Industry, Commerce, Money and Economy - Words of Wisdom

The Mother

Auroville will be a self-supporting township.

All who live there will participate in its life and development. "This participation may be passive or active.

There will be no taxes as such but each will contribute to the collective welfare in work, kind or money.

Sections like industries which participate actively will contribute part of their income towards the development of the township. Or if they produce something (like foodstuffs) useful for the citizens, they will contribute in kind to the township which is responsible for feeding its citizens.

30 Dec, 1967, Vol 08, Mother's Agenda

The organisation should be such, should be so arranged, that the material needs of everyone are assured, not according to ideas of rights and equality, but on the basis of the minimum needs. And once that is established, each one should be free to organise his life according to—not according to his financial means, but his inner capacities.

30 Dec, 1967, Pg 16, Mother on Auroville

When one no longer has any desires, any attachments, when one has a consciousness vast as the earth, then one may have as much money as there is on the earth; it would be very good for everyone. But if one is not like that, all the money one has is like a curse upon him. This I could tell anyone at all to his face, even to the man who thinks that it is a merit to have become rich. It is a calamity and perhaps it is a disgrace, that is, it is an expression of a divine displeasure.

Pg 54, Vol 07, CWM

Money is not meant to generate money; money should generate an increase in production, an improvement in the conditions of life and a progress in human consciousness.

04 Oct 1958, Vol 01, Mother's Agenda

I would like there to be no money within Auroville (we would have to work out something), I would like money to be retained only for relations with outside.

30 Aug, 1969, Vol 10, Mother's Agenda

Sri Aurobindo

The accumulation of wealth and more wealth, the adding of possessions to possessions, opulence, show, pleasure, a cumbrous inartistic luxury, a plethora of conveniences, life devoid of beauty and nobility, religion vulgarised or coldly formalised, politics and government turned into a trade and profession, enjoyment itself made a business, this is commercialism.

Pg 80, Vol 25, CWSA

War is no longer the legitimate child of ambition and earth-hunger, but the bastard offspring of wealth-hunger or commercialism with political ambition as its putative father.

Pg 490, Vol 25, CWSA

Even if I myself had had the command to do business as I had the command to do politics I would have done it without the least spiritual or moral compunction. All depends on the spirit in which a thing is done, the principles on which it is built and the use to which it is turned.

Pg 372, Vol 22 - 24, SABCL

Sri Aurobindo is in no way bound by the present world’s institutions or current ideas whether in political, social or economic field; it is not necessary for him either to approve or disapprove of them. He does not regard either capitalism or orthodox socialism as the right solution for the world’s future; nor can he admit that the admission of private enterprise by itself makes the society capitalistic, a socialistic economy can very well admit some amount of controlled or subordinated private enterprise as an aid to its own working or a partial convenience without ceasing to be socialistic.

(Written by Sri Aurobindo himself on April 15, 1949)
Pg, 303, Vol 10, Mother's Agenda