When money can talk it will talk too much...
Till world war 1 there was no apparent use of toothpaste as it is now.. Even earlier to that Tooth powders were in use, and most of the products were made from charcoal powder, brick powder mixed with hydrogen peroxide some time. People even before that, who were not using toothpaste and lived upto 90 years have the instances of having healthy dentals. But now if you look at the Television Ads you feel that if you do not use a good toothpaste, a costlier one among the shelves of a super bazaar, you may loose your teeth withing 30 years of your age. A good toothpaste costs around 22 rs per 100 grams and an average family needs 200grams per month. For the same cost 2 kgs of rice will come which will help a family to survive for nearly a week. and if they use Ragi as the main Dish they can survive for couple of weeks.
And how the pricing for these toothpaste works.. Let us say cost is x, add profit 30%, Shipping and forwarder commission 10%, Distributor commission 10%, retailer commission 15%
so it is x+.3x+.1x+.1x+.15x = 1.65x, Here the X is inclusive of packing + raw material, The cost of packing is almost 200% of the raw material cost. In toto we might be paying around 20 times more than what we are using. Apart from that the flexitubes which are in use now have plastic, which is not biodegradable and hence we are contributing to pollute the world. Considering all these still we buy toothpaste as if it is a basic necessity just because the ads have prepared as this way.
Now it is war of the ads which steers the world. What is a genuine invention and which is right..? This question doesnot have a universal answer. Something which is right for me may be wrong for you. and vice versa. Still the laws of nature, derived from the basic observations and reasoning skill will not go wrong in the environment in which they were deduced, Apple from the tallest tree on the earth always falls down to ground, but if it is thrown out from a spaceship which is in an orbit to revolve around the earth, apple will revolve around the earth. They say saliva in mouth has the nature of killing dangerous bacterias, and ads will tell you saliva is very dangerous , dirty and unhygienic thing ever possible. Jaggery does not produce dental cavities, but sugar produces it, But still people prefer sugar as it is portrayed as the best one. A vaccine against Hepatitis, always forcing people to drink purified(..?) drinking water, teaching children to wear slippers whenever they go out.. and never step on the soil with barefoot are same.
It has been observed that worms will enter the body of the kid through barefoot and grow in the stomach and cause ill health, But that indigenously gives strength to children's body to fight against those worms and disease and make them more healthier when they grow up. It is same with water also. Human body is the faintest of all the existing things in the earth, a thing as simple as a banana stuck in the throat can cause death, and at the same time it is the strongest one, it can withstand without food and sleep for 7 days during a tsunami or withstand the heat of Thar, or withstand the cold at Antarctica.. It has a self healing nature, a beautifully designed, architected and programmed robot by nature. May be after millions of year human beings breath carbon dioxide and leave oxygen as wastage and oxygen used by trees for their photosynthesis. As Darwin suggested survival will be for the fittest, and the fittest is not the one who withstands, but the one who get adjusted to the environmental changes.
How these adjustments or drastic changes as they can call happen in nature..? May be through a iterated change process, or a sudden tsunami like change..? We do not know.. The earlier apes which started eating meat has become human beings with evolved brain, and structure. Those vegetarian remained as apes. The most gigantic living things such as dinosaurs got eliminated because they are tough and not adjusted to nature. Nature has shown the tendency to make changes in tsunami like. Is it true in the social conditions also..?
Now coming back to what I have quoted earlier about the toothpaste, Let us examine the case. There is a guy who knows how to make toothpaste. He makes it and some people like to use it. he sells the toothpaste to them and become more richer. Now some more people want to use the toothpaste but only a part of those people were able to afford to buy it. Those part of the people will start buying the toothpaste. so the sales increases for the toothpaste founder. He needs more resources to manufacture it. He will start a factory, for which he buy some steel, go to some foundry, buy some electricity, hire some people to work on those machines, hire some people to manage other people, This will transfer some wealth gathered by the Mr. Toothpaste, to Mr.Steel, Mr. Foundry, Mr.Labour and Mr.Manager. Now all these people can afford to buy toothpaste. This will again increase his sales. Not only that, all these Toothpaste, Steel, Foundry, Labour, Manager are now buy sufficient vegetables, meat, clothings, This will increase the financial levels of the sellers of vegetables, meat, cloathings. By this time it is know in the society that using toothpaste is the standard of life. So these people try to buy the toothpaste. Now Mr. Toothpaste do a good work. He will make two kinds of toothpaste, One for the standard society, where packing and flavours are good, one for the lower class of society where the packing and flavours of lower kind and can be manufactured at a lesser cost. So all the seller class starts buying the toothpaste. So now people want recreation. They start going to theaters, listen to songs, goes to bar. This will increase the financial standard for Artists, theater workers, bar workers, liquor barons. Now everybody is buying the toothpaste. As number of the user increase the variety and tastes of the people will also increase. So the Mr. Toothpaste is making the changes in his product and his sales are increasing now. Meanwhile in the background he always try to make people understand that using toothpaste is must and everybody needs to use the toothpaste. Time passes, everybody starts using toothpaste and everybody is addicted now. Mr. Toothpaste sees this and he increase the price. As addiction is there, people will not stop using the toothpaste, buy it at the given price. Now ....?
