Corruption, crime, complicity, exploitation, fraud, scam, these are the words that we hear or read when we turn on the television or choose to read any newspaper or magazine. It is sickening, isn't it? And we thought it's one political party, one individual bureaucrat, politician or business man who is doing it. Elders lament erosion of values. Teachers and educationists complain about information explosion and negative influence on young minds. In general, moralists say, society has started accepting bad behaviour and low moral ground as way of life. The most common excuse is "the system is bad, we have to bribe our way through everything".
Philosophically speaking, the most overwhelming aspect of our day-to-day life is day-to-day desire. Buddha taught us that desire is the root cause of evil. In the modern day context it's blasphemy,just think about it, the whole damn economy functions on the base premise of human desire. Manufacturing, marketing and distribution are all created with the assumption that man kind will continue to desire. Such desire would lead to consumption. Such consumption would lead to more manufacturing, more marketing and more distribution.
"More" word is infinite... It's here that the evil starts reiterating itself. For the sake of making existence interesting let's say desire is the need of life. By extension "more" desire is "greed" of life. Greed is good for some, high margin and profitable for businesses...! How else do you turn in a larger balance sheet every year. I hear business leaders say growth is the driver, go for it! So greed is inevitable and it's good... As the popular TV ad proclaims "Daag acche hain" meaning, if it does some good getting stained is good... This defines the time we live in!
