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

Economy of Permanence
The more our actions are based on such spiritual appraisal, which values
objects in their true setting and perspective, the purer our lives will be and
surer will be the foundations of the road to an economy of permanence, leading
humanity to happiness and peace through the medium of non-violence.
VALUES
Self-centred Altruistic
Physical Material Emotional Moral Social Spiritual
Satisfies Satisfies Satisfies
primary artificial mental
needs wants desires
www.mkgandhi.org Page 40

Economy of Permanence
IX. VALUATION
The standard of value applied and the method of valuation used impress their
characteristic trait on their users. The spirit of the most predominant value
that prevails amongst a people will colour a whole civilization for centuries.
Hence the great importance of choosing our standard consciously and
deliberately.
The old civilization of Egypt. Babylon, Greece and Rome are no more to tell
their tale. They have vanished after a few centuries of brief, glamorous
splendour because as the standards on which they were built were
predominantly self-centered and transient, their whole organization and system
were poisoned by the institution of slavery and extortion of tributes from
subject races, as we noted in passing in the last chapter. No doubt, the Greeks
and the Romans have left indelible marks of their emotional and self-centred
outlook and values in their sculpture, art and literature. These are but
heirlooms for their descendents to hug and cherish a dead past. Their
civilization is no longer a living force.
In striking contrast to these, the equally old, or even older civilizations of China
and India, which were founded on altruistic and objective values, testify even
to this day, their vitality and other attributes of permanence and non-violence
in their organization. Modern worldly wiseacres may throw cheap gibes at the
other worldliness and the religious trends of the orient. There is nothing to be
apologetic in this, which after all distinguished a progressive human being from
a prowling beast. The enduring qualities of these civilization are pointers to the
great farsighted standards of value our forefathers had made use of, in laying
the foundations of a lasting society. If we are to continue to build on their lines
of permanence and non-violence, our standards too must be altruistic and
objective and not those that serve merely the needs of the moment. Especially
at the present juncture, while political organizations are in the melting pot and
so much thought is being put into the plans for the future, we have to be on our
guard.
www.mkgandhi.org Page 41

Economy of Permanence
Unfortunately for the present age, the parties that are playing the star roles on
the world are wielding mainly, if not solely monetary standards, which are
fleeting in their effect and influence. Everywhere, we hear talk of 'High
standards of living,¹ 'Raising the national income/ 'Increasing productive power
and efficiency', 'Making it pay in the modern world of competition' and a score
of such arresting slogans. The prevailing school of economic thought is built on
the quicks ands of Profit, Price, Purchasing Power and Foreign Trade. There is
no thought lost on the deeper things of life that mark our man from the other
orders. If anything there is even a dangerous tendency to treat with contempt
any mention of human or spiritual values. Hence the need for caution.
A few specimen applications of modern methods of measurement to some of
the treasures that have been handed down to us will disclose how absurd these
so-called up-to-date methods are in that setting.
The Director of the Pottery Works, after examining a rare specimen of Chinese
hand-painted vase, will exclaim "What! this article took so long to make. Why I
can produce a thousand pairs of such vases in a month."
The Lithograph expert visiting the Ajanta caves, which contain some of the
most wonderful mural paintings and frescoes in the world and which must have
taken decades or even centuries to produce, would promise to turn out
thousands of copies of these masterpieces in a matter of few weeks !
The oil seeds merchant will bewail the waste of acres of fertile land at
Shalimar Gardens, which, if placed under cultivation, might produce thousands
of maunds of groundnuts every year!
Seeing the ancient manuscripts, styled on palm leaves, which have inspired
many schools of Philosophy and have helped to mould lasting civilization, the
publishing genius will wonder at the inferior material used and will go on to
quote estimates to bring out an edition of it printed on 'Bond' paper at Rs 5/-
per copy !
A contractor, who supplies tea table to Irani restaurants, will conden the waste
of good marble on a tomb at Agra. He will compute how many thousands of
www.mkgandhi.org Page 42

