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

Economy of Permanence
pride for such a purpose, and wives urging their husbands to risk themselves on
the battle-fields. It is natural for a mother to take pride in the fact that her son
has been trained to murder other innocent sons on a mass scale and get killed
himself in the effort? Can a loving wife contemplate the sacrifice of her
beloved on the altar of International Robbery? Yet, these results have been
obtained by infusing into the minds of the people a scale of false values, which
treacherously enforces them to use their freewill to stray into paths of violence
and destruction, which in their normal lucid thinking they would naturally flee
from.
To make such a perversion possible violence has been glorified. Murder in retail
is visited by capital punishment. But murder in wholesale of innocent young
promising lives is rewarded by national honour being accorded to the doers of
such dastardly deeds, by the conferment of titles, by erecting monuments in
their memory in holy places of worship such as the Westminster Abbey or St.
Paul's Cathedral. Is there not something radically wrong in a system which has
to resort to such devious ways to maintain itself? The public is rendered sense-
less by having its finer feelings benumbed by this topsy turvy order. The
complex standard of living, we considered in the previous chapter, is helpful in
that it leaves the people no time to contemplate the situation in calmness. It
keeps them self-satisfled and complacent, leaving those in power to pursue
their ends unhampered.
The modus operandi is simplicity itself. We saw that as ordained by nature man
works only to satisfy himself. So his wants are the direct stimuli for him to put
forth the effort. Increase his wants and the greater will be his effort. Here is
the raison d'etre of the advocacy of a created multiplicity of wants, in other
words, of the so-called 'raising' of his material standard of living or making it
complex, which we noticed functioned like a nose-string to a bullock. It curbs
man's will restricting his freedom of movement and action and directs him into
the ways desired by the one who holds the reins. The one who is under such a
lead is soon bereft of his reasoning faculties and follows unquestioningly.
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We also noticed that today the world is under the heels of the large scale
manufacturer, who stands to gain by stifling the voice of the people and by
spreading an organization which will bring him profits either way. During peace
interludes he makes and sells bicycles, and, while war clouds darken the skies
he turns his attention to the manufacture of bombs and guns. To his dictates,
camouflaged by self-interest, the foolish public lay down gladly the lives of
their beloved to make this order possible. All this is directed towards isolating
the routine element of work with the discipline it involves, and securing only
the satisfaction and pleasure which labour well done brings with it.
Wholesome work provides our body with energy, health and rest just as a well
balanced diet does. It provides bodily exercise while affording, at the same
time, opportunities for mental development and satisfaction. The modern
tendency, however, is to avoid the discipline work involves, passing it all on to
one class of society which is helpless; reserving to the dominant class all the
pleasurable consequences of work. It is sought to distil out the component parts
of work to this end and then the bodily exercise alone in a pleasurable form,
without the drudgery part of work, is obtained in pill form in games like Golf,
Tennis, Cricket, Hockey, Football, etc. which are all naturally expensive
luxuries beyond the reach of the poor.
Truncating work in this manner is like the way they manage on ocean liners to
provide the muscles with the kind of movements they are accustomed to on
land in games and hobbies which for obvious reasons cannot be indulged in on a
boat. On such liners the gymnasiums are equipped with machines which provide
the substitutes for horse-riding, boating etc. The horseman bestrides a saddle
on a mechanical horse, holding the reins switches on the electric contraption
into a 'trot' or a 'gallop. The saddle gives the semblance of jerks one gets on a
horseback on land although here the rider has no live spirited animal under
him. Similarly, there are oars for the boating enthusiast to pull away at, seating
himself at a bench and kicking his feet on to a rest. The oars are provided with
springs to give the resistance of water. Here we have horse-riding and boating
bereft of the natural pleasures attendant on them on land-the scenery, the
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pleasure of movement through the air and over water. For a few days for the
duration of the voyage, such contrivances will answer the purpose but they
cannot be substitutes for all time for the natural counterparts.
Thus is work broken up into the component parts into routine and play, and
some people are relegated for all time to do the hard routine, and a few
appropriate to themselves the play part of it. When work is so divided without
the balancing factor, the routine becomes drudgery and the play part becomes
indulgence. Both are equally detrimental to human progress and well being.
The slave dies of privations and the lord of over-indulgence. These efforts,
which have been made repeatedly through the ages, have adequately
demonstrated over and over again their impotency to lead man to his maturity.
