Venus project is another attempt made by people who look at a market economy from outside, and think they see numerous vestigial elements which they think are not needed anymore, or since they fail to see their utility, consider it restrictive, and then they conclude that they can do better by removing those vestigial elements from a market economy.

Karl Marx did the same, he saw the market being divided into owners and workers, so he came up with Socialism. He saw ownership of means of production has vestigial element. Keynes did the same, he saw Stock market crash and economy not recover so he came up with his ridiculous theories about Keynesianism. He saw Gold standard as vestigial element of the market. And so on Time after time people keep on coming up with theories to fix the market because they all see how Market works from outside, and are unable to figure out why many things exist in the market.

Venus project is the latest addition in this category. They see the monetary system as a vestigial or restrictive element of the market economy. They see how beautifully the market works, and how people provided each other with their labor, but they fail to see the role of money in it, so they propose removal of money from this system.

I have seen the movie ‘Zeitgeist:Addendum’, and I have hung out in Venus Project forums long enough to see what they are proposing.

Resource-Based Economy(RBE) proponents refuse to acknowledge that there is a scarcity of resources – Remember your first Economics introduction, they teach you that economics is “.. the science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses.” RBE proponents refuse to acknowledge that we may not have enough resources.

Why do they think so? – As given as an example on Venus Project’s homepage, they observe:

At the beginning of World War II the US had a mere 600 or so first-class fighting aircraft. We rapidly overcame this short supply by turning out more than 90,000 planes a year. The question at the start of World War II was: Do we have enough funds to produce the required implements of war? The answer was No, we did not have enough money, nor did we have enough gold; but we did have more than enough resources. It was the available resources that enabled the US to achieve the high production and efficiency required to win the war. Unfortunately this is only considered in times of war.

Its obvious that RB Economists see that market sooner or later provides every individual what he or she wants(or they observe war time distortions), and conclude that if an individual could be provided with an iPhone in year 2010, that means we have enough resources even in the year 1776 that Benjamin Franklin could also be provided with an iPhone(its not like the world acquired alien resources in that time). That means there must be something restricting this feasibility, and their conclusion is if money did not restrict people of that time from constantly acquiring new resources, experimenting and developing new technologies then we would have a lot more progress in the world.

Resource Based Economy proponents do not understand law of diminishing returns – The RBE proponents attack diminishing returns as a faulty valuation system. Of course as Austrians we know that even in Eden Gardens where everything is abundant, a man still is going to have the scarcity of time, therefore even in society with no scarcity, a man will have value scales. Because men assign different values to different ends. The reason why I value another car much less than the first one, because I can’t drive two cars at the same time, I can drive only one, and once I have had a car, I would rather prefer to have some other ends achieved. Therefore I value another car as much less than the first one. Third car, even less than second one.

RBE believes that there is something inherently wrong with high values of Diamond, there is no reason why it should cost so much, and 1 oz of water should be of same value(or even more) than 1 oz of diamond. They believe that if we can get rid of these valuations(or they believe this’d happen on its own once we get rid of monetary system), we will not have to worry about diminishing returns anymore.

Resource Based Economy proponents consider scarcity of capital as just that, scarcity of capital – RBE has taken this page off the books of other schools of economics(Keynesian, Montarists) which do not have a Capital theory. A scarcity of capital according to them only represents scarcity of capital, not a scarcity of resources/goods/time. This is probably the biggest reason why they think they can get rid of monetary system and make things work. The fact that we have scarcity of capital because we have scarcity of time, goods, labor or all of these. We are in a recession because our goods have been misallocated and govt is preventing them from being reallocated to more fruitful production endeavors.

RBE proponents only see one timeframe, and one group of people – RBE proponents fail the one lesson of economics Henry Hazlitt taught, The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups. They purposefully focus on a very small timeframe(such as war time production of First class fighting aircrats), and only one side of the picture(that the production rose to 90,000 aircrafts a year from only 600 aircrafts a year). When you remove this error, and look at all timeframes not just one, and all groups of people not just one, you realize that they can hardly promise more production in all aspects of economy without a monetary system even when you give them a very liberal leahway.

During oil crises of the 70s when world saw the power Saudi Arabia might have, they threatened to use Food as a weapon against Saudi, so the Saudi government started wheat subsidy program in order to be self-sufficient. Soon Saudi Arabia had so much wheat production that they were exporting wheat to other countries. The RBE proponents see it as a proof that even a desert country such as Saudi Arabia is capable enough to produce all the wheat it needs. But what it cannot see(and which is even more unseen with a lack of monetary system), is the high cost Saudi govt paid to achieve that. Massive resources were directed from other places to grow wheat. RBE proponents have a habit of looking at examples like these, and use them in their advantage.

RBE proponents do not understand economic calculation – Profits are demonized by RBE proponents, it doesn’t mean that they support a loss-making venturing or non-profit venturing(like a lot of leftists do), instead they just refuse to understand what are profits or need for economic calculation. This is actually the hill where their whole theory falls down to pieces, but you will never be able to have a discussion on this topic, because they refuse to acknowledge that scarcity exists. Since they don’t think scarcity exists, and technology can provide them with everything they want, they fail to see why anyone would need economic calculation. RBE proponents do not understand economic calculation because they don’t think we have scarcity of anything, and they don’t understand that we have massive scarcity and whatever we get we get because of economic calculations because they don’t understand economic calculations. So its a cyclical trap.

The list of anomalies and fallacies propagated by the Venus Project is endless. They rely too much on technological solutions and too little on human action or praxeological aspects of their idea. They fail to understand why Socialism doesn’t work(or at least they think it doesn’t work because of lack of human motivation).

As I understand more and more economics(by Economics I mean Austrian Economics, the real kind, not mathematical model of calculating how much you prefer your kids studying theory of evolution vs intelligent design and calculating National Patriotic Index), I realize more and more how easy is it to show the problems with theory of Socialism.
One of the things I realized early on was that a purely voluntary socialist worker’s union would be completely feasible in a capitalist society. If a bunch of men want to create a worker’s co-operative where profits are distributed equally among everybody, essentially it is the same thing as a company fully and equally owned by its workers. Just do not allow any individual who does not work in the company to own the capital goods(means of production).
I have eventually understood ‘capital’ to be nothing but deferred consumption. That means whenever you delay your present smaller consumption for the future larger consumption, that deferred consumption is essentially your capital. For example, if you have a bag of wheat, which you do not consume today but instead plant it a field so that a few months from now they will grow into wheat fields and you will now be able to reap a lot more wheat out of it. You in this case have deferred your present consumption 1 bag of wheat for 3 months where you hope to make 7-8 bags of wheat out of it. I have used the example of wheat because I can explain it only with the help of one actor. Generally though you defer your consumption and hand it to someone else who needs it in present more than in future. For example you may give away 100 cattle to someone today so that 5 years from now they return 200 cattle to you.