Economy of Permanence
table tops could have been made out of the tons of serviceable marble used up
in building the Taj Mahal.
An expert cement concrete architect from New York will stand aghast at the
valuable time lost at Ellora in carving out three storeyed temples out of living
rock with elaborately chiselled figures adorning the pillars etc. He will be quite
unable to appreciate the great knowledge of geology which enabled the
ancients to select those rocks as flawless for such masterpieces of sculpture,
and the deep devotion that has gone into the making of them.
He will pride himself on the 60 oddstoreyed structures at New York, built like
so many kerosene tin packing cases, heaped one on top of another to reach up
to the heavens, at a fraction of the time it took to carve out these 'primitive'
temples. He may even promise to reproduce, within three months, the Kailash
temple of Ellora in good reinforced concrete from plaster cast taken from the
ancient monument, at a fraction of the cost of the original.
A race-horse dealer walking into Sevagram will forthwith proceed to evaluate
Gandhiji by looking into his mouth examining his teeth (which do not exist). He
will assign him to the Pinjrapole as being superannuated and useless.
The absurdity of the above valuations is on a par with that of the goldsmith
who walks into a rose garden and begins examining the flowers with a
touchstone— the only method of appraisal known to him.
All these ludicrous situations originate from applying the criteria of one
economy to another. For example the race-horse dealer, who belongs to the
Parasitic Economy, misapplies the only standard he is familiar with to one who
must be judged by canons that prevail in the Economy of Service.
As presented above these appear too ridiculous to be true, yet in actual life
such valuations are being insisted on, not by ignorant trades people but by
great scholars issuing forth from the renowned universities of the world. The
universities are used as hotbeds for raising theorists who will rationalize and
support the modern industrialist belonging to the first three economies— of
Parasitism, of Predation and of Enterprise.
www.mkgandhi.org Page 43

Economy of Permanence
Every solution of a problem will be tested by them on the universal touchstone
of 'Will it pay'? If a mother makes halva at the house, for her children, with the
purest of ghee, Prof. Dr. Wiseacre will ask the mother imposingly "If you do not
adulterate the ghee with some vegetable fat how can you compete in world
markets?" He will advise the mother to compute her cost of material adding to
it a certain amount indicating the cost of the time the mother spends in the
preparation of the sweet. This addition, he will insist, is in the interests of
scientific accuracy. Then he will want her to compare her cost so arrived at
with the 'market price' per seer. The simple mother will reply, "What are world
markets? Where are they held? I am only making this for my children to eat.
They must have the cleanest and purest of things. I am not interested in the
market price or in the scientifically computed cost per seer. How can I charge
up my time? Is not my whole life dedicated to the welfare of my family?" Dr.
Wiseacre will be astounded at the colossal ignorance of the rudiments of
economic science displayed by this 'Primitive, uncultured woman.' The
principles of the economy of service pervade the home, and the mother being
imbued with it, judges her own action accordingly; while the professor is
misapplying the methods prevalent in the Economy of Predation to one on
service basis. He has been familiarized in such methods, under laboratory
conditions of isolating all disturbing factors, to think in terms of one particular
principle only, regardless of the environment. However excellent such
processes may be as mental gymnastics, they ill qualify him to judge in the
outside world, where such simplified and artificial conditions do not exist.
A Professor of Physics, who has verified every principle of Dynamics by
experiments conducted in his elaborately equipped laboratory, may well state
that pieces of paper fall to the earth at the same rate — 32 ft. per second—as
bits of lead or other heavy metals. Any school boy will challenge this
statement. He will say, "Well, old man, you do not know what you are talking
about. I throw pebbles into our village well and watch them strike the water at
the bottom. I have also let pieces of paper fall into the well. The pebbles go
down to the water straight, while the bits of paper keep flying in the air and
sometimes even get blown right outside the well. I have been flying paper kites
www.mkgandhi.org Page 44

Economy of Permanence

which rise so that you can hardly see them. I bet you cannot fly lead kites". No
doubt, the learned professor is correct in his own simple laboratory under
artificial conditions, with vacuum tubes where there is no air resistance; but
the boy's simple words are wisdom in the outside complex world as it is found.
There are a hundred and one condition that enter into the consideration of any
problem. For a proper valuation, all those prevalent factors have to be taken
into account before deciding. Often values in least evidence are the more
lasting, while those that are most obvious-like money values-are the least
important from other considerations.

