GANDHI AND THE FUTURE OF ECONOMICS - BOOK REVIEW
Howard Richards
and Joanna Swanger, Gandhi and the Future
of Economics: Dialogues with some Indian Intellectuals. Ed. Fr. Ivo Coelho,
SDB. Lake Oswego: World Dignity University Press, 2013. ISBN 978-1-937570-29-3. Pp. 304.
Economics and morality are two important fields in
world today. Both can affect each other: as economy grows, morality is simplified
in the modern world. Seemingly every nation is judged by its economy rather
than morality. Some even strongly feel that modern economy has nothing to do with
morality. But year ago Gandhi held that
modern civilization would self destruct and economical progress without moral
progress is useless and adharma. Gandhi was even thought to be irrational for
his view. But two people, who have realized of Gandhi’s prediction coming true,
are Howard Richards and Joanna Swanger. Thus this book becomes the fruit of
their positive approach to Gandhian economics which emphasizes much on morality.
This work is divided into eight main chapters excluding
the introduction (7), and the first one specifically on Gandhian economical
thinking and other seven chapters are on seven Indian renowned intellectuals
namely Jawaharlal Nehru, Jayaprakash Narayan, Tariq Ali, Vandana Shiva,
Arundhati Roy, Amartya Sen, and Monmohan Singh whom the authors encountered,
discussed Gandhian thought and gained comparison and contrasts (17). As the editor
Ivo Coelho would say this book is not meant to be a research work but to shed
more light on the known thought of Gandhi (10). The purpose of this book is to
prove the realized truth of Gandhi’s prediction that the modern civilization is
unsustainable and that he wisely identified reasons for its unsustainability (14).
The 1st chapter on ‘Gandhi
and the Future of Economics’ holds that Gandhi’s ideal Indian Village was not
completely imaginary but practical too (21).
Despite the authors’ acknowledgement of five reasons why this book’s
view can be wrong, this chapter also discusses two main aspects of Gandhian
thought i.e. caste and Hind Swaraj. Firstly the authors claim that Gandhi’s
Varnashram makes sense in the context of the ideal Indian Village (29), which
accords equal respect regardless of caste or calling (30). The authors raise
the question why Gandhi conceived caste as a positive contribution to his ideal
village rather than some wise realization of western ideas (32), and try to
answer by holding that it was more practical for Gandhi to reform caste (to
which people were accustomed) towards the better result than starting from the
scratch (39). Secondly the main thrust
of Hind Swaraj was “that the ‘modern so called civilization’ was adharma” (46)
and that material progress without moral progress does not create better
society (48).
The 2nd chapter presents
Nehru’s critiques to Gandhi’s economical views (60), his enormous failure in
bringing an end to India’s poverty (87), their misunderstanding of each other
(61), and authors’ proof that Gandhi was more scientific and rational than
Nehru (84). Nehru thought Gandhi was on the side of the rich though embraced
poverty publically (70). While Nehru was worried about just economical progress,
Gandhi concentrated on the moral progress, and economics was just one of the
items of his constructive program (69). Besides that, Nehru also held that the
destruction of traditional village, co-operative system and services and
function by British people brought an enormous declaim in Indian economics
(56-57). The following view of Gandhi is much explained is this chapter: “Humanity does not search for low prices in
a spirit of bargain. The humane in people even in purchases seeks opportunities
for service, and therefore wants to know first not the price of the article of
purchase but the condition of its producers, and makes purchases in a manner
that serves the most needy and the most deserving.”(81).
The 3rd
chapter mainly discusses the cause and consequence of overproduction in views
of Jeyaprakash Narayan for whom it was lack of purchasing power of the workers
and exploitation. This view of Narayan is criticized by the authors from John
Maynard Keynes, Marx and Gandhian viewpoints (93-94). But over the years, Narayan, who started as a
socialist, firmly believed in Soviet Union (97), began to agree with Gandhi
towards the end of his life and echoed him (111). For Gandhi, the primary task
of work is not money but spirit of service to the community (112). Narayan’s
proposed socialist Gandhian grassroots communities, where there would be very
little overproduction (114). His famous slogan was “Total Revolution” which
meant a constructive process improving upon every aspects of life not only
economy (115) and “which proposed a communitarian nonviolent transformation of
civil society” (206).
The 4th
chapter compares Tariq Ali’s (who is a contemporary intellectual born in India
though his native later became a part of Pakistan) views of revolutionary
socialism to Gandhian thinking (128), and presents two ways achieving a
classless society through a class divided-society (129,133). Ali is a firm
proponent of the first way which proposes two-class-society of upper and lower
class (working class) as regarded by Marx (138). Ali argues that religious Gandhi
made irreligious Nehru the president of the Congress because; Gandhi could have
a “control over him and thus prevent him from leading revolutionary mass action”
(141). The authors also depict Gandhi’s attempt to put into practice Tolstoy’s
principal of Truth and Non-violence (145), and present the failures of the
various other proposed theories and therefore, propose Gandhi’s untested
feasibility of change of the society through ethical action (150).
