Harikeśa: In a system of bartering it's very hard to cheat.
Prabhupāda: Yes. There is no cheating. Everyone is simply simple, honest. And here the government begins cheating. He is engaging you to hard work day and night and paying you a piece of paper, where it is written "one hundred dollars." That's all. This is your society, cheating and cheater. That's all.
Harikeśa: People have a hard time understanding that point, because with a hundred dollar note you can buy things.
Prabhupāda: Therefore I say you are all rascals. You do not know. If I say, the government may arrest me that I am infusing people in a different way. But that is the fact.
Harikeśa: So a government's duty would be to abolish this false standard of money, and then automatically...
Prabhupāda: Yes. Government's only duty is that government gives me land and I pay tax: "Whatever I produce, take one fourth." Finish. All taxes. If I don't produce, there is no tax. That's all. That is the business between the government and the public. That's all.
Harikeśa: If the public are giving like one quarter of a perishable item, what does the government do with that? Let's say they were growing some vegetables, so they give one quarter of that to the government. What would the government do with that? They've got so many tons of vegetables.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Harikeśa: And everybody is taken care of, because they are growing it.
Prabhupāda: After all, vegetable will be eaten by somebody. So let government distribute there. Vegetable, grains, fruits, milk, ghee, yogurt, natural produce—they will be used by somebody. The government may store and distribute, those who are in need. That's all.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Maybe somebody is only producing gold or gold plates, or somebody is producing something that isn't food. So he would give that to the government.
Prabhupāda: Well, gold plates, that is not a necessary thing. He can eat on plantain leaf, natural production. That is luxury. So when people live simple life, the luxuries will no more be required.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Let's say the government is building some wells or some roads. They could feed the people who are doing that, śūdras who are doing that.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Śūdras, that "You dig this well and take your food." That's all. Work will go on. At the present moment I require one scissor. I can go to the blacksmith and pay him some grain. He will give me. Now they are producing, Krupp Company in Germany, millions of razor, millions of scissors. Now they will have to find market, where to sell. And as soon as goes to sell in India, the British government—"No, no. You cannot sell." Then he becomes angry: "Oh, all right." He declares war.