A Professor of Economics will say that price mechanism controls supply and
demand, the cheaper the article the greater the demand and so on. Is this
always true? In the outside world 'the economic man' does not exist. A woman,
who wishes to buy a saree, does not call for the cheapest article. She has her
own ideas of colour-combination, texture etc., and she would purchase that
which fulfils most of her notions. Similarly, a prince who prides on being
exclusive, may buy up a whole stock of ties of the same pattern that a dealer
may have, so that no one else may be seen wearing a tie like his. Again, a
petroleum company may buy up a patent of a vegetable oil burning lamp paying
a fabulous price for it, and leave the patent unexploited in a pigeon hole in its
office, to prevent anyone else bringing out a lamp that may adversely affect
the sales of its kerosene oil by creating a demand for a substitute. Such and
many other deviation from the academic standards of economics there are that
vitiate our unconditional acceptance of them.

The criterion used will have to suit, not only the particular case but should also
fit into the economy as a whole. A person garbed in the western style may hold
that Khadi at Re. I a yard is expensive while mill cloth sells at As. 12 a yard.
Here the criterion ignores the setting. The Khadi lover, if a villager, will have
grown his own cotton, gathered it, cleaned and spun it in his leisure time and
had it woven by his neighbour-the village weaver. He will wash his own clothes,
sit on the floor and have such other habits as fit into the village economy as a
whole. While the critic may have to pay heavily for tailoring charges of his suit

www.mkgandhi.org
Page 45

Economy of Permanence
by a competent tailor and for laundering his clothes by a professional dhobie as
he cannot afford to ruin the crease of his suits by sitting on the floor, he needs
a chair to sit on and that calls for a table to work on and other chairs to offer
to his visitors. His whole method of living becomes complicated and expensive.
Taken in this setting who can say that a few annas extra per yard makes the
Khadi way of life expensive, even apart from other social considerations ? We
cannot isolate one item of cost and compare it with another figure separated
from its setting. Often the value of a gem lies more in its setting in the jewel
than in itself. We have to consider the whole background of an economy under
each type. So far we have dealt with valuation from the point of view of the
user or the consumer.
"Can cottage industries exist in a machine age?" is a question one often hears
raised. The full consideration of this question may have to be deferred for a
later occasion but it may be pointed out here that 'cottage industries' is not
merely a method of production but stands for a type of economy of which it is
an integral part just as 'Large scale production' forms part of another type of
economy. The question posed above resolves itself into asking, which form of
economy is preferable, which again will depend on what our objectives are and
this will finally mean what our standards of value in life are. Therefore, values
and valuation are the pair that draw the chariot of Human Progress. They, in
the final analysis, determine the direction be taken-either towards permanence
and non-violence or towards transience and violence. Hence it is imperative to
be absolutely clear on these two factors, confusion in our standards and aim
leads to ruin.
In Travancore they make beautiful soft, white, mats out of split screwpine
leaves. In that part of the country each hut stands on its own land and is
surrounded and protected by low mud compound walls on which these
screwpine plants are grown. Once while no tour in that locality we halted to
inspect the making of these mats. The head mat-weaver of the village-a
mussalman came to explain to us the various processes in which men, women
and even children of the families took part. Then he led us to three or four
www.mkgandhi.org Page 46