In our own generation, this attempt to secure the pleasures apart from the
discipline has let loose on humanity the wolves of war, pestilence, famine and
death. Are we not to cry 'halt' and take note?
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XIII. DIVISION OF LABOUR
Not one will dispute the benefits to be obtained from a division of labour,
which makes for specialization and efficiency. In our land, such specialization
has held sway since time immemorial and it has even gone to seed, having
become hereditary and caste bound. Such an extreme has also led to
difficulties and to a blind alley.
Under the plea of a wholesome division of labour, Western industrialists have
broken up work into minute processes in such a way that work and drudgery
have become synonymous terms associated with all the undesirable qualities of
a curse.
Work, to be healthy and beneficial to the worker himself, apart from all
considerations on the product, should have diversion and variety in sufficient
measure in every sub-divided unit of it to prevent its becoming a strain on the
nerves. There is, therefore, a limit beyond which division of labour cannot go
without impugning its claims to wholesomeness.
The sub-divided unit must be as near a whole industry in itself as it possibly can
be and not be reduced to a mere process of an industry. For instance, if
carpentry is to be subdivided, it may well be into wheel-wrights and oil-mill
makers. These two are highly skilled departments each affording full scope for
all the faculties of the artisans. The products also are complete marketable
units. Instead of this, if these crafts were further subdivided into makers of
spokes and felloes for the wheels on the one hand, and into hewers of wood on
the other, it would be verging on drudgery. In leather crafts, shoemaking or
even specializing in chappals can be a healthy unit, while the mere cutting out
of pieces of leather for the soles or the uppers of shoes cannot stand by itself
as a healthy sub-division. In modern factories, such division of work into its
minute processes has gone to such an extent as to limit a man's operation and
attention to driving a nail or screwing on a nut bolt. Take a shoe factory. An
electrically driven belt moving horizontally will carry hundreds of lasts on
which the various operations incidental to the making of a shoe will be
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performed by the operators stationed all along the line. As the bare last moves
up the first man on the line, who will have by his side a pot of sticky paste and
a brush, will dab the last with the paste on the sole as it passes in front of him.
He will repeat this operation on hundreds of lasts that will move past him from
eight in the morning till five in the evening with a break for lunch in the
middle.
To repeat such actions for eight hours a day for 300 days in the year is enough
to cause a nervous strain which will send the worker to the mad house
whatever may be the wages offered.
Is it any wonder that in the most indusrialized country in the world, in the U. S.
A., more people suffer from nervous disorders than from all other forms of
ailments ?* Man's constitution is not an inanimate machine. His system calls for
a balance of operations which will exercise all his faculties. This condition can
only be ensured by a wide enough unit of work.
Too small units, which are merely processes, are highly wasteful of man power
as it puts workers out of action in a short time. A hardworking labourer is made
a wreck by the time he reaches 45 years of age. But this wastage is shifted
from the manufacturer to society by the wage system rendering it possible for
the industrialist to flourish in spite of this great loss in man power. The
employer is totally unconcerned with the destruction his system of work
causes. If one of his workers breaks down he is immediately discharged and a
more youthful one is taken on. There is no love lost. The employer thinks no
more of dispensing with a man who has wrecked his life in his service than of
throwing away a smoked bit of a cigar. If anything, in casting off such worn out
persons he stands to gain as the younger man may bring in more energy. There
is no liability attaching to the employer for so drawing the life out of his man.
Is this not a callous waste of human faculties and life? Can such waste lead us
to permanence? Any little higher wage such workers may appear to enjoy is but
the realization of present value of their life after 45 years of age.
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An excessive emphasis laid on wages, the product or the maintenance of a
complex standard of life, ignoring the higher faculties of man, deprives man of
the use of his freewill and distorts his scale of values.
Under such circumstances the labourer's condition and work are like that of a
bullock that drives an oil mill. The bullock being blind folded does not see
where or how it goes. Being controlled by its nose string, which is not even
guided by a man but is only fixed to the machine itself, the animal turns
eternally to the left walking round and round all day within a circumscribed
area getting nowhere by its movement. No doubt the oil presser gives it a little
oilcake, with a complacent feeling of generosity, out of the lot that is made by
the bullock's toil during the day. Our mill hands fare no better. The joy of life
and the healthy atmosphere of freedom are not for them. They are deprived of
all opportunities of growth and development. This is not work as designed by
nature. Hence it can only bring to the workers ruin and decay of their higher
faculties. No money wage can compensate for that loss.
