Economics of Love

[Guest guest]

Here is an introduction for those of you who are not familiar with ROOPA.

The Economics Of Love: Varna-Asrama Dharma

 

 

The first policy is called ROOPA: "Responsibility Of One's Products &

Actions." ROOPA simply requests one take full responsibility for the ECONOMIC

"social cost" of their products and activities.

 

Cars offer a great example. People who drive, pay insurance; those who don't,

save themselves all the miscellaneous cost of owning a car. Biking in place

of driving, for example, can save one $3,000 to $7,000 a year. ROOPA suggest

this principle be applied to all products. Up to 65% of all taxes and

insurance premiums are now spent on lifestyle or environmentally related

"social cost." Let people of those lifestyle activities cover those cost.

Such a system would allow us to cut taxes and insurance premiums by as much

as 60%.

 

Here's where it gets interesting. Those activities generally considered to be

a vice or "bad" also have economic liabilities associated with them. Is vice

a `bad' thing? ROOPA leaves that judgement to others. ROOPA simply points out

the social cost of different products and activities and asks its users to

cover their expense. ROOPA is a social policy based upon economic observation

more then some moral crusade.

 

Volume One of the book, ROOPA: Economic Democracy, takes the case of tobacco.

America spends about $100 billion a year treating tobacco related medical

illnesses. This figure is taken from court findings in the dozens of states

cases against tobacco. This comes to about $2,500 per smoker, per year. If

smokers covered this cost, the average American family would save about

$1,000 a year in taxes and insurance premiums.

 

Politicians have capitalized on this $100 billion dollar cost to justify

everything we hate about government. They use this cost to justify dozens of

regulations on tobacco, hundreds of pages in legal codes, hundreds of

millions of dollars worth of bureaucracy and billions more in tobacco taxes

to pay for it all.

 

Covering these social costs would allow smokers to do away with all these

intrusive regulations, arbitrary taxes and layers of bureaucracy. The cost?

About $5 more per pack of cigarettes. For this $5, smokers would have all

their smoking related insurance premiums covered for life while cutting most

tobacco related taxes, health insurance and government bureaucracy. Are these

benefits worth the $5 bucks?

 

Alcohol consumption offers another example. The projected cost of drinking is

about 4 times greater then that of tobacco. This factors in the criminal,

medical and social service expenses like drunk driving or alcohol related

spousal abuse, crime, welfare, liver complications, etc. ROOPA simply suggest

that those who consume alcohol cover ALL the social cost related to alcohol

consumption. Drinkers covering this cost would allow the country a huge tax

cut. The average American family would save an additional $2,500 on taxes and

insurance premiums. We would enjoy these saving every year without losing any

benefits.

 

ROOPA doesn't say people should no longer smoke or drink. Smoke and drink to

your heart's content, just don't leave the rest of us (tax-payers) covering

the tab. Leaving taxpayers to foot the bill is akin to making bicyclist cover

the insurance premiums for automobile owners. Such a policy is more then

unfair-it's `bad economics.'

 

Holding people responsible for their social cost is already common in

business. Insurance companies, for example, charge youthful, `high risk' and

SUV truck owners more then the rest of us. This is based upon the higher cost

those drivers prove to be as a group. Insurance is the commercial system for

estimating the (potencial) "social cost" of ones lifestyle, product or

environment. ROOPA harnesses this common commercial system for a new tax code

based upon ones own lifestyle in place of some politicians' personal

ideology.

 

This system is also being applied to a growing number of political reforms.

The Feds for example now confiscate a dealer's assets in the name of the

"social cost" of their drug trade or charge parents for their kid's

vandalism. There are hundreds of examples of political policies springing up

throughout the country based upon this ROOPA principle.

 

Most notable is that this ROOPA system is the standard for millions of legal

cases wherein the guilty pay for the `monetary damages' of their actions.