Economy of Permanence

other houses to see others also at work. All the time he was with us he was
chanting but one chorus, 'Why is it that our industry does not flourish at present
as it did in the times of our father who, following this very occupation, became
wealthy enough to build these two storeyed houses while we, their
descendants, cannot even afford to repair?" After we had seen all that there
was to be seen, as it was midday, this man entreated us to accept his
hospitality. I asked my two Brahmin companions what they felt about it, They
said they would have no objection if the food was strictly vegetarian. Our
guide, on being told of this condition said that although he would like to have
meat, his poverty would not allow of it and, so perforce, he was obliged to be a
vegetarian. Beside, as our visit was not previously arranged or announced, we
had to take pot-luck and he would place before us whatever had been prepared
for the family. He warned us that food would be just plain rice and dhal and
pickles, but he assured us he would be highly pleased if we would partake at his
house even this frugal fare. We accepted his invitation more because of his
importunity and to see for ourselves his way of living at his house than because
of our need, and so we repaired to his home. While we were having a wash he
got the varandah prepared for us to sit down to our repast and all the while he
was reciting the same old query about the cause of the decay of the industry. I
was raking my mind as to what answer to give him. Just then he called us in to
take our seats. I was shown to the middle seat, being considered the chief
guest, and my two companions were assigned seats on either side of me. For
these two screwpine asans were placed and as I glanced at the seat meant for
my august personage, I exclaimed, "I now know why your industry is languishing
and you are facing ruin. The fault lies in your scale of values." He implored me
to explain how that was. I asked him, "Where did to get these asans spread of
my companions?" He replied, "Sir, they are specimens of the humble labour of
my hands. I made them." Then I enquired, "Where did you .get this mat that has
been spread for me with this tiger printed on it?" He said "That is a Japanese
mat I bought in the bazaar." I then explained, "Considering me the principal
guest you thought of honouring me by seating me on this Japanese mat while
you provided my friend with your own handiwork. This shows you valued the

www.mkgandhi.org Page 47

Economy of Permanence

Japanese mat more than your own product. If you yourself do so, can you
blame others doing likewise? If many others follow your method of valuing
foreign articles they will also cease buying locally made screwpine mats. How
can your industry flourish with all your old customers gone? Are you not the
chief culprit to destroy your own trade?" With folded hands he accepted the
reasoning and forthwith replaced the Japanese mat by one of his own make.
The use of foreign articles deprives
our people of employment
Here is a picture in miniature of what is happening all over our country. The
standards by which we judge are not comprehensive enough. We are often led
away by low money prices ignoring the great gashes in our economic and social
organization made by such short-sighted choice of ours. The goods produced by
our own neighbours have values which are not represented in the money price.
The money value is most often the least important of all considerations,
although frequently, it is the sole factor that affects our decision. Such pure
monetary considerations may lead to the blasting of the ramifications of our
social order and spell ruin and distress all round. Money value blinds the vision
to a long range social view, so that the wielder of the axe fells the branch on
which he is standing. He is the contributing party to his own destruction and
fall. Hence an unfettered long term policy, which will ensure permanence, calls
for the application of objective criteria, taking into consideration not merely
the immediate solution of a problem but also the more lasting after effects
which may follow in the wake. No act of a single individual ends with an
isolated transaction. It has its repercussions right through society, though many
of us do not have our sight trained to perceive what follows in its train.

www.mkgandhi.org
Page 48

Economy of Permanence
A secretary of a co-operative society was enumerating the benefits his
organization had conferred on its members by marketing the honey produced by
them. Proudly, he took me to show me a farm where the owner had
domesticated about 30 colonies of honey-bees in simple hives constructed out
of old mud pots. The bees seemed very active. Hundreds of pounds of honey
were being sent by this farmer to the society for marketing. I was much
impressed by the recounting of all this achievement and how much money it
had brought in. Just then a little girl, a child of the owner, came in running. I
asked her if she also knew what these honey bees were so busy about. She said
they were making honey. I next enquired if she liked honey. She looked blank.
Thinking she did not understand my question I repeated it in another form
saying "Don't you like the taste of honey?" She startled me with "I do not know
what it tastes like." I turned round to the owner and enquired if he did not give
his own children any honey. He gave me what he thought to be a perfect
answer. "How can I afford to use it at home when I get Re. 1/- per lb. at the
society?" My appreciative attitude vanished and I remarked to the elated
secretary of the society, "Your work is damned when this child does not know
the taste of honey. By offering high prices you are enticing away this honey
from the mouth of this child to the over-laden tables of the rich". The story is
the same everywhere with eggs, milk and other articles with high nutritive
values. In the N. W. F. Province, where eggs were once largely produced and
locally consumed, the consumption of the local population has fallen
considerably since the military authorities of Rawalpindi, Quetta and Ambala
began to draw on these supplies.
Money valuation benumbs the faculty for the better appreciation of higher
considerations, and results in a transaction which may be a gain to one party,
but leads to irreparable loss to the other. Instead of drawing on surpluses (as
we noted in the last chapter in the example of the boy with jilabis) it helps to
drain out vital sustenance, thus causing grave social loss which is not apparent
at the moment. It was the monetary mechanism that was at the bottom of the
great Bengal famine of 1943. It snatched away life-giving elements from the
mouth of the starving population before they were aware of it, by giving them
www.mkgandhi.org Page 49