Capitalist is a deferred consumptionist

This explanation of capital as ‘deferred consumption’ opens up a plethora of new insights to things. For example, if capital is deferred consumption then capitalist must be the guy who defers his present consumption. This clearly explains to any individual who fails to see what a capitalist’s work actually involves, or why does he deserve profits from any venture.
Warren Buffet is technically the largest deferred consumptionist in US. This means he could consume so many things in present(billions and billions of dollars worth of goods) but he choses to not consume them, and instead he defers it for later consumption(which he probably will never do).

Utility of deferring your present consumption

You may now ask what utility does anyone delaying their present consumption may offer to the society as a whole, because this clearly sounds like a very selfish thing to do. The answer is really simple, almost no human action which does not directly satisfies the end we are looking for requires delaying our present consumption. For example, if you are hungry and you want to eat a pizza then the action of eating that pizza directly satisfies your want, therefore it is not deferred consumption because its an act of consumption itself.
On the other hand if you now have to make that pizza, now the series of actions to satisfy your desire are:
a) You bake the pizza
b) You eat the pizza
The first action involves deferring(albeit a really less amount considering it will take you only 20 mins to do it) your present consumption of raw pizza, or any other food, for later more satisfying consumption of cooked pizza.
You may ask now, that just because in this example I had to wait for 20 mins for pizza to be cooked doesn’t mean that I always have to defer my consumption, for example I could drive to a pizza shop and just buy the pizza without waiting for it to be cooked. My point is simple, someone at that point has already done the job of deferring the present consumption for the future consumption, someone has waited 20 minutes for you so that you can get it immediately and in return you have rewarded them with money(which is their larger future consumption). Of course lets also not forget that making a pizza requires flour, vegetables, cheese, chicken etc. So the total time taken to delay consumption for full making a pizza would be time required to grow wheat, make flour, grow vegetables, make cheese out of a cow you raised, and raising chickens. That means if you were living on an island with no civilization then to make a pizza you will require growing wheat, and vegetables for months, and capturing and raising cow and chicken for months before you are in position to make that pizza. Thankfully in any modern society someone has already done the job of deferring the present consumption so that you now can simply walk into a supermarket and buy all those things, or take even more shorter route and buy the cooked pizza from the pizzaria.
As you realize now that our society and civilization would be impossible if not for deferred consumption or capital. Essentially a capitalist society is a society where production of large operations is planned through deferred consumption of private individuals. This begs the next question.

Who defers their present consumption in Socialism?

This is now the most important question any socialist must answer. If you have read the article till now, you realize that its impossible to get rid of the capital from any society. The only capital-less society would be a highly primitive society where almost every action is aimed at direct consumption, this means the primitive men who created tools to help in hunting, actually ended up creating the first capitalist society of the world. In fact only animals do not perform indirect actions to achieve their ends. The only real world example in this case is a monkey recently in a zoo who planned to throw stones at visitors by collecting them in advance. Coming to think of it, even dogs hide bones for a later date.
The point here is that it is really impossible to eliminate capital from a society, so any claims made by the socialists of creating a new man who is not capitalist are ridiculously wrong. This generally eliminates that last claim and results in socialists making a more smarter claim, that in a socialist society, only the indirectly deferred consumption will not be allowed. For example, any individual can sow his bag of wheat to create 7 bags out of them 3 months later, but no individual is allowed to give his bag of wheat to another and hope to receive 7 bags three months later. This will completely stop a capitalist from ‘exploiting’ workers.
If a socialist makes this claim then it means he at least acknowledges why a capitalist deserves his profits. If in a shoe manufacturing factory, workers from start(homesteading the land, making bricks, concrete, sand, constructing the building, raising animals for leather), to the end(manufacturing the shoes, packaging them bringing them to the market), then they truly deserve the profits proportional to their role in the manufacturing process, but the fact is that this kind of action would be highly inefficient and ardous, and it would be much better of these workers defer their consumption in other ways(like saving money), or allow somenoe else who has delayed a lot of present consumption over time(capitalist) to invest in their venture and allow him to make profits.

This is why even the most hardworking socialist society is poor

The fact is that even in a socialist society someone must defer their present consumption, any socialist who claims that he envisions a society with no capital does not know what is he talking about. A smarter socialist might say that in his system the state will do the job of reallocating the deferring of present consumption equally among people, but that still leaves the big question about a socialist society and that is, if my deferring of present consumption does not lead in increased larger future consumption, then why should I delay my present consumption?
You may reward your workers proportional to what they have worked that day, sure people will work 18 hours a day to catch fish with their hands, but nobody will eat less fish of what they caught that day, just so that they can save enough fish to eventually build a net and be able to catch 10 times more fish than they can with merely using hands, and for a society to become prosperous deferred consumption is the single most important requirement.
If you are a socialist and you have thought of a socialist paradise, to be realistic you must not envision an advanced society, a truly realistic socialist society would be a society of primitive men who hunt animals and gather berries without using any kinds of tools.
Of course this brings us to a whole another set of issues with the so-called modern ‘capitalist’ societies such as US and UK, where the state depletes the deferred consumption of a society with the help of fiat currency, fractional reserve banking, central banks, and taxation. Not to mention the so called ‘free market magicians’, such as Milton Friedman and Chicago school who supports a Capitalist society, yet fails miserably in understanding what is really happening when a market crashes or how capital plans production, but that’s for another article.

Conclusion

My conclusion is simple, if you consider yourself as a Socialist(or any other leftist ideology where you are going to get rid of economic calculation and private ownership of wealth), you must explain me who in your system would be the deferred consumptionist. Who will reduce his present consumption for the future larger consumption. Sure socialists do talk about larger future consumption to be distributed equally among all its people, but what they fail to explain is who will be the person who will SAVE enough for the future date when nobody can work to do something else.

