentality Whatever glory the capitalists gain, they gain at the risk of their lives. In this regard they are definitely greater than the intellectuals and may also be greater than the warriors. The capitalists always keep in mind the possible ups and downs in life and their personal profit and loss; thus they develop the capacity to adapt to a wide variety of situations. They are neither especially attracted to luxuries nor repelled by hardships. This is the key to their success. Capitalists are fighters, but their methods of fighting are different from those of the warriors or even the intellectuals. Actually they lack the powerful personalities of the warriors and are in fact the opposite -- weak personalities. They do not hesitate to sell their personal force, their society, their nation, the prestige of women, or national welfare, which the warrior class would never do. Intellectuals limit their fighting to the intellectual sphere, but this is not exactly the case with capitalists. Although they also fight intellectually, they do so only to make money. If an intellectuals and a capitalist ever engage in a purely intellectual fight, the intellectuals will win. But if the fight is between their urges for financial gain, the capitalist will win; the capitalist will lock the intellectuals' minds up in their iron safes. Capitalists perceive the world through greedy eyes. They do not have the capacity to correctly or fully understand worldly issues. They do not understand anything except the economic value of things. Their commercial outlook is not confined to the material world only; it also includes the psychic and spiritual worlds. Even though capitalists, as a kind of intellectual, have the capacity to acquire psychic wealth, they do not utilize this capacity properly. However, some capitalists do find quite subtle ways to make money -- it all depends on the degree of their intellect.(3) Though they may have a developed intellect or a desire to do good, they never forget that their primary aim is to make money. They worship whichever god makes them rich. After earning tens of millions of rupees by cheating people with their business acumen, they use a small part of their profit to construct temples or inns/rest houses, because they believe that this will absolve them of their sins. Capitalists do not like to tread the path of desireless action in order to make their minds one-pointed and realize God. They avoid or usually try to avoid the real purpose of dharma, for they do not have any sense of or feeling for religion other than some degree of fear of God. If this fear decreases, they begin to behave like mean-minded demons. In such a state of mind they can commit any type of sin to satisfy their hunger for money. A mind which runs after money moves in very crooked ways. Although this movement involves intense effort, due to the crudeness of its objective the movement cannot be straightforward: it is crooked, extremely crooked. Due to their intense effort capitalists are mutative by nature, and due to the crudeness of their objectives they are static by nature; thus they are a combination of the mutative [red] and static [black] forces and are symbolized by the colour yellow. Though capitalists make greater efforts than do warriors, their efforts are more psychic than physical. Deadly Social Parasites Capitalists believe that only a few people can accumulate material wealth, depriving the rest. Thus there will always be only a few capitalists, while those who are the objects and tools of their exploitation form the majority. Like exploited beasts of burden which carry bags of sugar, in their crippled state of mind the majority feel that they do not have the right to taste the sweetness. This feeling is the greatest ally of the capitalists, so directly or indirectly they always try to nurture this type of feeling in the minds of the majority. Consequently they propagate various types of isms and ethereal theories with the help of the intellectuals in their pay whom they have reduced to the level of workers/laborers. When the majority, unable to tolerate this exploitation any longer or find any other way out, desperately leap into action, the Capitalist Age comes to an end. But it takes a long time for downtrodden people to understand that the capitalists are the parasites of society. Hence thorough preparation is required to end the Capitalist Age. By capitalists I mean here the low type of capitalists. However, I am not prepared to call those who are not low capitalists, "high" capitalists; because while it is true that they give donations as well as exploit, and that society may be benefited by their donations, that will not bring the people who have died from their exploitation back to life! The capitalists increase their wealth by buying the back-breaking labour of the laborers, the powerful personalities of the warriors, and the intellect of the intellectuals, according to their needs. The workers, just like beasts, sell their physical labour in exchange for mere subsistence. Because they sell their labour, society survives and moves ahead. The powerful personalities of the warriors build and maintain the social structure with the labour extracted from the workers. Through their intellect the intellectuals utilize the personal force of the warriors (military), and through their money and capitalistic mentality the capitalists utilize the intellectuals' intellect to increase their wealth. The capitalists do not confront any social problem directly. Just as they buy the labour of the workers, the personal force of the warriors and the intellect of the intellectuals with money, so they endeavour to solve all social problems with money. They do not win victory on the battlefield; they buy it with money. In poverty-stricken democratic countries they buy votes. As they accomplish everything with money, their vital force comes from money. They therefore take all sorts of risks in life to accumulate money. For money they can sacrifice their conscience, their sense of good and bad, right and wrong, at any moment. So in order to save the exploited workers, warriors and intellectuals from the capitalists, money, which is the source of all their power, has to be taken out of their hands. Of course it is not wise to think that all social problems will be solved just by taking money away from the capitalists. Although they will have lost their money, they will still have their