Machines Making Men Unemployed

Srila Prabhupada: We are not against machines. You can utilize machines. But we should not use machines and allow others to be unemployed. You can use machines, that's alright, but not at the risk of keeping others unemployed. The first consideration is that everyone should be employed. If you have got many men, why should you engage machines?
These rascals, they do not know. They're taking to machines and making so many men unemployed. And the welfare department is paying them. They do not know how to organize society. Therefore hippies are coming out. Crime, criminals are coming out. (Room Conversation: New Orleans, August 1, 1975)

Prabhupäda: In India the caste system was very good. From the very beginning the children would learn the technology of their paternal. Just like potter. You’ll see the children of the potter, they are also making a small bird, a small fruit, and they would be sold. A small playing utensils-small glass, small plate—they’re also sold. Other children would purchase. The whole family used to earn something. Nowadays they’re sent to school, wasting time, and then unemployment and idle brain. What is the use of sending a potter’s son to school? Tamäla Kåñëa: No, everything he needs to know, he can learn at home. Prabhupäda: That’s what I… Similarly, weaver, that cloth weaving, “kat, kat.” The wife is spinning, her husband is weaving, the children is weaving, and combinedly at the end of the day there is a cloth. And people were satisfied with simple necessities. They would not charge very much for the labor. And one nice cloth requires half a pound cotton. Half a pound cotton means maybe one rupee. Another one rupee for the labor. So now they are paying twenty to thirty rupees. Unnecessarily he has to earn this money and pay to the millionaires, and he will keep three dozen motorcars, so another man will be engaged in motorcar industry. In this way time is being wasted without any search after spiritual realization. Time is wasted in such so-called technology advancement. And the real purpose of life, jévasya tattva-jijïäsä, that is missing. And when you present that “This is the most important business of life,” they say, “It is brainwashing.” And they fight to check us, Communists and others, that “It is useless, God consciousness.” [break] (long pause) So… Jäniyä çuniyä biña khäinu. Because they are missing the aim of life, they are committing suicide. And this varëäçrama-dharma was planned in such a way that everyone would be spiritually advanced. The weaver will get, the potter will get, the blacksmith will get, the brähmaëa is already there, kñatriya will get—everyone. (Room Conversation: July 14, 1977 in Vrindavana, India.)

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