Dharma as One's Life Purpose

The Doctrine of Utility

The core flaw of Economics, which is also the source of the unsustainability of “economic” systems, is that it focuses on utility or pleasure from external objects as their ultimate goals.

According to Adam Smith, this is wrong because utility is merely the effect of existence and is part of the deception of Nature (which in Eastern Philosophy is called Maya).

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:

The sentiment of approbation that arises from the beauty of utility has no reference to the sentiments of others

In other words, utility is only morally good for the self.

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 we really wanted to maximize our utility, then we would eat separately.
• But if we want to maximize our love, then one of us will sacrifice utility for that of the other.

According to Adam Smith, we should have fellow-feeling and address the needs of others.

• But according to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, we should eat separately.

Overhauling Maslow and Disregarding Marginal Utility

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs views the lower physiological needs as more urgent. This manifests as economic systems emphasizing immediate utility over their long-term consequences.

The great big problem with this method is that the metaphysical dimension is superior to the material dimension.

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

Economic systems fall for this and is why they have the concept of marginal utility which reveals a reduction in pleasure.

• To avoid this, they create profit maximization.

This would be like:

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

In Economics, money and prices become a sort of drug which creates addiction to those who follow utility and marginal pricing theories.

Their karma then is the volatility in their prices and valuation which also bring in pain, unhappiness,and even death .

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

An Alternative to “Selfish Interest”

We solve this instability by flipping the temporal order of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Instead of physiological needs being first, we start with self-actualization.

Our basis is David Hume saying that mentality creates reality:

This metaphysical starting point is called the idea of the self.

• The path taken by the self is then ruled by its interest as ‘self-interest’ which is an ambiguous word.
• One may be ‘interested’ in pursuing material pleasures or in achieving spiritual goals. Western authors solve this by specifying an enlightened self-interest, as opposed to the ordinary one.

But the word ’enlightened’ is also unclear.

• Is stealing $1 more enlightened than stealing $1,000?
• Is destroying a forest to build houses for the poor less enlightened than preserving it to reduce CO2 and global warming?

To get rid of this ambiguity, we change the word ‘interest’ into ‘purpose’ in order to focus on the end goal.

• If the end is agreeable, then the means must be agreeable too (Hume, Book 3).

Thus, a banker’s purpose in life is to do banking.

But it wouldn’t be so easy to say that a bank robber’s life-purpose is to rob banks since everyone feels that robbing is wrong and therefore cannot be a life goal.

• Who would ever honestly say that his soul exists on Earth to rob banks?

Stealing might be a life goal of other animal species, but it would result in a them having a totally different hierarchy of needs.

If Bitcoin price is rising fast, then under Economics, you should buy it or be left out.

• But in Supereconomics, only the crypto-trader should buy it because his life purpose is to trade crypto.
• In this way, a Bitcoin crash will only affect the universe of crypto-traders and not everyone.

The Supereconomic Hierarchy of Needs Based on Svadharma

Our hierarchy of needs of the soul begins in the metaphysical svadharma which goes downwards to:

• the metaphysical needs of the soul
• the material needs of the physical body

What it cannot get for itself, it tries to get from others. This it does by offering what it can, based on its svadharma (skills, abilities, and personal qualities).

• A materialistic society only caters to the material needs. It might have an abundance of material goods for sale, ecommerce, cryptocurrencies. But it is deficient in spritual ideology or even cultural practices.
• A spiritual society has strong spritual ideology and rich traditional culture. But it might be materially backward.
• An ideal society is one that can satisfy all the hierarchal needs of every human, neglecting neither materiality nor spirituality.

Everything has a value because everything has a purpose

The word ‘purpose’ has more in common with the word ‘dharma’ than ‘interest’.

Superphysics views existence as being a huge mind or Matrix which the Hindus call the Brahma. A thing would only exist in a mind if its Thinker had a purpose for it.

Thus, we can say that everything that you perceive has a purpose. Those that didn’t have a purpose never existed or never was perceived by you.

The specific purpose of every discrete thing or entity is then called The Tao or svadharma meaning ‘own dharma’ or own purpose in existence.

The study of this svadharma in economics is a focus of Supereconomics,.

This purpose is what gives value to everything.

In this way, a baker bakes because he feels that his life purpose is to bake and that he could happily spend his whole life baking.

• His passion in baking naturally allows him to make excellent bread which gets a nominal price from the viewpoint of the buyers

Therefore, his passion in baking represents:

• the nominal price to his customers, as the First Law of Value
• the real price for himself, as the Second Law of Value

If you do what you are passionate about then utility will always be at a maximum and there will be no marginal utility. This is why Supereconomics can do without marginal utility.

This focus on svadharma, from the viewpoint of the seller, makes up the Effort Theory of Value which is an essential component of the Second Law of Value.

In contrast, in Economics, a baker bakes because he is supposed to be chasing the profits as the money from bread sales. To get more money, he logically must:

• adulterate his goods
• drive his costs down
• automate instead of using manual labor
• raise his sales through marketing.

In other words, the economic baker is not a baker but a merchant masquerading as a baker. More commonly, the baker was brainwashed to become a merchant.

Supereconomics keeps the baker as a baker and the merchant as a merchant. This is to preserve the division of labor in society and put everyone in their proper supereconomic place.