The society is our ruler. We abide by it without question and often strive to adapt to its demand. I believe that this conformity has destroyed our instinct towards what nature had intended for us. We deviate from our purpose because of this conformity and find it difficult to reason the purpose of our birth.
Rudimentarily, the purpose of a species would be to survive. The very direct tool of Darwinian natural selection is evidence enough to show that the features of our body and that of other animals are such that they lengthen their lifespan and ensure their sustainability. Even from a Creationist perspective, the perpetuation of animals is based primarily on survival.
Intelligence and our ability to reason and act accordingly have made us what we are today. Humans are, after all, a species of ape that only recently climbed down from the trees. We are still learning after the process of our inception and definitely our society is far from perfect. From the structure of the economy, the judiciary systems, the nature of human behavioral patterns and a list of everything else that has been derived from the intelligence of modern humans is an aspect of our society. And much, if not all of it encompasses a great deal of imbalance in relation to the natural method of our existence or to what might one call the purpose of our being.
For the sake of this discussion, I wish to bring one such feature of our society, the circular flow of income, or more simply the circular flow, to question. Those who are not economically inclined might understand best of the circular flow as it being a simple economic model which describes the reciprocal circulation of income between producers and consumers. In the circular flow model, the inter-dependent entities of producer and consumer are referred to as "firms" and "households" respectively and provide each other with factors in order to facilitate the flow of income. Each group has two roles. Firms are producers of goods and services; they are also the employers of labor and other factors of production. Households are the consumers of goods and services; they are also the suppliers of labor and various other factors of production. There exists an inner flow and various outer flows of incomes between these two groups. The inner flow can be explained by which firms pay money to households in the form of wages and salaries, dividends on shares, interest and rent. These payments are in return for the services of the factors of production – labor, capital and land – that are supplied by households. Households, in turn, pay money to domestic firms when they consume domestically produced goods and services. There is thus a circular flow of payments from firms to households to firms and so on.
To explain further, if households spend all their incomes on buying domestic goods and services, and if firms pay out all this income they receive as factor payments to domestic households, and if the velocity of circulation does not change, the flow will continue at the same level indefinitely. I would like to leave out the complication of injections and withdrawals, the outer flow (since its addition is unnecessary for the clarity of this assertion).
It is important to note that this model of circular flow is the principle of the monetary flow in our economy and thus makes up the backbone of our society. Such a circular flow, however, has a paradox which becomes apparent when we consider the question of the purpose of society and assume the circular flow to be a tool that runs the world that we see around us. The society that I have described is the one that we live in because without the jobs that we hold or the money that we spend on the goods and services, the world would, without a doubt come to a stand still. All the forces that direct human behavior can be reasoned by the circular flow, with the exception of true human emotions that are independent of money and other monetary factors. Thus we, with only a few exceptions, are controlled by the community around us and we tend to err unknowingly when the society demands of it.
We must understand that the circular flow is not a device necessary for survival. However, I do not equate survival to the purpose of being. Even then, the circular flow does not satisfy a higher purpose. It succeeds in entertaining us; keeping us occupied and inhibits the thought of escaping this system. The paradox lies in the fact that people often don’t realize that their expenditure returns back to them as their income (although this may not be equal). Collectively, what the human community spends is what they earn; only that is distributed in an unequal fashion. In the process, resources are spent and energy is depleted. This cycle demands resources and serves the purpose of keeping us occupied and entertaining us. This is the paradox. The contradiction is that the resources that we use to run this cycle are actually wasted and actually masks us from the true purpose of our being. The validity of this claim cannot be challenged because; accumulating wealth cannot be seen as a true purpose of our being in all domains. Affluence after a certain point will result in the desire of satisfaction which could have been attained more easily at a point of lesser wealth. Satisfaction derived from a certain activity seems more remote only after one is deeply involved in this system and tries to accumulate wealth.
It is only in later discussions that I will propose an alternative form of governance and behavior system of society and discuss the true purpose of our being. Nevertheless, it is most essential to realize that our society does not derive satisfaction for individuals nor does it fulfill the true purpose of our being. That is the first step that we can take to justify our creation. When we realize what we do, we are better informed towards where we are going and where we should be.
In an intricate process of evolution; societies tend to change. It can be easily identified that this method of being is not sustainable. The depletion of our planet, a precious life supporting system, is reason enough to not only changing our actions but also to change our ideology itself. This might be time to change the structure of our society. To be an error and to be cast out is a part of God’s design. We have to evolve before we are cast out.
Rudimentarily, the purpose of a species would be to survive. The very direct tool of Darwinian natural selection is evidence enough to show that the features of our body and that of other animals are such that they lengthen their lifespan and ensure their sustainability. Even from a Creationist perspective, the perpetuation of animals is based primarily on survival.
