Svadharma as Alternative to Selfish Interest

Fixing Materialism

The previous subchapter revealed that the cause of instability of economic systems is the focus on material pleasures as utility.

This is caused by the Western hierarchy of needs which gave the most importance to physical needs over the metaphysical ones such as mental and spiritual.

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:

Fixing Selfishness

Giving importance to metaphysical needs solves materialism.

However, a person might still stay selfish.

• He might use all his time and effort for himself, instead of connecting to society.

To fix this, we replace selfish-interest with self-purpose in order to focus on the end goal.

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

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

But we cannot say that a bank robber’s life-purpose is to rob banks. This is because if all banks stopped existing then the bank-robber would also not have any purpose in life.

Stealing might be a life goal of other animal species. But it would result in them having a flat 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

This self-purpose is called svadharma in the Bhagavad-Gita.

This self-purpose is in the top of the Supereconomic hierarchy of needs.

• The upper parts of the pyramid represent the metaphysical needs of the soul
• The lower parts of the pyramid represent the material needs of the physical body

The focus of the soul goes down the pyramid as it addresses the needs of the soul and body.

• What it cannot get by itself, it tries to get through others.

This it does by offering what it can, based on its 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.