Money Cannot Be Earned Ethically
- Madhukar Dama
- 2 days ago
- 9 min read
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I. Invocation
We in India revere Lakshmi—the goddess of wealth. We count, save, multiply, yet we rarely ask: What hides beneath her shine?
Each note, each rupee, carries unseen burdens: a farmer’s debt, a laborer’s spine bent, polluted rivers, ancient soil stripped, unpaid wages, historical dispossession, social exclusion.
Call her not Lakshmi, but the silent deity of suffering. We must name her truth if we are to speak of ethics.
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II. Money Is Not Wealth, But Command
Money is not soil, not food, not relationships. Money is a claim, a promissory ticket for another’s labor. When you hold ₹1,000, you hold the present value of someone else’s time, effort, life. Converting life into digits is a subtle violence. Money disciplines perception, teaching us to see the world as transaction.
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III. Earning Is Built on Imbalance
Ethics demands fairness, but our economic system enshrines asymmetry:
Wages underpay relative to value extracted.
Profit relies on buying cheap and selling dear.
Interest gains from tomorrow's labor.
Rent gains with zero labor.
No form of earning escapes structural extraction.
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IV. Case Study: The ₹1,200 Shirt
Imagine buying a ₹1,200 cotton shirt in Bengaluru:
Cotton likely grown by a farmer drowning in debt—India recorded 11,290 farming-sector suicides in 2022, averaging one per hour .
Rivers near dye-houses are polluted; the stitcher, often a young woman in Tiruppur, earns barely ₹2,000/month.
Mall electricity comes from coal that displaced Adivasis.
The profit margins swell a supply chain hidden in obscurity.
Your “clean salary” converted that shirt—yet in doing so, your coin flowed through fields of suffering.
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V. India’s “Billionaire Raj”
Inequality in India today exceeds that seen even under British rule. The top 1% now hold 22.6% of national income and 40.1% of national wealth . This concentration places India among the most unequal societies globally . Mumbai alone hosts more billionaires than any other Asian city .
Such inequality is not abstract—it is structural.
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VI. Myth and Epic Warnings
In the Mahabharata, Yudhishthira bets everything on dice—numbers that make him forget familial duty. Money today is our dice, and generations are wagered.
In the Ramayana, Rama walks into exile to uphold dharma over comfort. Would we dare offer our wealth—born of exploited labor and polluted rivers—and call it righteous?
These epics warn: when numbers eclipse dharma, chaos follows.
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VII. The Myth of Honest Labor
Personal integrity can’t inoculate against systemic impurity.
A teacher’s salary is funded by students excluded by fee; chalk comes from exploited mines; cement from ravaged hills. Even the noblest acts are entangled in an unjust system.
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VIII. Global Impacts
Your petrol invoice is layered in geopolitical injustice: drill sites, wars, displaced communities. Your smartphone relies on cobalt harvested amid humanitarian crisis. Comfort comes at the cost of far-away suffering.
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IX. Counterarguments — And Why They Fall Short
Fair trade or ethical business? They dim one light, but the structure still reduces life to price.
Progressive taxation? Redistribution is necessary, but it doesn’t alter the origin of exploitation.
Voluntary simplicity? Honourable, but unless money itself changes, simplicity still rests on stolen moments.
We can polish the system—but we cannot remove its intrinsic design without dismantling its core.
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X. Hidden Debts — Ecological, Social, Historical
Every rupee holds:
Ecological debt: deforestation, poisoned rivers.
Social debt: unpaid domestic work, caste exclusion.
Historical debt: colonization, displacement, systemic injustice.
Your balance is not clean; it is stained ledger of debt.
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XI. Empirical Anchors of Inequity
Farmer suicides: ~11,290 in one year alone .
Wealth concentration: Top 1% hold ~40% wealth, while bottom 50% hold as little as ~6% .
Billionaire wealth usage: A one-time 5% tax on India’s ten richest could fund primary education for millions .
Caste skew: ~88% of billionaire wealth lies with upper castes .
These facts are not peripheral—they are the foundation of our discourse.
