Do you impoverish others when you enrich yourself ?

Recently while on a flight from Delhi to Pune India, my co passenger and I started a conversation.

We discussed many things but one question got me thinking. The gentleman asked me if I agreed with his contention that people became rich at the expense of someone else and thus made them poorer. We moved on to other topics but my mind kept returning to this question.

To answer this question we have to first review what we mean by rich.
I would say the rich are those who possess the ability to make independent choices of freedom, mobility, residence, food and to a great extent secure themelves, their families and their possessions.

In earlier days the wealthy were the "Zamindar" the landlords who owned large tracts of land who owned slaves and many landless people worked for the landlords for nothing but food. They were exploited and indeed the rich made the majority of people poor.Conquerers of days earlier whether it was Ghengis Khan, or the rulers of the Romans empire were such people.

From the dawn of industrialization, the rich were people who set up all the elements of mass production and their attendant features as mass communication, mass education, etc made who controlled large resources for production either as entreprenuers or as allocating agents in the government. Again by cornering resources and controlling means of finance, distribution etc they made themselves rich at the expense of the original owner of resources who remained poor. This also is an era of exploitation of the poor to make a few rich.

To take an example the birth of the automobile created a huge demand for rubber at the begining of the 20th century. In collusion with local authorities large number of native Indians were enslaved to extract the rubber in the Amazonian forest. As per the statement of Mr. Roger Casement, the British Consul General in Rio Di Janerio reported that to extract 4000 tonnes of Putumayo rubber between the years 1900 to 1911 over 30,000 South American Indians lost their lives.
The colonial rulers /powers were typical of this type of exploitation. This is rampant even to this day in many countries.

Not all Industrialists are robber barons, this was and is possible because they are more efficient than others and hence were able to offer high standards of living to their employees and their associates.

Nowadays a new equitable trend has emerged and that is based on knowledge. You do not need land or commodities to be rich but only knowledge. This knowledge can be in the form of a formulae to produce a material or even a sauce, the lyrics to a song, design for a chip. Wealth created by such efforts do not render anyone poor but increases wealth more universally.

While farming a tract of land only the farmer can use the land wheras when using a formulae several thousand people can be using the same computer program simultaneously and that is why those who focus on knowledge will create more wealth for the least effort. A bigger bang for the buck so to speak.

So my co passenger's wish that wealth be created without exploitation now seems possible.

However it is not going to be easy because Governments and educators are still applying outdated policies and education models more suited to mass production and an era that is not focussed on developing knowledge but the continuation of dogma which is increasingly irrelevant.

Dance Bars are back.

The Supreme court recently quashed the law passed by the state government of Maharashtra banning the operation of dance bars. Many hailed this verdict as a great economic boon as it will now bring in more than Rs 3000 Crores (US$ 550 Million) annual revenue to the state and provide jobs to 100,000 bar dancers, and another 90,000 allied jobs.

A question arises. Is this type of economic growth that is going to make us a better society? Would we like to see a daughter or sister in this profession?

Sure we want to reduce material poverty but does it have to be by impoverishing the character and spirit particularly of girls and young people? Bad things happen everywhere but civilized people and the government cannot be party to promoting such things.

True economic progress can only come from social progress, and true social progress can only come when women and families are treated with dignity. The building block of a society is the family. Wherever families are torn apart the fabric of society is greatly damaged and communities and even nations become dysfunctional.

Men may make houses, but women make homes. A house is just a cold lifeless structure and a home is a place filled with hope, joy, dignity and courage. The soul of our society is embedded in our womenfolk. 

Women should work and pursue careers only out of choice and not out of necessity. Necessity often leads to exploitation and misery of the weak.

What will be the fate of those children that come home to a no parent or single parent home? What sort of a mother or wife will a woman make who has been reduced to a thing and that too an undignified one?

It is said God has distributed his work to mothers. Generally wherever people have excelled there is inevitably the influence of a woman.
Traditional Indian teachings lay great emphasis on love and respect of women. It was taught that "The Gods dwell where the womenfolk are happy".


There is hope that wise and noble people in society will raise our consciousness and pave the way for justice for the weak and exploited  in our society as can be seen from the example of an Indonesian judge.


An Indonesian judge by the name of Marzuki was sitting in judgment of an old lady who pleaded guilty   of stealing some tapioca from a plantation. In her defense she admitted to the judge that she was indeed guilty of the crime because she was poor. and her son was sick while her grandchild was hungry.

The plantation manager insisted that she be punished as a deterrent to others.

The judge going through the facts and the documents then looked up and said to the old lady, "I'm sorry but I cannot make any exception to the law and you must be punished" The old lady was fined Rp 1 million (US$ 100) and was informed that if she could not pay the fine then she would be jailed for two and a half years as demanded by the law.

The old lady broke down and wept as she could not pay the fine.

The judge then took off his hat and put in Rp. 1 million and said "In the name of justice, I fine all who are present in this court Rp. 50,000 (US$ 5.50) each as dwellers of this city who have let a child starve until her grandmother has to steal to feed her grandchild. The registrar will now collect the fines from all present."

The court managed to collect Rp 3.5 million (US$ 350) including the fine collected from the plantation manager. After paying the fine  the balance money was handed over to the old lady.