Defining recession is not an easy issue specially when there is no widely approved definition for recession. Newspapers and popular business tabloids suggest that recession is a period of general economic decline that causes and results in decline in the Gross Domestic Product of a country for two or more consecutive economic quarters of a financial year. The conventional associated indicators, causes or results of recession are considered to be a decline in stock market figures, dropping realty sector prices, and a steep rise in unemployment rate. Yet, the definition does not emphasize on any such consequences and hence it cannot be termed as a universal definition of recession. Furthermore, with this definition of recession that depends on two quarters of financial year, it is very difficult to mention the exact point of time of the beginning of recession and it is impossible to suggest what was the actual cause of recession. That is, recession remains a mystery.

Is USA is under recession?

Right since January 2008, a liquidity crunch was experienced by the non-financial companies and individuals and that resulted in job cuts. The average job loss of USA for the eight months was 81,900 job cuts per month by September 2008, during the last four months, it was 483,500 per month. Unemployment rate caused consumer spending to fell by 3.8% in the three quarters of 2008 and in fourth quarter it fell by 36% below the final quarter of 2007.Hence, the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Business Cycle Dating Committee declared that the US economy is in recession since January 2008¹ .

The mainstream economists and media pundits suggest that the cause of a recession is the tight money policies and raised interest rates by the Central government that results in liquidity crunch and causes job cuts, declining consumer spending and hence a recession² . They thus support that stimulating the economy with easy money, governmental loans, huge stimulus packages and lowering interest rates may help the economy in bringing the boom again. The idea suggests that the Market cycles of Boom and Burst originates from the central bank action of expanding the money flow in the market and contracting it. They suggest that proper stimulus packages and government spending over the common welfare programs can easily sooth the situation by allowing more currency to float in the market. Plus, they suggest that such common welfare spending also help in improving the life of standards of common populace.

Failure of Obama’s Stimulus Packages

The idea of mainstream economists is absolutely flawed and this can be easily seen with the failure of the economic stimulus given by the Bush government and supported by the new government of Obama.

It should be clear that a Burst or a recession occurs because there was a boom in market. A boom obviously is the period when an economic sector is unnecessarily provided easy loans, higher profits and more support by the authorities and central government to cause high rise in prices that creates a false demand in the market and causes inflation. That is, the downturn, or the depression or the recession is exactly because of the Central bank, not because it started tightening the financial sources, rather it is because of malinvestment initiated by previously created credit resulting from central bank³ . Mainstream economists also suggest that the market will recover and the prices will inflate again if further easy money is provided through government spending, ridiculously huge stimulus packages and other similar tactics. They believe that by doing so, the stock market will again start rising high. Yet, with all economic stimulus provided, stocks as a broad group are down since last ten years⁴ . That is, economic stimulus and credit policies of Central bank failed since last 10 years.

It is also important to understand the reason of liquidity crunch. A liquidity crunch occurs only when the present amount of money in the market, which is nothing but a means of exchange, is malinvested in those sectors that are facing false demand or boom. Since the money was malinvested in supplying the false demand, it gets trapped. Lenders don’t get their loan back and they suffer liquidity crunch. Thus, the reason of a recession is the easy credit policies by the government and central bank that causes Boom in the market. When the wrong policies of the government and central bank fail, the market suffers recession.

Recession is not the problem, it is the cure of the problems of Malinvestment

Thus, recession can be defined as a cure to the ill-policies of government and central bank that caused boom in certain sectors such as housing market. Because of that boom, easy credit policies, subsidies, easy lending and many other government and central bank caused factors, the prices soars to extreme high and causes inflation and money gets trapped in malinvestment. As the recession acts as a cure to this situation of extreme falsehood, it starts decreasing the extent of false demand and tries to bring the market to its actual true situation. The prices start declining and the economy starts recuperating from the illness of false heights.

Since recession itself is the cure of problems of malinvestment that were caused by the government and central bank’s ill easy money and credit policies, it cannot be cured by further stimulus. The stimulus will only sustain the recession for longer periods until all the malinvestment is not neutralised and the economy comes in a situation to achieve sustainable growth⁵ . The idea can also be substantiated with the expectations of Housing economists who expect that over the next 10 or 20 years, the prices in realty sector may start rising again on an average, but that rise won’t be as much as the average rise was during the past decade⁶ . Obviously, because of easy money and mislead credit policies caused a boom in housing market and created a false demand that consequently resulted in unsustainable boom. As a neutralising phenomenon, the market forces caused liquidity crunch to cure the malinvestment. Until the malinvestment will not neutralise, market will not gain sustainable growth. Stimulus package can only delay the time for achieving the sustainable growth. The stimulus also failed to provide any help in improving the job market, the unemployment rate is still 9.7% in the month of May 2010⁷ , while it was 6.9% in 2008⁸ .
Now with the problems of liquidity crunch still persisting, even the retirees are looking forward to find jobs⁹ . The situation shows that expensive stimulus may also push US towards the same fate that the Greece government and public are suffering right now.

Robert Lucas supported the idea of Ben Bernanke to reduce the interest rates¹⁰ . Every sane minded person will support the idea. In fact, the government or the central bank should not have the power to decide or dictate the interest rates. Interest rates should be decided by the free market proponents freely as per the time requires and permits. Yet, till how long will the central bank and government let the market enjoy the falsehood of stability on the basis of stimulus, what will happen when the central bank and Obama administration will look forward to take the stimulus back? Only then the market will again step forward towards curing the malinvestment caused by bad credit policies and only after that cure the market will be in a position to attain a sustainable growth.

1. William A. Strauss, 2009, Economic Outlook Symposium: Summary of 2008 results and forecasts for 2009, Chicago Fed Letter [↩]
2. John P. Cochran, Austrian Business Cycles, Plucking Models, and Real Business Cycles, Austrian Schollar Conference, Auburn, Alabama [↩]
3. John P. Cochran, 2001, Austrian Business Cycles, Plucking Models, and Real Business Cycles, Austrian Schollar Conference, Auburn, Alabama [↩]
4. E.S Browning, 2009,After the Collapse, Guarded Hope for ’09, The Wall Street Journal, January 2, 2009 [↩]
5. John P. Cochran, 2001, Austrian Business Cycles, Plucking Models, and Real Business Cycles, Austrian Schollar Conference, Auburn, Alabama [↩]
6. James R. Hagerty, 2008, The Future of Home Prices, The Wall Street Journal, December 2, 2008 [↩]
7. TradingEconomics, May2010 [↩]
8. William A. Strauss, 2009, Economic Outlook Symposium: Summary of 2008 results and forecasts for 2009, Chicago Fed Letter [↩]
9. Kelly Greene, 2009, There Goes Retirement, The Wall Street Journal, March 1, 2009 [↩]
10. Robert E Lucas Jr., 2008, Bernanke is the Best Stimulus Right Now, The Wall Street Journal, December 23, 2008 [↩]