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XII. Psychological Corruption
Money remaps our hearts:
Neighbors become competition.
Relationships measured in rupees.
Time valued only when paid.
Wisdom seen as less than wealth.
Money corrupts us before we touch it.
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XIII. Towards Practical Honesty
Not despair, but confession. Replace claims of purity with truth: “I live on debts I cannot repay.”
Then act:
Consume less.
Support fair wages.
Resist consumerism.
Give without expecting return.
Treat labor and soil as sacred.
Press for redistribution and structural change.
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XIV. Closing — The Whisper of Humility
So, can money be earned ethically? Not in our current structure. Earning is entangled with extraction. Money cannot be clean.
But confession isn’t defeat. It is the first act of repair. So let us whisper, not boast:
> “I do not earn purely. I live on debts unseen. May I repay—not in rupees, but through restraint, care, and solidarity.”
If this whisper rises, it may transform the future.
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Earning Is Another Word For Exploiting
-- a dialogue with Madhukar
The characters:
Madhukar – Off-grid healer, thinker, farmer-philosopher. Calm, grounded, but uncompromising.
Economist – Urban professor, sharp with theories of markets, believes in efficiency and honest wages.
Socialist – Fired-up activist, convinced the only problem is distribution; believes “ethical earning” is possible through collective ownership and fair wages.
[Scene: A mud path leads into Madhukar’s small homestead in Yelmadagi. Mud-walled hut, solar panels, vegetable patch, goats wandering. A neem tree shades three charpoys. Madhukar sits cross-legged, sipping buttermilk. The Economist and the Socialist arrive, notebook and pamphlets in hand.]
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Economist:
Dr. Madhukar, I read your essay. You say money cannot be earned ethically. But isn’t honest work with fair pay ethical?
Socialist:
Yes. The problem is who controls money. Workers owning production can make earning fair.
Madhukar (smiling):
Both of you bring ideas to fix the problem. But first, you must see the problem clearly.
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I. What Money Is
Economist:
Money is just a tool for trade.
Madhukar:
No. Money is a claim. A note is a command over someone else’s work or resources. When you hold money, it carries other people’s labor. Money is never neutral.
Socialist:
If everyone controls it together, can it be fair?
Madhukar:
Even then, life is converted to numbers. Ownership does not remove that.
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II. The Shirt
Madhukar (holding a cotton kurta):
This shirt — the cotton came from a farmer in debt. The dye went into rivers. A young girl stitched it for very little. The mall sold it with coal-powered lights.
Even with “honest” wages, your money passed through many hands of suffering.
Economist:
Growth can help fix this. Surplus can support the harmed.
Madhukar:
If it costs soil, water, health, and lives, is it truly growth?
Socialist:
Then let workers control production and distribute fairly.
Madhukar:
Fair wages cannot clean poisoned rivers or exhausted bodies. You can only shift money, not the suffering.
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III. Lessons from Epics
Madhukar:
Yudhishthira gambled away his kingdom. Money today is the same dice. Rama left Ayodhya to uphold dharma. Can we call wealth built on suffering righteous?
Economist:
That’s mythology. Economics is different.
Madhukar:
Myth teaches what numbers forget.
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IV. Hidden Debts
Madhukar (pointing to soil):
Every rupee carries debt:
Ecological: forests, rivers
Social: unpaid labor, caste exclusion
Historical: colonization, dispossession
Your salary is borrowed from these debts.
Socialist:
If we remove money, how will society work?
Madhukar:
This “order” is already suffering. You just call it normal.
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V. Clarity
Economist:
Should I stop earning, stop teaching?
Madhukar:
No. But stop saying: I earn ethically. Say: I live on debts I cannot repay.
From honesty comes humility. From humility comes restraint. You may use money, but you will not worship it.
Socialist:
And justice?
Madhukar:
Justice comes when we reduce our claim on others. When we give more than we take. When we stop harming.
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VI. Departure
[The Economist and Socialist rise, folding notebooks and pamphlets. They walk among the goats, silent, thinking.]
Economist:
No salary is fully clean.
Socialist:
Even collective wages cannot remove all harm.