Economy of Permanence
valueless paper notes representing frozen credits at London. Let us take this
terrible disaster to heart and learn the lesson it has to teach us, reminding us,
that there are other and more vital considerations in this life than money with
which to measure values.
Milk produced by villagers is taken to be sold
in towns leaving the village children
without this nutritive article of deit
www.mkgandhi.org Page 50

Economy of Permanence
X. LIFE, LIVING AND EXISTENCE
Has life any significance? Does it convey any meaning? What constitutes it? -
mere existence?
We have seen that man is distinguished from the lower orders by the possession
of Freewill. Therefore, what a man is, is declared by the way he exercises his
will interpreting his scale of values. Thus eventually, man is what he prefers to
be. Man, by his living, gives expression to his faculties and we term the re-
sultant his 'Personality'. Life is the means by which man develops himself and it
is that which affords him the opportunity to express himself through his
creative faculty. Hence the great importance that has to be placed of the way
people live or have to live.
Life then becomes the great canvas on which man, the artist with his peculiar
brand of paint of many values, and the firm strokes of his brush of freewill,
brings into existence his indelible work of art, which he will leave behind him
to help or retard human progress. If he uses a large mixture of self-centered
values, which are like water-colours that may wash out or fade away with age,
his work will not attain a high degree of permanence and will be disfigured by
violence. On the other hand, if he uses mainly altruistic or objective values,
which are like the earth paints used at Ajanta that have retained their
freshness through the centuries, then his masterpiece will go down from
generation to generation with its message of permanence and non-violence.
Such being man's opportunity and responsibility, he cannot afford to leave his
life meekly in the hands of others. Each man is responsible for the way he lives.
He cannot substitute for his masterpiece cheap lithographs supplied wholesale,
with frame and all complete, by the manufacturers.
The standardized production of large scale industries today, more or less lays
down the way people are to live, instead of consumers calling for the type of
goods they want, the producers press, whatever they make, on the passive
www.mkgandhi.org Page 51

Economy of Permanence
public. We cannot discharge our responsibilities by remaining passive. We need
to be up and doing.
The two great global wars, that have been visited on this generation, are
witnesses to the destructive nature of modern institution and organizations.
Even science, which by its very nature ought to be objective and creative, has
been prostituted by being turned into an abominable engine of destruction.
Instead of standing firm footed on the rock of permanence and non-violence,
eminent scientists have been engulfed by the river of violence in spate, which
is carrying death and ruin through the fair fields of human progress and
civilization. They complacently claim to be on neutral ground. This is self-
deception. There is no neutrality. Either we are creative or destructive. By the
exercise of their freewill, they have chosen to serve the latter end and hence
great is the destruction thereof.
Material destruction, immense as it is, is the least part of it. What is bemoaned
above everything else is the irreplaceable loss of young promising lives. If a
tiger should kill a great scientist what is its gain and what is the loss to
humanity? The man-eater gets perhaps 120 lbs. of flesh, bone and blood. The
nutritive value of these can well be replaced even from the vegetable kingdom:
if the digestive apparatus were adapted to it. On the other hand, what
humanity loses is not so much the flesh and blood but the higher faculties
which are the resultant of generations of culture, expressed under changing
values of life and action and which are of no use to the tiger, while the loss is
an irreparable one to mankind. That part which is noblest and highest and
which works towards permanence is lost by the parasitic act of the tiger, whose
gain is but transient. The flesh and blood have gone to appease its hunger for a
few hours at the cost of an eternal loss as a heritage. The higher life of the
scientist comprising knowledge, creation and love has been of no use to the
prowling beast.
In the same way, the loss to humanity occasioned by the millions of lives
sacrificed in these wars cannot be computed by human effort. The clock of
human progress and civilization is set back centuries by such holocausts.
www.mkgandhi.org Page 52