It is probably an often thought question, but rarely answered correctly by most of the people. What makes a country like India poorer than a country like say America? I have tried to answer this question since I was a kid, then as an adult.
Lets see, most people might answer to that question as “India is poor because it lacks so and so “, the effect being something India does not have because its poor, and US has because its richer, and not a cause of Indian poverty. For example, some people might answer
“India is poor because it lacks infrastructure western countries have”, or
“India is poor because of lack of education among people”, or
“India is poor because its very corrupt, and it has politicians who manipulate people etc etc”.
The problem here is simple, almost all these answers are effects, India does not have the infrastructure of western countries because India is poor, it doesn’t need that infrastrucutre, you cannot spend Rs 500 million per year on a road which brings per user cost is Rs 5,000 per month, and the average salary of people using that road is Rs 10,000 per month. Why not? Because if you did build a luxury road like that for people this poor, you are wasting resources more than you are creating them. When India becomes richer better infrastructure will follow, even if govt is the only entity building it, they will have more money to spend on infrastructure. You cannot create prosperity by creating one effect and hoping other effect will follow.
Similarly, the stuff about Indian people being educated, well if you are going to work on a construction site for all your life(someone has to work there), there is no point in spending so much money on your education which could have gone towards creating more job opportunities for you. By trying to create this effect, by educating 100,000 workers who will be working on manufacturing all their lives, and then ending up with having jobs for only 60% of them isn’t really a better outcome.
A bit matured people who understand how things worked, they will come to the conclusion that India is poor because it has less money than America, therefore India is poor and America is richer. But then that was incorrect too when you will find out that Indian govt has the power to print any amount of money possible. Why can’t Indian govt print more money, give some to everyone and make everybody richer. Apparently its not that easy as it may sound, when money supply is increased, prices of commodities rise soon thereafter. So even if poor people are given a lot of money, that will just raise the prices of the various commodities they might buy thereby bringing them back to same level of poverty as before(more or less).
I know a lot of people who know the correct answer to the question stated in the title. India is poorer than US because it has less capital than latter, and capital isn’t the same thing as money.

What is Capital

So the question comes, what is ‘capital’ and how is it different from money? To understand it we must understand first what is money. Money is nothing but a medium of exchange, we don’t really intend to consume money, we only keep money because everybody else accepts it and then we can acquired the final resource which we really intend to consume.
Capital is essentially any commodity or goods, or even service, which is used to hold value across time. In simple words, if you do not consume a good or a commodity, but only keep it for later consumption then that good serves as capital. Because in most of the cases we keep money for the future consumption therefore money is the most common form of capital, but if you bought a car which you intended to start using only 2 years later then that car is your capital(although I don’t see any reason why you would want to do that, but that’s beside the point).
When I say India has less capital than US, what does that really mean? Does that mean Americans can defer their present consumption more than Indians can? If we look at savings rate of both the countries, Indians can definitely beat Americans savings rate hands down, so shouldn’t that mean Indians must have more capital than Americans? The truth is, America has a lot more capital buildup than India, therefore despite of not deferring a lot of their present consumption for the future one, they can still manage to create more ‘future resources’ than India.
For example an American family may only save 10% of their savings for future or invest 10% of their income for future, but because the total amount of capital they have is much more than an average Indian family which might save about 40% of their income, their capital results in more consumer goods than what an Indian family’s capital results in.
Simply put, in order to be as rich as America, India will have to accumulate as much capital as America has. Artificially achieving the same literacy rate as US by govt spending will not make India as rich as US, because people won’t have as many jobs to do. Building an infrastructure through government spending will also not make India as rich as US as it won’t be worth spending so much on infrastructure when there isn’t enough capital to put that infrastructure to proper use.
This may be a very simple thing to say, because its like saying ‘in order to be rich you need to acquire a lot of bank balance’, which sounds like common sense, but in this case its like most people seem to think that if you take thousands of dollars of loan for education, you will automatically become rich, or if you buy a bigger house, you will become automatically rich.

How do we build up more capital?

Lets first take an example of Robinson Crusoe who got stranded on an island. He catches fishes everyday from 8AM to 5PM and eats them. Since he just landed on the island, he catches these fishes by hand and he is able to catch 25 fishes everyday. Since Crusoe came from a modern society he realizes that he can build a net, and that will enable him to catch a lot more fishes. Unfortunately, he also realizes that he cannot just blink and wish a fishing net, he must build it, and making a fishing net requires 5 days of his work. The problem in front of Crusoe is that if he starts to work for 5 full days to build that net, then he won’t be able to catch any fish therefore he will starve to death.
Crusoe in this scenario faces the problem of lack of capital. He needs capital to sustain himself until he extends the structure of production(that is from using only hands to catch fish, he uses hands to build a fishing net, which he uses to catch fishes. He realizes that by building that fishin net he will be able to catch 300 fishes everyday.
So Crusoe has 2 options, he can either:
a) Consume only 20 fishes everyday, and store the 5 unconsumed fishes; Keep on doing this for 20 days, which will accumulate him 100 fishes, which are good enough for him to sustain himself for five days he won’t be able to work.
b) Catch only 20 fishes each day and spend that extra time in building the net, so he will be spreading his 5 days of work, over 20 days.
In either of the two cases Crusoe has deferred his present consumption of 5 fishes everyday so that after he builds the net he is now able to produce and consume a LOT more fishes everyday. He can either catch 300 fishes and maybe consume them all, or make more dishes out of them, etc etc, or he could continue to catch only 25 fishes everday, work less and have more leisure time, and spending the remaining time in working on art, literature, maybe music etc.
India is exactly like Crusoe without the fishing net, and America is exactly like Crusoe with a fishing net. Because its easier for America to produce a lot without giving up a lot of present goods, America has a lot of time to spend on art, literature, music, etc. This is the exact reason why American atheletes and sportsmen win so many medals in Olympics, they have the disposable income and time to train themselves for sports, whereas in India we still spend most of our time catching fishes by hand.
In order to build more capital, you require two things:
a) People should be willing to put a lot of present goods for later consumption
b) When they put their present goods for later consumption, nothing should reduce or steal away their capital from them
The first task isn’t really that difficult for India, since we already have high savings rate. The second task is actually the most difficult task in India. You may ask, why? The answer is simple because the way we understand reality, we don’t think people should be allowed to accumulate capital.
Let me elaborate what I meant by nothing should reduce or steal away the capital from people who are deferring their present consumption for future. In the above example of Crusoe, lets say Crusoe’s fishes got rotten because they weren’t stored properly, so his capital has been destroyed, now to achieve the same earlier result he will have to build his savings again.
Take another scenario, lets say Man Friday, is another cast away, who drifted to the other part of the Island, he also catches fishes by hand, but he is able to catch only 10 fishes because he is not that good with catching fishes. When Crusoe was saving 5 fishes everyday, Man Friday decried that Crusoe was being unfair and hoarding fishes, also Crusoe being more dexterous with fishing, must feed Man Friday some of his fishes. So everyday Man Friday raids Crusoe’s extra fishes and consumes them in the name of making the society more equal. In this case again Crusoe’s capital has been depleted, and he will never be able to build that fishing net, and although Man Friday and Crusoe will be a bit more equal, they will remain poor. In fact soon Crusoe will realize that he has no incentive to really starve himself by 5 fishes, so he will either consume all 25 fishes or will catch only 5 fishes each day.
So how does capital get depleted, or stolen away, or reduced from the person who is building it? The answer is simple, because the way most Indians think, and always thought, was that we cannot allow one man to have all the wealth of the society, even if he built it all. So we like Man Friday in the above example, continously rob Crusoes of the Indian society, through taxation, which ‘we’ consider perfectly ‘justified’, or through a fiat currency and fractional reserve banking system, about which most of us don’t even care, its left for economics students who were educated by the western economists who don’t even understand how capital works.
What ends up happening is that we never grow rich. It was only until 1991, when Indian economy was liberalized and a lot more capital accumulation was allowed, and since then we have seen a LOT of economic progress, but still most people do not see or understand the function of capital, for them, capital means something to do with capitalism(which is technically correct, capitalism is a system where capital reigns means of production), and under capitalism ‘rich grow richer and poor go poorer’.

A society with more capital takes care of its poor better

Lets look back at the previous example of Crusoe, had Man Friday allowed Crusoe to build his net, Crusoe would have been able to produce a lot more fishes everyday, and then Man Friday could then provide Crusoe with some other services, in exchange for his fishes. Lets just say all Man Friday is good at is dancing, and creating stories and telling them passionately, since they both are stranded on an island, Crusoe might value this entertainment service a lot, so Crusoe works all day catching 300 fishes, and gives 100 fishes to Man Friday in exchange of Man Friday’s entertainment services.
Had Man Friday stressed on equality, all the way along, Crusoe’s net wouldn’t have been built, and Crusoe would have remained relatively rich(because he caught 25 fishes everyday and consumed 20), and Man Friday would have remained poor(because he caught only 10 fishes everyday and was able to consume only 15). Please note that in the society with more capital(ie, when Crusoe built a net), Crusoe was consuming 200 fishes everday, which is almost double of what Man Friday was consuming(100 fishes), and socialists decry that rich has gotten richer in capitalism and poor poorer, but Man Friday in the society with more capital is much more well fed and richer than Man Friday in society with less capital. This is exactly what we see in America and in India, a poor in America is still richer than even the average guy of India. All this is only facilitated if we stop believing in the redistribution of wealth and start allowing building up of capital.

Charles W Elliot once said that “Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counsellors, and the most patient of teachers.”
It is hard to argue against that, books are the most patient and wisest teachers. We learn a lot deal of things through books, books are the building blocks of our ideas and though process. Books actually are the raw material provided to us by the precedent generations to use their experiences, knowledge and desire to explore better terrains of life. Books are not only the best friends; they are a challenge for us, a challenge to develop more, to beautify the ideas further, or to at least learn that, which already has been mentioned, searched, thought and quoted in the book.
Books give us a chance to look further, think forward, and create better and revolute the life to achieve new heights.
A book can change your life, giving you new dimensions to think forward and create your own ventures to relish and enjoy. A book let you live more than one life, it let you explore the territories of ideas you never had thought of.
Here, I will discussing some of the books that I consider most influential and mind boggling, that may change the ways you think, live and act in your life. These books are full of ethical knowledge and moral rightness; these books teach us to analyze the thin line between the “wrong” and the “right”.
No, I am not going to discuss some epic of some old religion. I do not want to discuss Vedas, Ramayana, or Geeta. I will not say that to be a true honest individual you need to read Quran or Bible. Rather, I am going to discuss some practical books with no affinity to mystique or irrationalism. It would be wrong to say that reading these books is essential. Reading any book cannot be essential for anyone. If all the books, all the knowledge that we use as raw material for our living, that never was discovered or created by us, but we got it all as our privilege to use and improve further, are destroyed some day, then also, human will not stop existing. They will not stop existing morally and rationally too. Rationality, or morality do not come through books, it ignites within your own. Until human does not stop using their mind to lead their life to better ways, books cannot be essential. Yet, books have their own importance. They act as the raw material to be used for making a better new world.
Therefore, here is my list of some of the greatest books I read since my childhood and found them most influential in shaping a world of my own and to letting me use my mind to create some or more. I am sure that anyone who will ever go through these books, will find him/herself more able to understand his/her own existence and will be able to understand the meaning of freedom, and life in a free society, free market.

The Machinery of Freedom: A Guide to Radical Capitalism: David Friedman

David Friedman, the freer son of Mr. Milton Friedman wrote this excellent work in 1973. Milton Friedman himself is known as one of the premier economist with Libertarian and anti-Keynesian approach. Yet, David Friedman is way apart from his father. One may feel that David Friedman learnt Economics not from his father, but from the Genius Ludwig Von Mises himself(UPDATE: Just to clarify, he did not). Machinery of Freedom contains a range 48 excellent essays that will not only entertain and provoke your mind to think rationally, but provide you a lot more to think and explore by your own. The essays are short and ranges from defence of property rights and private property to strictest modes of anarchocapitalism. He discusses the exploration of private law enforcement in a free society to great extent and provides a good look on the issue. You will certainly have a better understanding of a model of Free Society after reading the book. The wonderful thing is David Friedman seems to be hugely influenced by Ayn Rand. His assumption, that mostly people are rational and if someone is irrational, he will loose in the free society and the loss will be the teacher to achieve rational behaviour.

