How to Tell Nourishing from Exploiting

Nobody wants to be exploited. Manav Vyavahar Darshan (मानव व्यवहार दर्शन) opens its chapter on the subject with exactly that sentence. And yet exploitation is everywhere: in workplaces, in trade, in families, in how we treat the land.

Much of it isn’t intended. We pay a price without asking how it was reached. We take from a relationship without noticing what we give back. We use the soil without asking what it needs. What helps is a clear test.

This may sound like saying any exchange where one side gains is exploitation. It isn’t. A fair exchange nourishes both sides. Exploitation is when one side’s gain comes from holding the other back.

A one-line test

Shri A. Nagraj gives it as two short formulas. A unit plus a favourable unit is nourishment (पोषण). A unit minus a favourable unit is exploitation (शोषण). In other words: when something adds to another’s growth, it is nourishing. When it takes away from another’s growth, it is exploiting.

He then states the test in its widest form. Everything that obstructs development and awakening is exploiting. Everything that moves it forward is nourishing.

The Paribhasha Sanhita adds what nourishment includes. The body is nourished by things. But people are also nourished in understanding, honesty, responsibility and participation.

“Whatever moves another’s growth forward is nourishing. Whatever holds it back is exploiting.”

At every level

The book applies the test at four levels:

• In a person’s own life, nourishment comes through understanding.
• In society, through own wealth (स्वधन), meaning wealth fairly earned or freely given, through faithfulness between partners, and through kindness.
• In a nation, through an order that keeps justice intact.
• Between nations, through treating humanity as one and undivided.

It is equally clear about what exploitation looks like between people: taking others’ wealth, and causing others pain by interfering in their lives. These, it says, are why people fear each other, and they give rise to hatred, terror, violence and counter-violence. Against interference it sets kindness (दया), which it defines as letting others live, and making things available to people according to what they are able to use.

Step 1: Apply the test to each relationship

Take the relationships you are part of, one by one, and ask: does this leave the other person more able, more understanding, more responsible? Or does it leave them less? Then ask the same about what they give you.

A parent who does everything for a grown child may be holding them back without meaning to. A teacher whose students depend on them forever has missed something. Nourishing, by the book’s test, always moves the other person forward. What each relationship asks of us is set out in What Does Each Relationship Ask of Us?

Step 2: Apply it to work and trade

Ask the same question of your work. Does the business I work in, or run, leave the people it deals with better off? Employees more skilled? Customers better served? Suppliers paid fairly? Or does its gain come from holding someone back: low pay, hidden costs, a customer who doesn’t understand what they are buying?

A fair exchange nourishes both sides. We look at how to make exchange fair in How Should Things Be Priced? and at what a business should measure in How Should a Business Measure Success?

Step 3: Apply it to nature

The book draws the line for nature plainly. Minerals and forests should be spent in proportion to what they produce. Taking more than that is exploitation, and the earth is damaged. Keeping nature’s cycles going is nourishing. Breaking them, and using up what doesn’t renew, is exploiting.

So ask: does the way I farm, build, buy or travel keep the cycle going, or break it? We set out how much to take in How Much Should We Take from the Earth?

Step 4: Start with your own happiness

The book makes one more observation that is easy to pass over: a happy person is able to nourish others. Someone who is anxious, afraid or dissatisfied may take, often without knowing it; someone who is settled has something to give. We read this as a description of behaviour, not a judgement of people who are struggling. Plenty of people who are struggling give generously.

So part of the work of nourishing others is becoming settled oneself: knowing what is enough, understanding one’s relationships, being free of fear. We look at this in How to Make Happiness Last.

An example

A small furniture workshop takes on two apprentices. In one version, they sweep floors and carry wood for three years, are paid little, and are never taught the hard parts of the craft, in case they leave and compete. In another, they are taught everything, paid fairly as their skill grows, and helped to set up on their own when they are ready.

The first workshop may make more money in the short run. By the book’s test, it is exploiting: its gain comes from holding the apprentices back. The second is nourishing. And the second, over time, gains trusted colleagues and a reputation, rather than resentment.

And the planet?

The same test that applies between people applies between people and the earth. A field farmed so that its soil grows richer each year is nourished. A field farmed until it is exhausted is exploited. Most environmental damage is exploitation by this definition: taking in a way that leaves nature less able to renew. The book’s rule, taking only in proportion to what is produced, is nourishing applied to the planet. We look at living this way in How to Live in a Relationship with Nature.

And our happiness?

Exploitation, the book says, is why people fear each other. Every relationship in which one side takes from the other carries a quiet tension, and often resentment. Relationships that nourish both sides remove that fear. And there is a simpler happiness too: the satisfaction of watching someone grow because of something you gave.

A protocol to try

Choose three relationships: one at home, one at work, and one with nature, such as a garden, a field or what you buy. For each, ask: does this nourish, or exploit?

Pick the one where the answer is least comfortable, and change one thing about it this month.

Limitations

• Exploitation is often built into systems that no single person controls. This post looks at what each of us can do in our own relationships, work and use of nature. It doesn’t address changing those systems.
• The book’s idea of growth is awakening: growth in understanding. We have also used it in the ordinary sense of becoming more able. The two overlap, but they aren’t the same.
• In its account of social nourishment, the book also names faithfulness between partners. We mention it only briefly here.
• The four steps are our own arrangement, and we haven’t yet tested them.

References

1. Shri A. Nagraj, Manav Vyavahar Darshan (मानव व्यवहार दर्शन), p. 124 (no one wants to be exploited; the two formulas; what obstructs awakening is exploiting, what advances it is nourishing), p. 125 (a happy person is able to nourish others; the roots of fear between people), p. 127 (nourishment at the personal, social, national and international levels), p. 146 (kindness and interfering in others’ lives; taking from nature in proportion to what it produces)
2. Madhyasth Darshan Paribhasha Sanhita, पोषण (nourishment), p. 118