In the context of a recent conference held at New York on Hindu economics and its role since times ancient in Bhaarath's stellar economy, it would be interesting to compare this with that of the USA; both past and present.  Now let's remember that Bhaarath's overall economic performance averaged over the centuries is plain outstanding even accounting for the brutal dip that it underwent  from 1747-1947 over the course of 200 years of British Colonialism which is actually an euphemism for historic chronic mass pillaging and looting of one nation by another.

 

The USA has significantly much less history in comparison.  Those ancient days when Bhaarath was a mighty economic colossus, a real sone-ki-chidia, the USA was just a wild continent populated by Native American tribes.  Of course things took a huge turn when the first European settlers with their crusader Anglo-Christian ethos arrived on America's shores and changed its destiny forever.

 For the settlers who were badly starved out of subsistence in their native Europe, the USA was indeed a vast and almost limitless land of resources; both in agriculture as well as mineral wealth.  The legendary success stories of many early pioneers stud the annals of American history. From its days of being a ,mere British outpost, the US transformed into a self-sufficient economic giant on the shoulders of some of its greatest entrepreneurs.  And post World War-II, the USA became next to invincible both in the spheres of economy as well as that of military.

In the aftermath of World War-II, a relatively unscathed USA embarked on a wanton resource guzzling binge; a binge which is encompassed by the collective psyches of the boomer-generation and a binge that unfortunately continues to this day in the name of unbridled capitalism catering to a consumerist market with a never ending appetite.  What started as a land of basic rights and liberties realistically balanced by responsibilities has now morphed into a place where only rights matter.  In this atmosphere, reckless crony capitalism as embodied by the recent collapse of Wall Street in 2008 has swiftly gained ascendency.  Actually, this spirit of ruthless profit hungry wild-west capitalism was always a Hallmark of American capitalism since the founding of the republic but in those days of old, rabid consumerist forces did not feed in a skewed manner into the economy and this full-on capitalism somehow came through as genuine competition where only the best prevailed.  But all this changed when consumerist forces started throwing in a disproportionate weight in the market and that's when the capitalism took an ever increasing hues of greed to the point where a tsunami of dirt hit the US fans in 2008.

But this brand of rabid capitalism had done its damage even before that.  The great oil-shock of the 1970s is testimony to the fact.  The ever demanding consumerist forces along with the ruthless capitalism had made the US a slave to oil within just two decades after the second World War.  The oil crisis of the 70s was just a consequence of that.  Suddenly all the internal resources of the resource blessed US did not seem to be enough to cater to rising consumer demands. The consumers wanted more and consequently the electorate was putting increasing pressure on Washington to deliver.  Moreover, the ever-hungry US corporations sensing the opportunities to make tidal wave profits through all this rising consumer demands also put in their own powerful lobbying funds to exert humongous pressure Washington to meet consumer demands through cheap external sources.  The increasing costs of US labor also added fuel to the fire. And that's how a resource self sufficient nation was forced permanently to look outwards predatorily towards other nations in order to keep its denizens and more importantly its corporations and their share holders happy. The first baby steps towards the inevitable future of a globalized world had thus been taken. But as time would increasingly tell:  it was not to be globalization, it would become more of an international US hegemony.

The eighties (rightly decried in the US as the decade of  unabashed and unapologetic greed) severely shook those vestiges of time tested principles of honesty remaining in the US market.  The corporations had now become mightier than Washington itself and consumer demand at an all time high advocating even more cheap external resources and this meant more work for  the CIA and the US armed forces.  Electoral fates of US-presidents now hung on this ability to deliver dirt cheap resources to this voracious black hole of a consumer market.  But the situation was now rapidly becoming akin to drawing blood out of stone.  It was becoming increasingly difficult to milk resources out of former third world allies even under duress of military action as these nations were also becoming increasingly smarter in dealing with the US, creating frequent bottlenecks for the US-economy which by now was hooked on this nonstop supply of cheap external resources.  This in turn again translated to even more drastic military strategies by the US and consequently more military expenditure. And this in turn had led to vicious deficit budgeting by Washington, which rapidly is becoming a seemingly irreversible situation that now crossed all the limits of fiscal decency  (USD 14 trillion and rising), risking the nation the tag of a financially irresponsible and wayward land increasingly tethering towards bankruptcy. 

An Irony of epic proportions

The million dollar question here is that how a resource abundant super rich land of milk and honey ever come to this?? The souls of the founding fathers of the US will certainly be grief stricken today at this predicament*.  So blessed is the land in resources that it can meet all it needs from the inside even today.  All this requires is iron political will and even stronger iron will of US denizens to change old and reinforced bad habits.  But this is easier said that done; such is the momentum and preponderance of old and entrenched habits and the addiction to consumerism of the US populace. The home of the free and the brave, a land of self-sufficiency and dignity, a land which embodies the spirit of the Boston tea party has now become a shameless global economical predator with absolutely no conscience.  A land  that was once universally revered has now become one that is treated with extreme circumspection even by closest of allies and unfortunately labeled as an entity that would not hesitate to stab even its best friends in the back should it suit the interests of its consumer market.

LESSONS FOR BHAARATH:

We have valuable lessons in this regard.  We should say NO to US style economics that will only lead to laws of diminishing returns and permanent ruin in the long run.  Our policy makers should implement policies that will rein in consumerism to manageable levels here and prevent it becoming an all consuming Godzilla like it has become in the USA.  Our economy should be firmly based on the sound Vaishya Vaarnaamshramic principles that has sustained the country's status as an economic giant worthy of respect for aeons.   We need to borrow only those modern economic principles that will complement these time tested ancient economic laws and discard the rest.  After all the present economic morass of the US is the perfect testimony for the failure of its economic model.

Dr. VSH
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