GANDHI: “Industrialism is, I am afraid, going to be a curse for mankind. Industrialism depends entirely on your capacity to exploit, on foreign markets being open to you, and on the absence of competitors. (Village Swaraj, p. 11)”
PRABHUPADA: “Manufacture of the “necessities of life” in factories and workshops, excessively prominent in the age of Kali, or in the age of the machine, is the summit stage of the quality of darkness. Such manufacturing enterprises by human society are in the mode of darkness because factually there is no necessity for the commodities manufactured…
“Increasing the artificial needs, as is the standard of material civilization, or advancing the economic development of human society, is a sort of engagement in darkness, without knowledge. By such engagement, human energy is spoiled, because human energy is primarily meant for purifying the senses in order to engage them in satisfying the senses of the Supreme Lord.”
Srimad Bhagavatam Canto 2: Chapter Five, Text 30: PURPORT
THOMAS MERTON: “Those who seek to build a better world without God are those who, trusting in money, power, technology and organization, deride the spiritual strength of faith and love and fix all their hopes on a huge monolithic society, having a monopoly over all power, all production, and even over the minds of its members. But to alienate the spirit of man by subjecting him to such monstrous indignity is to make injustice and violence inevitable. By such means we may indeed increase economic production but in doing so we will only make the world worse.”
From Disputed Questions by Thomas Merton
(San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers, Inc. 1960), page 129.
Gandhi and Sp quotes shamelessly lifted from an article by Hare Krishna dd
Thomas Merton was a Vaisnava who lived as a vegetarian American Cistercian monk, rising daily for Matins, who was on his way to India when he met an untimely end in Thailand.
View From a New Vrindaban Ridge 
September 18, 2006 at 12:21 am
Therefore the leading states of this exploitive monstrosity will engage in aggressive murderous campaigns around the planet subjecting its defenseless citizens to harsh conditions. Those who dare to fight this demonic system will be labeled extremist, radical, fundamentalist, terrorists, crazy, uncivilized and bound to end up dead or incarcerated in their massive prisons. By espousing half truths to validate their propaganda the dimwitted are pacified and better left to be concerned with strangers who play well with balls rather than entertain the arena of intelligent discussion. (no offense to those who love playing with balls)
September 18, 2006 at 10:04 am
None taken. The best way is to live a lifestyle of simplicity, consuming the least amount possible, and eschewing as many consumer goods as possible. To find happiness within, rather than making one’s happiness dependent on possession of external things.
August 26, 2007 at 1:52 am
not of so much help
May 20, 2009 at 2:34 pm
Terrific post=) Will visit again,,
August 30, 2009 at 9:32 am
We are doing everything that we are NOT supposed not to do. What an irony, the more we are trying to avoid death, our ways are taking us closer to it in the worst possible manner. We are partaking in a genocide unless we raise our voice against it-however feeble. Let nothing stop us from speaking the truth. Let us not commit this spiritual and social suicide.
August 30, 2009 at 12:50 pm
Thank you for commenting.