Intelligence and our ability to reason and act accordingly have made us what we are today. Humans are, after all, a species of ape that only recently climbed down from the trees. We are still learning after the process of our inception and definitely our society is far from perfect. From the structure of the economy, the judiciary systems, the nature of human behavioral patterns and a list of everything else that has been derived from the intelligence of modern humans is an aspect of our society. And much, if not all of it encompasses a great deal of imbalance in relation to the natural method of our existence or to what might one call the purpose of our being.
For the sake of this discussion, I wish to bring one such feature of our society, the circular flow of income, or more simply the circular flow, to question. Those who are not economically inclined might understand best of the circular flow as it being a simple economic model which describes the reciprocal circulation of income between producers and consumers. In the circular flow model, the inter-dependent entities of producer and consumer are referred to as "firms" and "households" respectively and provide each other with factors in order to facilitate the flow of income. Each group has two roles. Firms are producers of goods and services; they are also the employers of labor and other factors of production. Households are the consumers of goods and services; they are also the suppliers of labor and various other factors of production. There exists an inner flow and various outer flows of incomes between these two groups. The inner flow can be explained by which firms pay money to households in the form of wages and salaries, dividends on shares, interest and rent. These payments are in return for the services of the factors of production – labor, capital and land – that are supplied by households. Households, in turn, pay money to domestic firms when they consume domestically produced goods and services. There is thus a circular flow of payments from firms to households to firms and so on.
To explain further, if households spend all their incomes on buying domestic goods and services, and if firms pay out all this income they receive as factor payments to domestic households, and if the velocity of circulation does not change, the flow will continue at the same level indefinitely. I would like to leave out the complication of injections and withdrawals, the outer flow (since its addition is unnecessary for the clarity of this assertion).
It is important to note that this model of circular flow is the principle of the monetary flow in our economy and thus makes up the backbone of our society. Such a circular flow, however, has a paradox which becomes apparent when we consider the question of the purpose of society and assume the circular flow to be a tool that runs the world that we see around us. The society that I have described is the one that we live in because without the jobs that we hold or the money that we spend on the goods and services, the world would, without a doubt come to a stand still. All the forces that direct human behavior can be reasoned by the circular flow, with the exception of true human emotions that are independent of money and other monetary factors. Thus we, with only a few exceptions, are controlled by the community around us and we tend to err unknowingly when the society demands of it.
We must understand that the circular flow is not a device necessary for survival. However, I do not equate survival to the purpose of being. Even then, the circular flow does not satisfy a higher purpose. It succeeds in entertaining us; keeping us occupied and inhibits the thought of escaping this system. The paradox lies in the fact that people often don’t realize that their expenditure returns back to them as their income (although this may not be equal). Collectively, what the human community spends is what they earn; only that is distributed in an unequal fashion. In the process, resources are spent and energy is depleted. This cycle demands resources and serves the purpose of keeping us occupied and entertaining us. This is the paradox. The contradiction is that the resources that we use to run this cycle are actually wasted and actually masks us from the true purpose of our being. The validity of this claim cannot be challenged because; accumulating wealth cannot be seen as a true purpose of our being in all domains. Affluence after a certain point will result in the desire of satisfaction which could have been attained more easily at a point of lesser wealth. Satisfaction derived from a certain activity seems more remote only after one is deeply involved in this system and tries to accumulate wealth.
It is only in later discussions that I will propose an alternative form of governance and behavior system of society and discuss the true purpose of our being. Nevertheless, it is most essential to realize that our society does not derive satisfaction for individuals nor does it fulfill the true purpose of our being. That is the first step that we can take to justify our creation. When we realize what we do, we are better informed towards where we are going and where we should be.
In an intricate process of evolution; societies tend to change. It can be easily identified that this method of being is not sustainable. The depletion of our planet, a precious life supporting system, is reason enough to not only changing our actions but also to change our ideology itself. This might be time to change the structure of our society. To be an error and to be cast out is a part of God’s design. We have to evolve before we are cast out.
It is not true to assume human beings work for survival alone. Only part of our earnings go for survival. I mean food,clothing & place for Survival. Our life style got changed; Physical work is reduced to a great extent. People spend more leisure time on movies, songs ,dance, travel, eating, drinks & smoke which are the direct out come of our technology. No doubt we pollute, waste our resources and do many "not to do" things. But that is the part of enjoyment for the opportunity we got as a human being. The question is whether the opportunity to be wasted in simple worldly pleasures or to seek the TRUE spiritual knowledge.
ReplyDeleteRavichandran