Once someone told me that the reason I didn’t want property was that I was incompetent. That is completely wrong. Gandhi did not want property, and he was competent enough.

Someone else told me that the reason I didn’t want property was that I wanted power. Also completely wrong. I do not seek to rule anyone, and I do not seek to kill anyone; I seek to influence with my thought.

I never wanted property; but there was time in my life when I wanted money. The reason I wanted money was that I thought that I would only be able to have credibility if I had money. I found out that this is untrue, and that there are many ways toward credibility. Jesus Christ, Karl Marx, Mother Theresa, John Keats, Albert Einstein, Nicola Tesla, Mohammad and Hindu swamis did not have much money, but all of them ended up having greater credibility than most American millionaires.

Is money good or bad? Money is a tool. Tools are what you are using them for. I have respect for technologies such as computers and the Internet, that make things better for many people. I have no respect for people who burn the Amazonian rainforest or insist on flooding the atmosphere with CO2 when there are better technologies that can do the job.

So there are people who see abuses of money and think that money is bad. Anything that has appeal to people can be used for wrong. The problem is not with the value but with its misuse. I am not against money, and I am not against capitalism. I am against brainless business practices and bad technologies. And I am also against coercion on people to have property when they don’t want any.

There was a woman on an Internet forum to which I posted who accused a number of people there of having enough property to fit in a paper bag. She said it like it was a bad thing. These people didn’t overconsume, and they didn’t pollute. And any number of them were hard enough workers.

Since when did having property become the definition of responsibility and success? What is encouraged here is something completely irresponsible. What is being encouraged here is reckless consumption, that leaves the world a worse place than one has found it. Responsibility is not about having a huge house and a Hummer. It is about leaving the world a better place than one has found it. And these people have left the world a worse place.

Once again, I am not against money and I am not against capitalism. I am however against irresponsible practices that leave the world a worse place. Money itself is not, as some Christians think, evil. However as with anything there are potentials of abuse; and money lends itself to being abused. It is not right to militate against money; it is however right to correct the abuses done for it.

Doing that then becomes the task of human intelligence. It is to benefit both nature and civilization at the same time. It is to fulfil people’s material needs in a way that is not ruinous to nature. It is to convert to better technologies. And it is also to do away with coercion toward property acquisition at the expense of all the other things that a person can do.

Once again, Gandhi did not want property, but he was successful and responsible enough. Much more so than most American yuppies. There are any number of ways toward accomplishment, and there are any number of ways toward success. There are also any number of ways toward credibility. It becomes incumbent to see which ways these are and do what one can for the world, whatever nonsense anyone may say about one’s competence levels or power ambitions.