Madhukar:
Yes. That is clarity. You came asking if money can be earned ethically. You leave knowing it cannot.
But from this knowing, a new life begins: a life of giving, not just earning.
[They leave the homestead. The neem tree sways. The buttermilk bowl remains half-full. The goats chew on.]
Coins of Smoke
the morning smells of wet earth and chai
the milkman clatters past
his bicycle bell ringing
like a prayer no one hears
the women in the lane laugh at nothing
their hands still smelling of turmeric and soap
the city wakes
spits smoke
and the banks open like hungry mouths
i think about money
the way it sits heavy in the pocket
like a stone that was never thrown
like a child in another village
who will never wear new shoes
the dust of rice fields on his soles
and the note in my hand
is only a claim
to that dust
to that sweat
to that child’s silence
in the train
someone sells snacks wrapped in plastic
made by hands cut short by hours
the whistle blows
i watch the rails bending under the heat
the iron smells of coal
and some man far away
counts rupees
while another counts ribs of firewood
to feed a family of four
and we call it honest trade
the cows roam the street
licking puddles of petrol and rain
their breath smells of gasoline
their tails flick at the gods
who no longer answer
temples glitter
but the coins in the plate
are rivers
that never reach the sea
just pools in a dry corner
of someone’s ledger
i drink tea
from a cracked cup
and the chaiwala smiles
his teeth yellow
his lungs half gone
he tells me he earns enough
to send a child to school
but the fees rise
like a storm
and his daughter will stitch saris
under a neon lamp
counting every fold
while i walk home
thinking about the stone in my pocket
the mango tree sheds leaves
a beggar sleeps beneath it
wrapped in newspaper
coins rattling in his tin
each one a promise
he did not ask for
he will never cash
yet they press against his palm
like hope he does not own
there is a man in a factory
counting bolts
his fingers black
his wrists sore
his boss counts profit
and calls it growth
the man counts hours
and calls it life
both lie to themselves
both know it
but the numbers keep moving
like water in canals
without banks
and i think of rivers
the ganga, the kaveri
the yamuna
all choked with plastic, soap, dye
each rupee that flows past me
already soaked in something
i can never rinse
even the air smells of debt
even the rain tastes borrowed
in the evening
the streets smell of onions and exhaust
i pass a child
selling bangles
her fingers sticky with glue
her hair dusty
and i wonder
does she know
her work feeds the city
or the rich man counting his margin
from miles away
the coins he will never touch
the pain he will never feel
the moon rises
over the terrace
over the flat rooftops
over the farms far behind the city
and all of it
breathes a slow sigh
money moves like smoke
through hands that never hold it
through mouths that never taste it
through hearts that never feel it
but everyone bends
to it
or thinks they own it
or worships it in temples
or in accounts
or in briefcases
or in wallets
or in dreams
and i remember the old man
who refused a pension
because it came from taxes
collected by other men’s labor
he said,
“i will live with the earth
with the sun
with what i can touch
with what i can see
but never with stolen sweat
even if they call it mine”
and i know
we are all drowning
in bills and wages
in coins and receipts
in promises we cannot keep
and the children born today
will count the same numbers
and sweat the same dust
and call it life
yet
somewhere
someone still plants a tree
somewhere
a woman folds cloth
with care
somewhere
a boy sings under a mango tree
not thinking of money
not thinking of profit
and that is enough
to remind me
that not everything is claimed
not everything is owed
not everything can be bought
or sold
or counted
or measured
or measured again
the night stretches
over the villages and the cities
over the highways and the canals
over the factories
over the schools
over the temples
and all the coins of smoke
float above it
and the wind whispers
what cannot be written
what cannot be earned
what cannot be owned
and i sip water from my cup
look at the stars above Yelmadagi
and i know
that money is a story
told to control hands
to measure hearts
to weigh lives
but life itself
laughs
and breathes
and does not ask
for a rupee
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Sources & Evidence:
Farmer suicides and income breakdown:
Wealth & income inequality, “Billionaire Raj”:
Taxing billionaires as remedy:
Mumbai billionaire concentration:
