Guiding Light: World Welfare Or Economic Welfare?

The world we live in today, is caught up in a vicious circle, which none of us would deny, because most of the problems it faces are interlinked and each one of them feeds up the fires of others. They are tangled and intertwined so much so that it has become very difficult to extricate the world out of it. One of the reasons why we cannot solve or lessen the rigor of these problems is that we do not apply or do not have a solution which attacks all the problems simultaneously. In other words, our approach to our problems is not holistic: it is piecemeal. We try to make use of solutions for each individual problem separately and the result is that, in the meantime, other problems increase and bring from the back door the problem that we are already trying to tackle! Secondly, we have an infatuation for the old theories. Little do we realise that our present problems have been caused,directly or indirectly,by such socio-economic, psychological and political theories and concepts that gained currency during the past about three hundred years or a little more. We should have thought that these theories have proved not only ineffective in the long run but have also given rise to new problems or have aggravated our old problems. We should, therefore, have discarded them as outdated, for the world scene has changed tremendously since then. If even now we do not free ourselves from the constraints of these crumbling ideologies and unconfirmed assumptions, the time will have run out and we will be too late to apply any corrections. In fact, we should have known by now that something is wrong with our very approach to the problems of elimination or alleviation of sufferings in the world, and our paradigm of a better world is erroneous. Our main emphasis, in our present approach and model, has been on economic development. We have been measuring, and we still measure, the advancement of a nation by its GDP and its per capita income. Our major concern is to see whether this paradigm of development has been able to raise the economic standard of living of the people? This has been based on the assumption that greater enjoyment of material goods leads to greater happiness. It has thus given us a wrong model of development. (To be continued.)

The writer is a spiritual educator and popular columnist for publications across India, Nepal & UK. He can be contacted at nikunjji@gmail.com / www.brahmakumaris.com

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Guiding Light: World Welfare Or Economic Welfare?

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