The Two Treaties of Government: John Locke

The founding father of classical liberalism or Libertarianism, John Locke still remains the most influential philosopher and thinker of all times. Although, his first treaty seems to be obsolete now, because the first treaty was the direct and vehement opposition to the irrational and obnoxious support of Robert Filmer to Monarchy who claimed that, men are naturally slaves and hence monarchy is the only justifiable government. The Second treaty of the book makes it a grand work. One can find the most systematic and logical defence of Individual Liberty in that book in such an inspiring way that will make you say that John Locke is way better than Aristotle.
The book was written in 1680, yet it is not obsolete. Even now, most of the governments throughout the world keep harassing individual liberty on the name of democracy. The book makes one learn the true nature of proper Miniarchy.

Atlas Shrugged: Ayn Rand

One can find no better book on Individual Liberty, Rationality and clarity of conscious other than this great Magnum Opus of Ayn Rand. Fountainhead lays the foundation of libertarianism and Atlas Shrugged stands on it as the basic structure of Free Society. The book is still one of the largest selling books throughout the world even after 53 years of its publication. The book is timeless, it will never die, it will never loose its shine and ability to make minds sharper, better, proper and rational. The book clarifies most of the dilemmas of a common reader living in a world where totalitarian governments are harping on controlling the masses, where the individual is faceless and individuality is curse. Atlas Shrugged shows you who is exploiter and who is being exploited and leaves you to decide whether you want to be the exploiter, or will you accept being exploited. The book prompts you to strike against the exploiters. The book fills you up with the energy and idea of liberty for your own self. Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged are the best books one can ever read. Ohh by the way, have a reality check, feminists cannot accept these books. Ayn Rand has mocked feminism, just like all other form of collectivism, and being a woman, I am grateful to her for doing that.

Economics in One Lesson: Henry Hazlitt

Nothing can be better than this marvel by Henry Hazlitt, the American Philosopher and economist. The book has the potential to make you learn the actual economics of practical life and practical world in most easy way. The book makes you love economics. Hazlitt, through his immense simplicity explains how Free Market promotes efficiency and how government interference in market ruins the system and creates chaos. Time will Run Back and Economics in One Lesson are the two books that will not only answer all your questions regarding inflation, price control, minimum wages, unions and every other thing that influence your daily life, but will also provide you an assurance that the things can be better. The book leads you to start thinking and striving for Liberty to make world better.

Human Action: Ludwig Von Mises

Ludwig Von Mises is undisputable founding father of Austrian Economics. He along with Ayn Rand is the founding father of modern libertarian approach too. Human Action is the book that will clarify all the illusions about the stories of communism, socialism and collective welfarism. His explanation of Industrial revolution and 2nd world war and the economic effects of the situation are revolutionary. There are many who keep giving excuses for Capitalism and Individual Freedom, the frontier fighter for the sake of Individual Liberty and Human moral rights was Ludwig Von Mises.
He was undoubtedly the best philosopher of 20th century along with Ayn Rand.
In Human Action, he introduces Praxeology as the major foundation of social sciences and economic laws. He further ascertains that economic laws can only be arrived at by means of methodological individualism. He was vehement opponent of positivism, or materialism as a foundation of social sciences and morality. He was one of the truest Individualist, Rationalist and Objectivist. The major theme of all his books is inflation and monetary economics and the rational comparison between Free Society and Government controlled society. Once he said

Efforts to realize Socialism lead only to the destruction of society. Factories, mines, and railways will come to a standstill.

The failure of USSR makes him the sage who knew the future. His work on theoretical Business Cycles explains all the causes of repeatable Depressions.

The Wealth of Nations: Adam Smith

Everybody knows a little or more about this famous book by Adam Smith. He was the first to explain the importance of social distribution. His example of story of pin-making is used every now and then. People write a lot about the “Invisible Hand” and murk up the essence of the book. The book clearly states that government is redundant and it should let the market free.

The Animal Farm: George Orwell

George Orwell was one of the best Dystopian. His book 1984 is world famous along with Aldous Huxley’s “A Brave New World“. One can easily see how both of these writers used and criticized the Pavlovian learning and conditioning, and how they showed the world that the way it is going through will lead to certain destruction. Orwell used to say that 1984 was written to change the view of the people about the society they should try to create. The book is a masterpiece undoubtedly, but The Animal Farm is much better book on my scale. The Animal Farm is direct attack on the egalitarianism and collectivism. The Animal Farm, along with 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s “A Brave New World” should be read to understand why government is evil, and why people should not sacrifice individualism for the illusionist welfarism.

The Law: Bastiat

Frederick Bastiat was one of the most prominent economists of 19th century who proposed and supported Laissez-Faire system and Individualism strongly. Amongst his all great works, The Law is one of the best. The book suggests the proper nature of Law and the role of legal bodies in a Free Society. The book was published in 1849, the same year when Frederick Bastiat passed away. The book suggest that the proper role of the law is the protection of Individual right, Liberty, defence of life and property. Bastiat and John Locke are the founding teachers of Property rights and Individualism; they are major inspiration behind all forms of Libertarianism.

Free to Choose: Milton Friedman

We started the list with the book of David Freidman on radical libertarianism; we will end with a book by his Father Milton Friedman. The Nobel Laureate, prominent libertarian and opponent of Keynesian economics discusses the Government sponsored education in this book along with many other issues. With his easy logic, he explains how and why big governments are a curse, a big problem. Obviously, he accepts that small governments are smaller “problem”. He shows that government-sponsored education is not improving and they cannot improve. The book is a classical approach for the defence of human freedom against the state.

There are many other books that excellently explain individual liberty and the reason to defend it; I might have missed a few of them. The mentioned above are those that I consider the best ones at the moment.
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India was one of the earliest issuers of coins since circa 6th century BC. Indians never used paper currency before 1770, when the Bank of Hindustan under British Empire. The General Bank of Bengal and Bihar, which was established by Warren Hastings¹ , also issued paper currency in 1773. It should be noted that Indian currency is known as Rupees since long. Rupee is derived from a Sanskrit word “Raupya”, which means silver, the silver coin was always the currency of India. With the discovery of vast amounts of Silver in U.S and other European colonies, the relative value of silver reduced a lot in comparison to gold, that incident is known as “the fall of rupee”² .
With the fall of silver in 1873, Indian Currency Committee suggested British India government to adopt for gold standard and in 1898 British government instead of adopting a Gold Exchange Standard, pegged Indian rupee with British sterling.
After Independence, Indian government started minting Indian coins (rupees); Indians thus never got a gold standard for representing their money
Now since last 63 years, Indians have so much used to the government issued currency, cycles of inflation and depression and always increasing price rise, that even talking about gold standard and private coinage seems to be impossible. Yet, since Indians were in habit of using private monometallic coins in past, it is imperative to discuss the issue of private coinage. Taking the premises of Freedom for everybody and the Self-Governance (Swaraj), which has been extolled by the Indians as a basic Mantra of life, let us examine the case of private currency carefully.

How the Private coinage will work?

The private coinage will work just like any other commodity (say mobile phones, or jewellery or wrist watches). Minters will produce coins of different shapes, sizes and weight according to the desires and demand of his customers. The free competition of the market will set the price of the coins of the minter. Second issue is about the trouble that the coins may create when weighed or evaluated at every deal or bargain. It is true that it would be difficult to evaluate the purity of gold coins every time a transaction would be made. To solve that issue, the minters will stamp the coins and guaranty the weight and purity of the coin. Private minters can guarantee the coins just like the government do. The profit will be, when government mints, there is no competition for government to be truthful, alert and honest, it is monopoly of government over minting coins, but when the private minters will guarantee their coins, their guarantee will weigh more because if the private minter will cheat, he will loose his market and consumers to other honest minter. Just like a government paper currency or coin holds the governmental promise to pay the bearer of that note an amount equal to the price of that paper currency or coin, the coin of private minters will also hold the promise from the minter that he would pay an amount of gold equal to be mentioned on the gold coin of his brand.
People against the idea of private currency will say that it would increase the chances of frauds. Same people never object to the miserable record of the governmental frauds, swindles and mismanagement. Every time the government issues stimulus to a particular industry, or forgives the loans of some conglomerate by explaining that it is working for social profits, the government actually is committing a fraud against the general public. Every time a person faces the devaluation of his savings in governmental currency because of extreme price rise and inflation, it is the example of regular fraudulent and untrustworthy behavior of the government regarding paper currency issuance and minting coinage. In case of private minters of gold coins, the chances of inflation and abrupt price hikes will lessen to minimum. More over, the free market competition for consumer satisfaction, the various minters will compete to be more honest and better customer service providers. The more a particular private coinage minting agency will be honest and better product and service provider, the more will be its consumer base and profits. Thus, in free market private coinage system, the competition for profits would be competition for honesty and consumer satisfaction. In addition, the problem of fake currency will also be eliminated because each private coinage agency would try to defend their brands by their own and the government also will be able to devote all its energy to safeguard the private minters against duplication and fake currency. In case of private coinage, one can trust that the government will prevent and punish frauds. The integrity of private open market operators cannot be discarded in favor of government monopoly, because in case of monopoly, there is no need for the government to be honest, but in case of private free market operators, to be honest is prerequisite for gaining any profit and healthy share of consumers.³
Furthermore, whole market works on guarantee of standards. A medicine store sells a tablet of aspirin of mentioned weight and dosage, a butter seller sells packed butter slices of mentioned grams of butter. The buyer trusts these guarantees, and they prove to be true. In a case when a person buys a product with a certain warranty and guarantee and somehow the product fails to prove the standard mentioned, than in most cases, he gets a replacement for the ill-manufactured product. That is, even if by mistake a product of a company fails to fulfill the standards demanded by the customer and provided by the manufacturer, then either it pays back the money of the customer or replaces the product with new and better one. Market of mobile sets, or laptops or packed meat, butter or cheese, or other things does not fail even though government does not hold a monopoly on any of the products. Thus, we can trust that the customers of a private minter will be safe against any possible fraud because of the presence of other competitors of the minter in market. The minter’s customers themselves will be keenly alert about the weight and fineness of the coins just as they remain while buying and using other commodities.

The problem of wear and tear of currency

The current government regulated currency, paper notes and coins holds no worth in themselves apart from the governor’s pledge to pay the bearer of the note or coin, a definite amount of money. The value of money obviously keeps going low and lower because of inflation and price rise. Along with this, the paper currency issued by government often suffers wear and tear causing further loss of money. Most of the governmental coins are eroded or torn out and government keeps forcing the usage of same old notes and coins. The old rag-tagged coins and paper notes are to be considered of the same value as of a fresh note or coin. By doing so, the government actually forces a certain type of price control over the old paper notes and coins and provide them the equal price as that of newer notes and coins. Because of this, the older coins and notes are overvalued, while the new notes and coins suffer undervaluation. All this amounts to nothing but mal-investment. Everybody loves to circulate the older worn out coins and paper currency while they have a tendency to keep newer notes and coins safe.
Consider the case of free market where minting of coins is not a monopoly of government. Assume that there are gold coins of 10grams well circulated in market. After a few years of constant usage, the coins may suffer wear and tear and lets say that they weigh only 9 grams of gold after 10 years (assume). In a free market, a coin that has been reduced from 10 grams of gold to 9 grams will not be overvalued and it will gain only the price of 9 grams. Obviously, nobody would like to use the 9 grams coins at the price of 10 grams of gold, hence the worn out coins will be driven out of the market, or they may be used at reduced price. Thus, nobody would be deceived by the forced insistence of overvaluation to the older coins. This will avoid malinvestment. To solve out the problem of wear-tear of the coins, the private coin minters can either set a time limit on their stamped guarantees of weight or agree to provide a new coin in exchange of every old coin with reduced weight. Thus, there will not be any compulsory standardization of currency, which is a feature of monopoly of government.
Conclusion:
Since long governments have tried to control the currency circulation in market so that they can restrict and control the progress and prosperity of citizens. Yet, from time to time, private bankers have issued their own minted coins (Know more about Private Coinage and Good Money)) . The gold standard with privatization of issuing currency and minting coins will not only end the monopoly of government over currency, which is the major reason of acute price rise and inflation, but also it will avoid any chance of fraud as the free market will tend the virtue of more honest and better services for gaining more consumer base and high profits. In addition, if coin minting is privatized, the government can also try to serve the public by ensuring security against any sort of fraud. In any case, privatization of currency would be a much better option than the monopoly of government over currency.
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1. Warren Hastings (1841), an essay by Thomas Babington Macaulay.” Columbia University in the City of New York [↩]
2. The Fall of Rupee, CRN India [↩]
3. Know more about the evils of Monopoly of government in Market and currency read What Has Government Done To Our Money by Murray Rothbard, One may listen the whole book and save the audio link here [↩]

Consumerism is the principle of Free Market, which states, “free choice of consumer should rule the market, or, the consumer decides the economic structure of the society“. Producers and providers bring their products to the market and make it certain that consumers, the public, may gain enough knowledge about their product so that, if the consumer decides that the particular product is good, they may buy it.
To spread the knowledge of their product, producers advertise and apply proper marketing strategies. The consumer remains free either to accept the product and buy it, or to reject it at certain price.
Now days, producers are delivering good attractive services, better comfortable products and advanced technologies in the market. Some people claim that all this advancement is redundant and nobody needs it.