ROOPA streamlines this universal legal practice into a formal system of

economic policy and "justice for all." Applying this ROOPA principle would

free up our courts while putting millions of attorneys out of work.

 

This kind of economic responsibility is the very principle behind

`free-market economics.' It's the prerequisite of adulthood. It's the

foundation of capitalism. It's the economic guide of democracy. ROOPA

translates this principle into an easy to use, simple to implement economic

model. ROOPA is Economic Democracy.

 

 

The Wall Street Journal recently printed an interesting article about

cancer. "Cancers caused by genes make up..25% of cases…of the disease, with

factors like ENVIRONMENTAL AND LIFESTYLE ACCOUNTING FOR THE REST…" (July 12,

2000) Most diseases correspond to a specific environment or

lifestyle--sometimes by as much as 70%. Let those choosing that lifestyle

cover their share for the costs created by those lifestyles.

 

Activities generally considered to be bad or vices happen to have steep

social cost. Things like drugs, gambling and prostitution. Some would include

meat eating. Combined, these four activities represent the world's single

greatest ECONOMIC liability. We spend trillions covering the medical,

criminal and social cost of these activities. Each person engaged in these

vices is costing us millions in social cost over their life time.

 

Again, this is not a moral judgement. Who is to be the judge of right or

wrong? Not ROOPA. ROOPA only makes the economic observation that these

particular activities happen to create a great deal of economic liability.

ROOPA only ask those engaged in them, to kindly cover the FULL cost for them.

 

People fail to cover the FULL cost of their vices. This leaves the rest of us

to subsidize their cost with ever-higher insurance premiums, taxes and

reduced benefits. This is more then unfair. It's the economics of a zero sum

game.

 

The 45 million American's priced-out of health insurance is one of many

examples. This all-time record can only grow with today's increasing

vice-subsidies. These vice-subsidies will increase growing disparity in all

areas of social development.

 

Smokers repaying the American taxpayers would offset these social

discrepancies. A repayment of all vice-subsidies would retire all public debt

with change to spare for universal coverage of every needed social program.

Instead, our resources are spent covering the social-cost of these vices.

 

ROOPA also provides a host of benefits to smokers and those of vice. ROOPA

replaces most government regulations, taxes, insurance premiums and criminal

penalties. They are already covered in the products up-front price.

 

Cigarettes may be five bucks more, for example, but the smoker's health

insurance premium for things as lung cancer and rehab are already covered.

There will be no such thing as a lack of access to treatment though provided

free to all smokers. These costs will have been covered in the upfront price

of their cigarettes.

 

In short, if vice always has an economic liability, then paying all its

potential cost upfront becomes the activities natural regulation. Greater the

vice, greater the price. Greater the price, the less affordable the product.

 

Net result: consumption reduced. The price becomes the products own NATURAL

prohibition. No need for further government interference. Today's volumes of

government regulations, layers of bureaucracy and their numerous watchdogs

will be replaced by this "true-price" tag. ROOPA is complete de-regulation

and yet provides fair and effective social accountability. ROOPA is as simple

and fair as it is effective.

 

As consumption slows, so too does the social-cost. This in turn reduces the

retail price. When consumption again rises, prices follow suit. TRUE "free

market" economics at its purest.

 

This is all discussed in Volume 1: ROOPA, Economic Democracy.

 

This is only half of the ROOPA equation. The flip side is even more

revealing. Good deeds, virtue, happen to offer great economic rewards.

Greater the virtue, greater the economic benefits. Love is the greatest

virtue of all. Motherhood captures the essence of love. Mom also provides

more economic benefit then most any other `job' in the world.

 

According to studies, it would cost "$507,000 a year…at standard professional

rates" to replace the work mom does at home.

 

We spend 40% of each year working until `May 15th' just to pay our taxes. A

two-parent-working household means one works just to pay the Feds. Mom is

sent off to work to pay taxes so government can now care for our family. The

government then charges us twice as much for the same job mom did better.

