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EDITORIAL December 23, 1999 VNN5139 Comment on this story The Economics Of Love: Varna-asrama Dharma BY RAGHUNATHA ANUDASA EDITORIAL, Dec 23 (VNN) — The following letter to Maharaja is an outline for a new social reform movement based upon the principles of Varna-Asrama Dharma. It's an introduction to the latest 2 chapters on Mother's Liberation that will follow in the days to come. These chapters are in response to the great points raised by Chris. These essays provide a better overview then the original text that inspired her response. I've been off line for a few months while I took my massage course here in Hawaii and completed these latest 2 chapters. I hope this general discussion can lead to a new interest in such reforms and provide an outline for better organizing our own ideas on them. Raghu Jai Maharaja, Please accept my humble obeisance. All glories to Srila Prabhupada. I've been working on a book called The Economics of Love. It's a rather simple model for instituting varna-asrama Dharma into a broad-based contemporary political platform. I think you will enjoy this work for several reason. For one, you may find this a refreshing testament of guru-kula's training and a unique confirmation to the soundness of Prabhupada's principles for social reform. You may also recognize it's mass appeal and the new found relevancy it brings to our movement. This kind of treatise seemed especially suited to your own scholastic and literary background, ambitious preaching vision and contacts of religious, political and academic leaders throughout the world. I look forward to your input as much for your scholarship and preaching expertise as for our personal relationship from my childhood. The first policy is called ROOPA: Responsibility Of One's Products & Actions. In short, it request people to take full responsibility for the economic cost of their activities and products. Millions of legal precedents and thousands of political reforms already use this system wherein the guilty pay for the "monetary damages" of their actions. ROOPA streamlines this universal legal practice into a formal system of economic policy and "justice for all." Here's where it gets interesting. Those things generally considered "bad" or vice, just so happen to have expensive economic liabilities associated with them. This is not so much a moral crusade as it is an economic observation. In the book, I take the case of tobacco which has an undisputed medical cost to this country of $100 billion a year. The government's court settlement only requires the tobacco industry to pay $10 billion of this expense. Paying full price would make smoking prohibitively expensive, about $15 per pack of cigarettes. A can of beer is 3 to 6 times this cost. This is true of all the vices avoided by devotees: meat eating, intoxication, gambling and prostitution. Combined, these four activities represent the worlds single greatest ECONOMIC liabilities. Their cost runs into the trillions. This means each person engaged in "sinful activities" is actually costing millions in social harm. These people fail to cover the full cost of their vices thereby forcing the rest of us to subsidize them with ever higher insurance premiums, taxes and reduced benefits. This is more then unfair. It's an economic policy based upon a zero sum game. The 45 million American's priced-out of health insurance is one of many examples. This all-time record high can only grow as the burden of these subsidies grow. We will see increasing disparity in all areas of social development. Smokers repaying these tobacco subsidies would off-set these social discrepancies. Having vice-subsidies repaid in full would cover all public debt with change to spare for universal coverage of every social program ever needed. Instead, our resources are consumed covering the cost of these vices. This is all discussed in chapters 4 through 6. This is only half of the ROOPA equation. The flip side is even more revealing. The good deeds of virtue so happen to offer great economic rewards. Greater the virtue, greater the economic benefits. Love is the greatest virtue of all. Motherhood captures the essence of love. Mom also provides more economic benefit then most any other activity. According to studies, it would cost "$507,000 a year'at standard professional rates" to replace the work mom does at home. We spend 40% of each year, May 15th, working just to pay our taxes. A two parent working house-hold means one works just to pay the fed.s. In short, mom is sent off to work to pay taxes so government can now care for our family. They charge us twice as much for the same job mom use to do better. The alternative is obvious: replacing government care with family care. The family should be given the financial incentives the state takes for doing the same job. 70% of all family care is still provided by mom. As such, 70% of this credit belongs to her alone. We find the term Super-Mom quite fitting and refer to the program as Mother's Liberation. Here's the "Super-Mom" advantages: No bureaucracy, half the cost, twice the service. This is covered in chapters 1 thru 3. These chapters will follow shortly. Here is this ROOPA principle in a nut-shell, greater the love, greater the economic returns. By this measure, "love of God" called bhakti in sanskrit, is the greatest love of all. Lover's of God or bhakta's, offer the greatest economic contributions. They save society millions with each person they convert from vice to the ways of virtue. Inspiring people to quit smoking, drinking and drugs, etc translates into big savings for society at large. Prabhupada's work inspired hundreds of thousands of people representing savings worth billions. This is true of all religions that provide their communities with a new found sobriety, chastity and social participation. This represents the most cost effective social climate. Such an economic ideal is referred to as Bhakta ROOPA. If this ROOPA model proves accurate, then morality can be judged by simply measuring the economic out come of any given activity. Greater the vice, greater the cost. Greater the virtue, greater the returns. I have tested this model against hundreds of scenarios over these last 6 years. It's proven accurate every time. Applying this ROOPA formula to agriculture and industry is even more startling. Ox-powered, agrarian based, cottage industry proves far more cost effective then the petroleum based modern industry faced with repairing ALL its environmental damage. Eco-technologies like solar and wind power are similarly more cost effective against their Eco-destructive counter-parts. Manufacturing aside, the Eco-cost of gasoline runs into hundreds or even thousands of dollars per gallon. This environmental damage is nothing short of an ECO-nomic subsidy to modern industry and paid for by the billions now living in the wake of its global desolation. Here's the punch line: if you followed this ROOPA system, you end up with a society identical in life-style and social development to the Vedic system of Varna-Asrama Dharma. The reason is evident, Varna-Asrama is the most cost effective and equitable economic system. Today's Western model is bogged down in massive vice-subsidies while leaving billions destitute in the name of progress. ROOPA clearly demonstrates the flaws of this global, modern economy as well as providing a simple, effective alternative already practice in courtrooms throughout the world. ROOPA is the "Mother" of all reforms. ROOPA transformed morality from the realm of subjective religious zealots to that of a measurable science. ROOPA is the cure-all for corporate-government corruption, incompetence or conspiracies. Their corresponding economic cost will now be paid in full by all responsible public & private parties. Better still, it removes the need for most other taxes, government regulations or economic policies. Taxes and state regulations are a sloppy imitation of what ROOPA automatically accomplishes. Best of all, this places God and morality center-stage after being out-caste from all economic policy planning over the centuries. ROOPA can provide the movement a new and timely preaching focus and offer as much appeal to other religious denominations as it does a public hungry for third party reforms. The devotees should find a great deal of interest from both the Indian community and political parties in India as well as other contacts throughout N&S America, Asia and South Africa. All of this is more carefully discussed in the six chapters of The Economics Of Love. It now needs to be independently verified by an academic institution or social-economics professors. A prestigious institute at UCLA will do this for about $20,000. I could raise this by selling 200 memberships of a legal insurance family plan. It only cost $16 a month. This, however, could take some time. I wanted to know if you have any ideas in this regard. You may know of professors, institutions, or members of the Indian community that may be interested in researching or sponsoring such a project. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on ROOPA in general and would be happy for any suggestions on developing this project further. ROOPA may not be the "magic bullet" for all our social, economic ills. Still, it provides a new and important frame work to re-evaluate these issues from a Godly perspective missing from today's public policy debates. For this reason alone, it should be pursued vigorously. I will send you a summary outline of two chapters. If you like them, I will send the rest. Thank you for your time. I look forward to hearing from you. Your servant, Raghunatha Anudasa@aol.com About the Author  Other Stories by this AuthorComment on this story Contact VNN about this storySend this story to a friend
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