The Economy of Permanence: A Quest for a Social Order Based on Non-violence (स्थायी अर्थतन्त्र)

Economy of Permanence

their genius. They get every man to work to a certain plan. Were there no plans
there would have been no British Empire and there would be no British trade.
So the whole of their financial schemings and imperial preferences, the fleet,
and the shipping policy-all these make the plan. It may not be a national plan;
it may be a London centred plan, or may be a Bank of England centred plan;
but it is a plan all the same.
Therefore all these plan whether it is the Soviet Plan, or the American Plan, or
the British Plan-they all have certain factors for their background. If these
factors do not exist in our country and those circumstances do not hold good
here at present, and yet if we plan on the same lines as they had done, then
we shall surely fail.
PLAN OF ACTIVITY
In India, afflicted with poverty, dirt, disease and ignorance, our plan should
cover the following main centres of activity.

1. Agriculture
2. Village Industries.
3. Sanitation, Health and Housing.
4. Village Education.
5. Village Organisation.
6. Village Culture.
   THE AIM
   When the Russians planned, Russia was under the Czarist regime. The
   aristocrats were rolling in wealth and the peasants were extremely oppressed.
   Naturally, the peasants said: "When we come into power, we must be rolling in
   wealth." Rolling in wealth means satisfying a multiplicity of wants-palatial
   houses, plenty of material goods, pleasures and the rest of it-and they made
   that their goal and they worked towards that. Their plans took root in that soil.
   It has been repeatedly stated that we want to remove poverty. Poverty again is
   a term which requires definition. Poverty, somebody said, is inability to meet

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