greedy, money-making mentality. Thus the structure of society will have to be built in such a way, and society will have to progress in such a way (maintaining balance among time, place and person), that the greedy, money-making mentality of the capitalists is rendered ineffectual. This cannot be accomplished by persuasion or by delivering philosophical talks. Their money-making intellect will have to be rendered ineffectual through physical force, and they will have to be shown the divine truth and made to sit and perform spiritual practices to awaken their pinnacled intellect. To the capitalists the social body is merely a machine for making money. The intellectuals are the head, the warriors are the arms, and the workers are the legs of the machine. The authors of scripture may say that the capitalists are the thighs of the machine, but I would say that this is incorrect. Of course the capitalists are part of the social body, but they are not part of the money-making machine within that social body. They are separate. They supply the oil, water and fuel to the machine, but they take far more from the machine than they spend on it. They think, "As I supply oil, water and fuel to the machine to keep it running, all of the output is mine. My money built the machine, and with my money I can destroy it. If necessary I will get more work out of it by supplying it with more oil, water and fuel, and if I no longer need it I will send it to the junkyard." If, in the history of human struggle, the role of the intellectuals is one of parasitic dependence on others, I cannot find words to describe the role of the capitalists. Both the intellectuals and the capitalists exploit society, but the intellectuals exploiters are not as terrible as the capitalist exploiters. The capitalists are like a deadly parasite on the tree of society which tries to kill the tree by sucking dry all its vital sap. But if the tree dies, the parasite will also die. The capitalist parasites understand this and therefore try to ensure the survival of society by making some donations; they build temples, mosques, churches and pilgrims' inns, give little bonuses, feed the poor; etc. Calamity only comes when they lose their common sense out of excessive greed and try to suck society completely dry. Once the social body falls unconscious, the capitalists will die along with the rest of the body. Otherwise, before allowing themselves to die, the exploited workers, warriors and intellectuals can unite to destroy the capitalists. This is the rule. Crooked Intellect The path of the intellectuals is crooked and so is the path of the capitalists. The difference between them is that since the capitalists' crooked intellect has no trace of spiritual consciousness, it often proves to be suicidal. A dreadful calamity will befall society if those who have intellectual capacity squander it by running after mundane pleasures instead of utilizing it to realize spiritual bliss -- if they utilize all their intellect to fatten themselves by sucking the vital juice of others. So there can be no social welfare until this type of mentality is eradicated or rendered ineffectual through circumstantial pressure. No political leader or governmental or social system can build a welfare state, a socialistic state or an ideal society if they neglect this fundamental disease. If those who go around looking for opportunities to enlarge their stomachs by sucking the vital force of others continue to control society or the nation through their own group of sinners, what can one expect to see in such a society except a horrid picture of hell! Most of the evils that occur in society are created due to the exploitation carried out by the capitalists. In order to increase the size of their bank balances, the capitalists create an artificial scarcity of such items as food, clothing and other essential commodities, and then earn a profit by black marketeering. Those who do not have the capacity to purchase commodities at exorbitant prices steal, commit armed robberies and engage in other criminal activities in order to obtain the minimum requirements of their lives. Poor people deprived of food and clothing work as the agents of the greedy capitalists engaged in black marketeering and smuggling. When these poor people are caught, they are the ones who get punished, while the capitalists escape thanks to the power of their money. Such ill-fated poor people lose their consciences and descend deeper into sin. Society condemns these sinners, while the rich capitalists, the instigators of the sinners, play the role of public leaders. They wear garlands, set off verbal fireworks, and shrilly exhort the masses to make greater sacrifices. Prostitution The repugnant social disease of prostitution is also a creation of the capitalists. As a result of excessive wealth the capitalists lose their self-control and their character on the one hand; and many unfortunate women are forced by poverty to descend to this sinful occupation on the other hand. In India prostitution has been outlawed, but every rational person knows that it cannot be stopped by legal means. Poor women who once lived in red-light districts have only fled out of fear of the law to respectable localities. As a result the sin which was previously confined to certain areas is now spreading to other parts of town. In order to eradicate this sinful occupation in India, it will be necessary to eliminate the capitalist social system, because in eighty per cent of cases the cause of prostitution is economic injustice. Of course if due to wrong education or base propensities people (both men and women) give indulgence to this sinful occupation, it will continue even after the eradication of economic injustices. So instead of enacting laws, the exploitation of the capitalists will have to be eliminated, as will other social injustices. And instead of legally banning something, a healthy outlook should be encouraged. Of course it is in the nature of a capitalist-dominated social system that many good laws are framed just to win cheap applause from the public. However, none of these laws are strictly implemented; because if they were, it would become difficult to exploit people. to be continued... ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> DonorsChoose. A simple way to provide underprivileged children resources often lacking in public schools. 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