Disregarding Marginal Utility

The Doctrine of Utility

The fundamental flaw of Economics and economic systems is their singular focus on utility or pleasure from external objects.

According to Adam Smith, this is wrong because the pleasure that we get from objects is impermanent. It is part of the deception of Nature (which in Eastern Philosophy is called Maya).

It is this deception which rouses and keeps in continual motion the industry of mankind.

Adam Smith

Theory Of Moral Sentiments, Part 4

Materialists and selfish people usually point to the statement above to justify that Smith approves of utility and the profit motive, conveniently avoiding his other statements that are against utility:

Power and riches.. are enormous machines that produce a few trifling conveniencies to the body..ready every moment to burst into pieces and crush their unfortunate possessor.. But it is not this utility which is the principal source of our approbation.. It seems impossible that we would approve of virtue in the same way we approve of a well-made building.. The sentiment of approbation that arises from the beauty of utility has no reference to the sentiments of others.

Adam Smith

Theory Of Moral Sentiments, Part 4

In other words, utility or material usefulness is only morally good for the self. When you pursue material things, you only think of yourself and your own needs.

For example, you might be very hungry and want to eat at an Indian restaurant, but your partner, also very hungry, might want to eat at a Korean restaurant.

• If you really wanted to maximize our utility, then you would eat separately.
• But if you want to maximize your mutual love, then one of you will sacrifice your needs for that of the other.

When you pursue material things, you only think of yourself and your own needs

According to Adam Smith, humans should think of the needs of others.

• But according to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, humans should focus on their own needs first.

These physiological needs are the most pre-potent of all needs. In the human being who is missing everything in life in an extreme fashion, it is most likely that the major motivation would be the physiological needs rather than any others.

A person who is lacking food, safety, love, and esteem would most probably hunger for food more strongly than for anything else.

Maslow

Overhauling Maslow and Disregarding Marginal Utility

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs gives more importance to physical needs and gives very little scope for metaphysical needs.

The great big problem with this method is that the metaphysical dimension controls the physical dimension. This is evident in the maxim “Mentality creates Reality”.

It is an established maxim in metaphysics, that whatever the mind clearly conceives, includes the idea of possible existence.

Hume

Treatise of Human Nature, Book 1, Part 2, Section 2

Using material things to achieve the metaphysical goals is as ineffective as:

• using drugs to make oneself happy, or
• using makeup to seem beautiful

The result of these is a fake or artificial happiness which is temporary at best.

This then leads to the need for repetition to sustain that fake happiness.

• This then leads to addiction and withdrawal symptoms.
• These result in pain and unhappiness as a natural karma for trying to achieve metaphysical goals in the wrong or artificial way.

The concept of marginal utility in Economics quantifies this reduction in pleasure.

• To reverse or avoid this, profit maximization was created.

This would be like:

• using more different drugs to make oneself happy
• going beyond makeup and into plastic surgery to make oneself beautiful

Thus, money and prices in Economics become a sort of drug which creates addiction via profit maximization.

The karma of profit maximization is the volatility in prices. This is because everyone is trying to maximize against each other, instead of letting the profits decline naturally.

This volatility is unacceptable if we want to create a better system that is more stable, sustainable, and non-fatal.

To create such a system, we will introduce the concept of dharma in the next subchapter.