Economy of Permanence
Again, which horticulturist will hew down a graft mango tree that yields good
fruits for the sake of firewood? Yet man is so foolish as to offer his children as
gun fodder and is even proud of doing so. Such is the potency of propaganda
glorifying violence.
It may be mentioned here in passing that apart from sentimental or religious
feelings and considerations of such principles as violence and non-violence,
slaughter of animals for food stands condemned by the above reasoning. While
the meat-eater gets the flesh, which can easily be substituted by nutrition
obtainable from other sources, nature loses valuable expressions of instinctive
life—the song of birds, the love of animals etc. which often excel the fitful
exhibits of man and are equally as irreplaceable functions as the creative
faculty in man. Flesh-eating, therefore, belongs to the Parasitic Economy of
Transience and causes avoidable destruction. It lowers the 'habitue' to the
lowest order of existence which has no dignity to it.
Applying these ideas of life to the five forms of economies, with special
reference to the creative faculty of man, he Parasitic Economy becomes the
House of Imitations, the 'redatory Economy gives us the House of Adoptions,
while the Economy of Enterprise will assume the form of the House of Material
Creations and the Economy of Gregation forms the House of Social Innovations,
and the Economy of Service which enables its devotees to project themselves
into the life of others, may be termed the House of Sublimation.
The House of imitation: Those who fall within this group do not trouble to
contribute anything themselves but take whatever they can-from others'
creations by closely imitating them. The guiding characteristic still remains
self-love and pleasure seeking by the easiest route. In effect, they live through
the lives of others. There is just existence pure and simple. They are like the
moondead or lifeless themselves-but their glory, such as they possess, is a
reflection of other people's efforts. Their own personality finds no expression.
Nothing worthwhile is to be learnt from them. It may not be wholly their fault
that they are sterile like the mule which, being hybrid, is neither a horse nor a
donkey or and is unable to reproduce itself. It lives and dies without leaving a.
www.mkgandhi.org Page 53

Economy of Permanence
progeny. Similarly, the imitators have no creative faculty or if they possess it,
it is allowed to lie dormant, being given no opportunity to express or develop
itself. It may be, if their environment were changed, they would be able to
contribute to the general progress of society. To the extent that they remain
functionless, the existence of such a group is definitely a loss to society. They
consume without creating. Their lives are not works of art but just colourless
black and white prints from the printing press.
Earlier in this century, the Japanese, who copied everything western, fell into
this group. It had led them from the Economy of Permanence, which they,
along with their neighbours China and India, were following, into the House of
Imitation and we see vividly today their inevitable fall into the Parasitic
Economy in their inroads into Manchuria and China. From following nonviolence
they have now enshrined violence and destruction.
In our own country, many of our friends, especially Indian Christians (I write
this in regard to the community to which I belong in humiliation and shame) fall
into this group. They imitate the westerner in every possible way even to the
extent of abandoning their own mother-tongue for English. They dress like the
westerners, they keep house in the best foreign missionary style and in their
well-to-do circle even their food habits have been borrowed from the West
inclusive of many tinned imported stuffs. Their recreation follows all that is
held fashionable in the west, such as racing and ballroom dancing, which latter
has been well described as 'hugging set to music'. This group has also been
highly sterile intellectually in spite of the fact that most of them can boast of a
varied liberal education. Unfortunately, the trend in big cities is towards this,
the lowest type. The only consolation is that their number is comparatively
small, and if measures are taken in hand in good time to check its spreading
further, we may be able to eradicate it root and branch.
The House of Adoption: The motto of those who belong this group is "Let us
eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die". These also do take from the
contributions of others as do those of the previous house but the difference lies
www.mkgandhi.org Page 54

Economy of Permanence
in this that they try to make the creations of others their own by slight modi-
fication which however, are not distinctive enough to lay claim to originality.
"Best foreign missionary style"
Again the present day Japanese afford us a good example of those who attempt
to adopt the lead given by others' originality. What they had taken previously
from the West they have acclimatised to their land. For instance, they had
taken over large scale production from the West and split the unwieldy units of
centralized factories into many small cottage industries, assembling the various
parts when finished, in a central workshop. To give one example, in England
the bicycle is produced in its entirety by single plants like that of the B. S. A.
Company. But Japan manufactures similar goods by organizing cottage workers
who are supplied with tools and materials. Some of them produce only spokes,
others only rims and so on. All these separate parts are brought to the Central
Assembling, work-shop which puts out complete useable machines.
Some persons in our country, who are not so much
under western influence as those of the House of
Imitation, attempt to adopt western modes-say in
clothes-with grotesque results. A Babu may put on
an open coat but he may omit, with commendable
rationality in this hot climate, the irksome, stiff
starched collar and the troublesome, purposeless
extra tie. He may wear his shirt outside the
trousers thinking it makes for coolness, and on his
Imperfect adaptation
socksless feet he may use the only Indian chappal
www.mkgandhi.org Page 55

Economy of Permanence
he possesses- Oxford shoes being expensive. Such maybe an eyesore to the
wholehogger but it must be admitted he is more original than the pure imi-
tator. Such persons are only much works of art as the cheap lithographic we
find pasted on stocks of mill-cloth. They have the will-power to pick and
choose, but lack the sense of perspective to create anything complete and
whole, or are too lazy to do so. Such patchwork, as they may accomplish, is
bound to be transient and their eagerness to obtain quickly what they want is
sure to lead into paths of violence.
The House of material Creations: According to the Law of the Economy of
Enterprise we would expect that in this house every individual will assert
himself and lead his own life regardless of what may be the lot of others
following the maxim. "Every man for himself and the devil take the
hindermost". They would be expected to have original ideas which will be
translated into life for their own selfish benefit. This would imply that every
person would be free to express himself in his daily mode of living.
Unfortunately, the world today is under the heels of producers who have power
to lay down the way their consumers should live. Hence the freedom of choice
and the faculty of the consumer have been neutralized and rendered
ineffective.
In France, the beauty specialist will proclaim that the fashion of the day is to
have butterflies painted on the bare backs and which are to be exposed to the
gaze of admirers. Unquestioningly the aspiring females will resort to the beauty
parlours, don their bathing costumes and have butterflies painted on their un-
complaining backs, and repair to the sea resorts of the Riviera to exhibit their
backs to the stupefied public.
Again, in Western clothes and feminine fashions Paris leads the world. London
imitates these and probably commercialises the modes, while New York may
adopt these to its needs and standardize them.
Standardization in the West has killed all originality of the consumer in his
mode of life. People are mainly concerned with what others will think of them
if they departed from the universal set mode of life. Even the life in the home
www.mkgandhi.org Page 56

Economy of Permanence
is controlled by fashions called for by outsiders-the court, the aristocracy or
the business interests.
Producer made fashions
For a while the fashion will be to eat soup out of a soup plate with a rim round
the bowl, with a large eliptical spoon. A few years later the fashion will
change. A soup bowl without a rim will now be used and a spoon more or less
circular in shape will be the proper style. These frequent changes are
productive of snobbery and are good for business. The poor cannot afford to
scrap their crockery and silver off and on to adopt new ways, and so are easily
eliminated from the 'County Set'. From the business point of view, if the same
kind of things are to be handed down from, father to son, the capacity of the
market will be limited, while if such changes in the material modes of living are
effected, the artificially created demand will widen the scope for more
business.
People who follow such senseless and baseless fashions are the innocent
victims, or social climbers or eterprising business houses who, by their skilful
advertisements and high pressure salesmanship, push their goods where there
are no natural markets. Such ignorant victims of propaganda and fashions, in
time generate in themselves a kind of inferiority complex, lose confidence in
themselves, and fail to give free play to their own creative faculty, rendering
life monotonous.
If one visits a few flats in Bombay, one will soon get to know what to expect in
every other house. The same modern laminated wood furniture with glass tops
to tables and all that will go with these are to be met with house after house.
www.mkgandhi.org Page 57

Economy of Permanence
There is no variety, no imagination, no original ideas. It is one dead level. Even
in old cemeteries one may find wonderful specimens of works of art or
sculpture, but not in a modern Bombay flat where people are supposed to 'live'.
These homes are more dead than graves. Everything is done for the consumer
by the manufacturer under the pretext of making life comfortable and easy;
such ease leads to the benumbing of the higher faculties which spells death to
progress and development.
If life is to be creative, such deadening standardization must go. There should
be plenty of scope for individual taste to express itself. Designing one's own
house or furniture is a fertile field for the play of one's personality. Under the
specious plea of simplifying one's problems, large scale manufacturers are
laying waste personality and individuality and are impoverishing life. In the U.
S. A., prefabricated houses can be built overnight. All one has to do is to ring
up the wholesale manufacturer and tell him where one wants it and which plan
one prefers, -Plan A, Plan B or Plan C. All the doors, windows etc. of each plan
are kept ready in stock. The only time needed is to assemble them like a
packing case out of boards. Even in matters of food, where one would expect
individual tastes to prevail, the manufacturers have borne down individuality by
carefully worded advertisements, setting forth fanciful food values etc. Ready
prepared foods are making their appearance also in Indian markets and homes
dealing a death-blow to the art of cooking. Every housewife should pride
herself on her culinary art. Instead we have standardized fruit preserves,
pickles, chutneys, infant and invalid semi-pre- pared foods, supplied from
factories thousands of miles from our land.
Man is so constituted that the less he thinks on problems the less he is fitted for
life. Therefore, the all considerate and thoughtful modern manufacturer, who
professes to do all the thinking for the consumer, is really crippling him. Even a
mother has to let her child attempt to walk and perhaps to fall and hurt itself
too. If she strives to take such care of her child that it should never fall, always
carries it herself, the child will never develop a sense of balance and will have
www.mkgandhi.org Page 58

Economy of Permanence
to go through life a cripple. Such is the service rendered to society by the
manufacturers of today.
In our country we have a whole range and variety of methods of daily life that
afford the creative faculty many rich combinations; among the different climes
and Provinces. Even in a single Province there is variety among the
communities. Thus we have a very wide field for the development and
expression of our personality if we do not fall to the wiles of business houses.
Fortunately here also, but for the cities and towns, the life in the villages
remains mostly unaffected, although rapid strides are being made in the wrong
direction even in remote parts, still the situation is not beyond redemption.
This death dealing contagion calls for immediate measures.
Instead of the House of Creations being a source of strength, the topsy turvy
order, in which the manufacturer plays the central role, has made it the
weakest link of the chain, as the consumer, who forms the bulk of the
population, is mercilessly suppressed and his creative faculty is buried under
the debris of modern factories. This method of living does not bring into ex-
istence works of art but just produces transient and flimsy transfer pictures
which any child can paste in his school books.
The consumer has no voice in calling for his goods. His side of the transaction is
misnamed by learned 'Economists' as the Demand. He makes no demand. He
meekly takes what is presented to him. The cart is put before the horse. Shoes
may be prepared in Northampton, England, by the workers who never have any
contact with the consumer in India or some other remote corner of the earth.
Instead of shoes being made to fit the consumers' feet, the consumer has to go
to a shop and fit his foot into a ready-made shoe of the nearest shape
available. If sufficient customers' feet are not available in the market under the
influence of the markets, then, some country, like Abyssinia, where 'natives' go
barefooted, has to be brought under political control and 'civilized' so that the
people may be taught to wear western types of footwear. This chase of the
pre-existent supply for a demand is one of the most fruitful sources of modern
conflicts and wars. The unnatural creation of a demand generates violence and
www.mkgandhi.org Page 59