Yes things continue, as the prices of toothpaste is high, the profit margin for Mr.Toothpaste is high. He want to save tax, so pays more to those with him. They will become richer. Others who are buying the toothpaste at the higher cost will pay more for the toothpaste and they will become poorer. Now times have passed generations have changed. the sons and daughters of the richer studied in best of best universities, learnt best of the technologies, and latest of sales skill. They start new factories which manufacture steels, modern foundries, modern car factory. They start a new super bazaar to sell everything under the sun in under one roof. They start IT houses to bring process and efficiency into those factories, foundries and super bazaars. The poor man who started getting poorer because of the high cost of the toothpaste can't sell the vegetables, meat, or anything because now super bazaar is selling it. Those who got richer being with Mr.Toothpaste start buying from the Super bazar, saying that they get quality products and at one roof, even though prices are little higher side, things work out for them. Now the poorer people start to think to leave using the toothpaste. Mr.Toothpaste anticipate this move by the poor people, and now he gets in to action.
He catch holds the minister for health in the cabinet, and convince him that using the toothpaste is must for the good and healthy society, If the minister is not convinced, he confuses them saying tooth decay may lead to mouth cancer and epidemic diseases, which in turn causes mass death and hence he may loose his portfolio. Now the minister gets wiser. He says directly, convincing and confusing does not help and corruption is the only way. Mr.Toothpaste agrees to part with a little share of his wealth. Now the richer minister passes legislation that if somebody not using the toothpaste is illegal and punishable under law. This makes the poorer people to buy the toothpaste before buying there daily bread, which makes poorer to get more poorer. As the generations changed in the poorer class also, the sons and daughters of the poorer who started working in the factories, and super bazaar at the lower wages gets much less money and hence they stay poorer. Labour laws are in line with liberals and World Trade, Labours have lots of facilities like taking leaves and ambient working conditions good toilets, free pick up and drop everything. But their salary is less. They have used to dual life. one of luxury at the office, and another one of starvation at home. Poor boys and girls learn to smile and be polite even after two days of fasting at home, because their money is used to get medicine for father.
Mean while as the richer are starting more factories and IT houses, more people comes to the town and land is fixed resource, the cost goes up. this make the richer to buy more land which is owned by poor by giving him more money. Poorer does not have financial planning as all insurance companies and investment companies provide financial plans to only rich and above certain level. Poor spends the money in retaliating his dream wants to spend a night in costliest pub, spend a night with super hot babe of the town, and play cards in a club. This will bring him back to the square one, now he is as poor as he was, now without some land to live in. Now poorer has to find alternatives.
Poor boys find the alternative to earn some more money by robbing the rich ones when they are alone, and poor girls find some money by sleeping with rich ones on the same bed. But human nature is not mechanical, there will be some poorer who are worried about their conditions and start thinking how it can be improved. and there are some richer people who think having poor in the society is sin and they need to help them. They start to read the history and books written by other people on the similar conditions. They found only the names and means are changed but in essence the situation was same some 100 years back. The gap between poor and rich was more, and now also it is more. It started to widen up and widening happened at accelerated speed. Now also same thing is happening. And after certain gap things did not tolerated any more and got burst. Always a war, a revolution, a invention or a natural disaster helping for this. This has bring down richer to be less richer and poorer to be less poorer. Now society has achieved the state of an equilibrium. This made them to delivery long speeches to the public. and riches got worried, because they also know that the same things happened earlier in the history, Again they bribe the government and use police to control these people. One fine day it crosses all the limits, Something breakup, some people die, some people give away their wealth. and richer becomes less richer and poorer become less poorer. and equilibrium will be achieved.
This will be there till another Mr.Toothpaste or Mr.Computer or Mr.Robot starts selling his things.
Economist call the period when gap is widening as the period of progress, and the time of revolution and equallibrium as the time of the recession. Socialist called the time of equilibrium as golden era.
Somebody who knows all these things happens, and knows in which phase they are in, try to foresee which position is better for them. and they try to move the system towards that. Sometime they will get recognised as the greatest leaders. Sometime though very rarely people will come and see which phase they are and which is best for the most of the people and try to steer the system towards that. If they are successful history calls them as Mahatmas, otherwise they will be treated as traitors later. Similar to the scientific inventions. Somebody will not get a recognition by really inventing something which is very difficult other wise to find, or which reveals lot of things, but did not have any commercial value. But the one who invents something with commercial value will be given all the prominence. People hang other people because other has caused an obstruction acquire economic wealth for the one. One fine day a comet or asteroid will hit the earth and all these things comes to an tsunami like end. Those who adjusted will emerge as new human being. May be in this earth or in any other earth in any other universe.