The 5rd
chapter presents Vandana Shiva’s view that solution for the problem of exercise
bureaucracy is not capitalism but a decentralized, ecological and ethical
economy in Gandhian lines (157). It also pictures her condemnations of certain policies
(158), and her alternative proposals for food security in line with Gandhi (159).
There are four main characteristics of an authentic community, one of which is
that the community cares for its members (166). This chapter gives an
explanation of the failure of Gandhi’s projects due to incompatibility of
cotton spinning and the other schemes (169). The inability of Khadi to compete
in the market with mill cloth was due to consumer’s search for low prices of
mill clothes rather than looking at the condition of the producers and make
purchases in a manner that helps the needy (174). According to Gandhi, all
lands belong to God (‘state’ in secular sense) and we are all trustees (185).
He also gives different answers to the question: How should a community respond
when these trustees put ‘self’ above the ‘service’. Firstly we need to
patiently wait for nonviolent conversion of thief (trustee). Secondly they will
be legally compelled to do their duty by laws. And “as a last resort their
property should be taken over by the state” (186).
The 6th
chapter makes some points regarding the measurement of welfare, the causes of
famine and a comparison of Amertya Sen’s “concept of Public action to increase
welfare with Gandhi’s nonviolent constructive program” (191). The cause of
famine is not the lack of availability but lack of legal entitlement to food
(190). The authors criticize the ‘regularly accepted rights of ownership and
exchange’ (204), and Sen criticizes Arrow’s use of ‘preference’ as an
explanatory category in economics (205). The
dynamic principal of Gandhian ideal village was the spirit of ‘service’
(219), and one way to carry out such spirit is the use of Sen’s public action
to transform the global economy which prerequisites the use of markets only as
tools to serve humanity, and the constructive revision of the regularly
accepted right of ownership and exchange (220).
The 7th
chapter makes it clear “what is going on when Arundhati Roy talks of economic
cause”, which would help the reader to understand “some relationship between
the way she thinks and the way Gandhi thinks” (227). Roy proves that Gandhi’s
nonviolence was real and not a political theatre (224). Roy is convinced that
Gandhi’s ‘Khadi’ and ‘Salt march’ were powerful nonviolent weapons to chase
British out of India (225). The author
proves Roy’s claim that militarism is a structural feature of the U.S. social
and economic order (234, 237). Law of love is much emphasized in economical
progress (242). The “adharma premises of modernity are unworkable, modernity
unsustainable, destined to self-destruct”. Gandhi’s radical ideas can be
reconsidered (250).
The 8th
chapter ‘’Manmohan Singh’ is, as Ivo Coelho would say in the ‘Foreword’, the
crowning piece of the book for it answers the questions whether the advice
currently being given to developing nations by neoliberals is a good advice or
not, by holding “No”. Neoliberals’ views “that full employment will obtain when
there is no ‘bias against employment’ is neither theoretically valid” nor
empirical evident (290). But India is
compelled to follow their advice “as by la force des choses” (29-300). The
authors also answer the question whether it is desirable to change the basic
structures of the modern world, by holding ‘Yes’ (291). Because the ideas of
Gandhi can become a rich path for progressive social transformation in this
dark age where there is no any other possibility for progressive change. If
Manmohan Singh had realized in 1962, when he was doing his doctoral theses,
that the result of following a path which would make India very soon dependent
on foreign markets for its basic necessities and which would make India
subservient to the imperatives of markets, he might have concluded that
Gandhi’s path of self-reliance had been the right path to be followed (301).
Some
information about the authors can also help us for better understanding of the
book. “Howard Richards is philosopher of social science” and “emeritus Research
Professor of Philosophy” with thirty years of teaching experience at Earlham
College, USA. At present, he lives in Chile teaching in the doctoral program in
management sciences at the University of Santiago and has published many books
and articles with social issues (302). “Joanna Swanger is an historian and
Director of Peace and Global Studies Program and Assistant Professor of Peace
and Global Studies” and “has produced so many articles and essays about the
borderlands”. Ivo Coelho, SDB, the editor, is the present “Rector of the
Studium Theologicum Salesianum in Jerusalem”, who “earned his PhD in philosophy
at the Gregorian university, Rome, for his work on “the Development of the
Notion of the Universal Viewpoint in Bernard Lonergan: From Insight to Method
in Theology” (1994)”. He is a professor of philosophy with ____ years of
teaching experience in Divyadaan: Salesian Institute of Philosophy, and has
published many works as both writer and editor.
This book is
an interesting and important work and guide in the field of economy which comes
out with an enriching research of Gandhian economical view to be very practical
and rich resource for progressive social transformation. All the nine chapters including ‘Introduction’ have earlier
been published in the successive issues of Divyadaan: Journal of Philosophy and
Education from 2009 to 2012 (304).