Do we want better technology, superior products and services that are more effective?

Human desires are infinite and so is his potential. We want better medical services, information technology, better telecommunication services, better heating and cooling devices in our homes and office rooms. We desire better toothpastes, toothbrushes, better hair oils and shampoos, better and more verities of food, wine, better cleaning products, better cell phone, better ipods, better televisions, better laptops, better internet, we all want better and improved.
It is our want that drives the market to innovate and provide new technologies, services and products.
We want better and faster vehicles, satellite phones, and internet access. We need clean and filtered water, we need lifts and elevators, we need homes, we need security we need better services, we want more options.

Consumerism makes it possible. We are receiving everything we wish for and the market is providing them. Free market is nothing but a group of billions of people working together with free will, innovating and inventing further for the improvement, free market is also a system that joins billions of people together, yet provide full freedom for each individual to live for himself, at his own conditions with his own efforts. Nobody is pulling legs of other to rise higher. Market competition is nothing but a constant try of innovators and entrepreneurs to learn and satisfy the hearts and minds of consumers. Consumers are undoubtedly the kings of free market.
It is all consumerism, to desire better and to have full freedom to make one’s dream come true.
The socialists call it devilish, they say people do not need improvement, they say materialistic quest for making life better is futile. They say all this improvement in standards of life is waste. They ignore the real effect of all these changes. While blaming consumerism and crying anti-consumerism songs, they just hide away the evidences of improvement in human conditions.

Since the start of civilization, wise people are trying to search a self-sustaining system that may serve the common person rather than just the aristocrats and the rulers.
Free market is the quest for that riddle. Free market provide the system through which, the billions of unplanned desires and wants, billions of unorganized and independent economic choices succeeds in creating a self-sustaining system of production and provision to satisfy and serve everyone.
Now socialists, anti-consumerists decries against this system, they say consumerism provides too much for too many, they say it is not necessary and it is wastage. They say people does not need these things, they are mere senseless materialistic wants.
The question is, are the consumers buying those things that are not required? Who dictates the difference between a need and a want? Some religious guru, or some socialist dictator?

One’s desperate need is fulfilled by Other’s want for Leisure

The fact, which makes the free market sustainable, is “the need of a person is fulfilled as a resulting effect of fulfilment of other’s want. That is, wants and needs are interlinked in a free market.
A common example of this fact is, the Shiksha India program run by Confederation of Indian Industry¹ . CII is a non-governmental and non profit organization managed by Shiksha India trust. Shiksha India works closely with schools and institutions across India and helps promote use of technology for making teaching-learning more effective. To run such a non-profitable organization, money is collected from a free market strategy of advertisement. Various products of industries, which are a part of CII, provide donations for Shiksha India Trust. In return, they use the motive of Shiksha India as an advertising strategy.
The common advertisement they propagate is

“Support Shiksha, lead a child to the path of education, Buy large packs of Tide, Ariel, Pantene, H&S, Rejoice, Vicks VapoRub, Whisper, Gillette Mach 3 Turbo, or Pampers, & lead a child to the path of education.”²

The advertisement simply suggests that the more you consume, the more poor kids get proper education.

Consider another example, a person’s child is badly sick, he is trying to get her to a doctor. The urgent clinic is open until late night; the neighboring drug store is also open. The desperate father goes out; get the proper medicine and gets in, to save his daughter. There is nothing phony demand in this entire act of saving a child’s life.
However, the urgent clinic can remain open late because its office is situated in a dense mall with low rents and higher access. The medicine store is open late night because cosmetic store, bakery, bear bar, sports shop, a swimming pool, a hotel facilitating late night parties and discotheque also share the area where the medicine store is situated. All of these stores are selling superfluous things. They pay rent too. The owner of the mall would not have made that place if those less desperate needs were not to be sold there. That is, the want of leisure and pleasure of other people became the reason for the prompt and urgent health-care of that child. Some of the Indian cities are experiencing development, socialists call it redundant, Indian villages does not have such superfluous stores, they do not have proper schools and hospitals too.

The demand of public for the non-essential wants became the background of hospital facilities for the needful.
The same is the case of luxury goods such as mobile phone. Mobiles were meant to be available for the rich alone. It was not an essential demand it was a luxury good. Only the rich could use them. The innovators created cheaper versions; the capitalists increased the production and made it affordable even by the middle class and lower middle class person, now even the poorest of Indians is likely to have his mobile phone.

Quality of life improved even for the poorest person. He is more resourceful now and able to earn more.
Some people believe that quality of life does not matter, for them; equality of life is better idea. The question for such people is, why not the poorest should get easy access to vast grocery stores, medical stores, better food, technology, and other not-so-essential luxuries? Consumerism helps the facilities, better services, and technological comfort to reach to the poorest strata of society. Consumerism actually reduces poverty. In addition, the better quality of life provided by consumerism has its own importance. It is natural right of the people to have freedom to choose and buy market products, as they want. Free market provides this freedom to the consumer, the people. Free market keeps providing better technology and products at cheaper rates, and this ability of free market is driven by the motive of consumerism.

Better quality of life has improved the average life of people too. The average life of women and men in 1900 were 48 and 46 years respectively. Now, the average life of women and men consumers is 80 and 77 years respectively. Obviously, consumerism is serving consumers. Infancy death rates dropped hugely because consumerism brought better medical help and vaccines. Death toll due to epidemics reduced to great extent. Overall consumerism is serving humanity to lead human for better, more comfortable and more satisfactory quality of life.

Conclusion:
Either those who oppose and criticize consumerism are misled or they have some evil motives against the developing humanity.
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1. Welcome to Shiksha India, a CII Initiative in association with CRY [↩]
2. Shiskha India in association with CRY, 2006 report, Shiksha India CII [↩]