A. Market forces and commercialization are by their very nature competitive. The theory of market forces is based on the idea of supply and demand. If you organize an economy based on supply and demand, the interrelation between demand and supply will regulate the economic flow and make fair trading and fair economic relationship possible. It is based on a myth, because it presupposes that everybody can take out of the supply the amount equal to their needs, which is not the case.

The major nations, in particular the US, take out of the supply hundreds of times more of every possible commodity than they actually need. That is nothing but greed. Because they produce a lot, they think that they have the prerogative, the right, to use the vast majority, 83 per cent, of all the resources existing in the world. The demand is way above that of the adequacy of the supply, and therefore those who can make little demand, the Third World countries, have to make do with 17 per cent of the supply. The major thoughtform of competition comes from the US. Everything is done to maximize profits in the most efficient way. The most efficient way is to get rid of the highest overhead which is always the labour force who produce the particular commodity. That is what competition leads to, inevitably: commercialization. Maitreya calls commercialization more dangerous to the world than an atomic bomb. It is killing life at its source, which is human. It is based on competition and greed. Greed and competition are at the basis of the commercial and social life of America, and therefore, through its influence, of a huge section of the world.

Q. What steps may we take to heal it?

The first step is to reject commercialization, reject market forces as an economic theory. It helps a few at the expense of the many. Market forces can create, even in the erstwhile Soviet Union, millionaires overnight. That is what they are meant to do. They are meant to present the opportunity of becoming a millionaire to anybody. Anybody with the greed, the initiative, the competitiveness, the energy, to go out there and grab, take and thrust aside others, can do it; that is the American myth. And if we do not reject that whole idea of competition and greed as having any part to play in creating right human relations, we will destroy ourselves, we will never make it.