 

The alternative is obvious: replacing government care with family care. ROOPA

makes a simple request. Let our own family bid on providing these family

services. We should be allowed to at least get half the amount of money the

state now takes for the same jobs as senior-care or after-school and

pre-school programs. A true `free market' would demand as much. Who ever can

provide a better service for less should be allowed equal market access as

any of the multinational monopolies.

 

About 70% of all family care is still provided by mom. Some find this

appalling in an age of women's liberation. However, let us not over look the

credit this task demands. 70% of that credit belongs to mom alone. This

recognition of a mother's role in the home as well as the trend towards

family-provided-care is reflected in such highly successful programs as the

MOMs Club and MOPS: Mom's Of Pre-Schoolers, or the Mom's of Teens.

 

Mothers facing the multi-task, unforgiving demands of today maybe justly

described as "Super-Mom." The advantages Super-Mom provides over government

care: No bureaucracy, half the cost, double the service.

 

Specifically, family-provided care could cover all the country's seniors,

children and most of the poor on just half the Feds $1.4 trillion budget

already used for these `entitlement programs.' These points are covered in

Volumes 4 thru 6 with a total of about 15 chapters between them. These

volumes need a rewrite and editing. They should be done by the end of July.

These unedited works are available upon request.

 

This ROOPA principle in a nutshell: greater the love, greater the economic

returns. By this measure, "love of God" or bhakti, is the greatest love of

all.

 

Lovers of God or bhakta's, offer the greatest economic contributions. They

save society millions with each person they convert from vice to the ways of

virtue. Inspiring people to quit smoking, drinking and drugs, etc translates

into big savings for society at large.

 

Prabhupada's work inspired hundreds of thousands of people representing

savings worth billions. This is true of all religions that provide their

communities with a newfound sobriety, chastity and social participation. The

spirit and deeds of such individuals provide the most cost effective social

climate. Such an economic ideal is referred to as Bhakta ROOPA.

 

If this ROOPA model proves accurate, then morality can be judged by simply

measuring the economic out come of any given activity. Greater the vice,

greater the cost. Greater the virtue, greater the returns. This model has

been tested against hundreds of scenarios over these last 8 years. The

findings have been uncanny.

 

Applying this ROOPA formula to agriculture and industry is even more

startling. Ox-powered, agrarian based, cottage industry proves far more cost

effective then the petroleum based modern industry faced with repairing ALL

its environmental damage. Eco-technologies like solar and wind power are

similarly more cost effective against their Eco-destructive nuclear-petroleum

counter-parts. Manufacturing aside, the Eco-cost of gasoline runs into

hundreds of dollars per gallon. This environmental damage is nothing short of

an ECO-nomic subsidy to modern industry and paid for by the billions now

living in the wake of its global desolation.

 

In conclusion, if this system of ROOPA is followed, one end ups with a

society identical in life-style and social development to the Vedic system of

Varna-Asrama Dharma. The reason is evident; Varna-Asrama is the most cost

effective and equitable economic system. Today's Western model is bogged down

in massive vice-subsidies while leaving billions destitute in the name of

progress. ROOPA clearly demonstrates the flaws of this global, modern economy

as well as providing a simple, effective alternative already practice in

courtrooms throughout the world.

 

ROOPA provides a host of reforms. ROOPA transforms morality from the realm of

subjective religious zealots to that of a measurable science. ROOPA may prove

the cure-all for corporate-government corruption, incompetence or

conspiracies. All responsible public & private parties will now simply pay

their corresponding social-economic cost in full. Better still, it removes

the need for most other insurance premiums, taxes, government regulations or

economic policies. Taxes and state regulations are a sloppy imitation of what

ROOPA automatically accomplishes. Best of all, this places God and morality

center-stage after being outcaste from all economic policy planning over the

centuries.

Raghunatha Anudasa

POBox 1108 Hilo HI 96721

 

Anudasa