Questioner (Q): The very first thing that we learn in studying economics is that more is better, and we build the entire economic theory around it. More is better, so you should get more and more contentment as you get more and more in the material dimension. What would Vedanta have to say on this? For example, when it comes to the economics discipline, where the first thing that we have to teach is that more is better, how can we make students more conscious of the heavy implications of this statement?
Acharya Prashant (AP): More is better for whom? Who is the one wanting more and more to get better? Not everything is better when more, right? For example, food, even a basic thing like food. And almost everything in the world has its particular use in a particular quantity. It all depends on the one who is consuming it, experiencing it, intaking it.
So, when you talk of economics and you say economics is the science of welfare, you have to stop right there and ask yourself, whose welfare? And what does that welfare comprise of? Do we take consumption as a necessary and sureshot indicator of welfare? Can we have some research into that, please? As human beings, what is it that constitutes our welfare?
The more you will go into this question, the more the very face of economics will change. Probably it’s all coming from a point and a time when things were in scarcity; therefore, it appeared commonsensical to say that the more stuff you have, the happier you would be. Is that the condition today? Actually, it was never the condition, but sometimes, in some ages, in some situations, it may feel that way. Today the time is ripe to see the fallacy of that feeling.