While the manufacturers thus attempt to avoid for themselves drudgery and
appropriate only the play and pleasure of work our socialist friends dream of
scooping out leisure from work. Properly understood work of the right sort
contains leisure or period of rest within itself. Leisure is an integral part of
work just as rest is an essential component of a musical note. The two cannot
be taken apart. Leisure is not a complete cessation of all activities. That will
be death. Neither is leisure idle time. Idleness leads to deterioration. Beneficial
leisure provides rest to one faculty, while other parts of our personality are
being exercised. A mental worker at his desk needs an active hobby like
gardening to form a complement to the nervous strain caused by desk work.
Any work to fulfill proper function as ordained by nature, and not mutilated by
man, must contain these complementary parts in itself.
Once I was discussing this aspect of work with an experienced engineer. He
remarked that he could not conceive how there can be work and rest at the
same time. To explain this theoretically it may be difficult, but to demonstrate
it is easy, and so I suggested he should visit any artisan and analyse the
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proposition himself. He accepted this suggestion and took me to a school
master who eked out his living by making caps and requested me to point out
wherein lay leisure and wherein diversior or rest in the making of caps.
The school-master, on being asked to show us how he set about the task of
making a cap, brought out his work basket, took a piece of plush-like material
and cut out an oval shaped piece. Then taking some red coloured lining cloth
cut out also a similar piece. To this he attached some pieces of old newspaper
and stitched some floral designs with the sewing machine, and then sewed this
on to the plush top. After that with punches he fixed some eyelets through
these to serve as ventilating holes on the top of the cap. While the master was
busy with his manifold operations, I was explaining to the engineer that the
obtaining of the raw material presented certain problems for the master to
solve in international trade as the plush came from Italy and the red lining
cloth from Japan; that when the master was occupied with the cutting
operations with his scissors one faculty of his was functioning, when he was
sewing on the floral design the artistic faculty, when he was punching on the
eyelets for ventilators still another part of his nervous system was called into
action diverting his energies from the artistic employment the faculty of which
was now having its rest.
While we were talking about these matters the master's little child cried in the
backyard of the house. Promptly the master got up, left his work and ran to the
child, picking it up scolded his wife roundly for allowing the child to cry while
visitors were in the house. While the master was having this unholy row with his
spouse I said to the engineer, "There, now he is having his relaxation and
recreation". The engineer burst out into a laughter and got up to go saying "I
fully grasp your meaning".
Life when it is allowed to run its natural course is resourceful enough to provide
for itself all it needs without any further conscious effort on our part.
Such then is work and its function in life. It makes it possible for man to use his
faculties and develop himself during his own life-time and leave behind him his
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personality indelibly stamped on the product of his work that which is the best
part of him.
We saw how an artist transfers his sense of beauty to a piece of canvas and
leaves behind a masterpiece for posterity to cherish and admire. While that
artist was dabbing bits of paint on to the canvas it must have seemed hard
work-drudgery of days and days. But such labour had to go into the making of a
masterpiece. A lithograph may avoid such drudgery and hard work but its
products are as wastepaper when compared with the work of the real artist.
Even before the work of the picture is launched on, hours of hard work were
necessary for the skilful mixing of paints and blending of colours. The colours
used at the Ajanta Caves must have taken decades to evolve to have attained
such perfection as to have lasted all these many centuries. The artists of those
times did not grudge the labour on it; and posterity pays its obeisance to them
for their peerless gift. Those artists did not devise ways and means of obtaining
the effect without the labour involved. Nature is a hard task-master. It never
awards permanence to grudgingly rendered work. If we wish to attain
permanence we must put in whole work, no transient labour which satisfies
only the passing moment will answer the purpose. Nature refuses to be
browbeaten or cheated.
Similarly, a beautiful emblem of devoted labour has been bequeathed to
generations yet unborn by those creators who hewed out of living rock the
whole edifice of a temple at Ellora. That sense of proportion and symmetry are
not the result of an attempt to shirk work nor the outcome of seeking shortcuts
so as to avoid labour. It is the product of an opportunity squarely faced. Labour
properly directed blesses those who work and also the products of their labour.
To give out one more example of faithful work well done, there is a steel pillar
near the Kutub Mimar at Delhi bearing an ancient inscription. This pillar has
stood in the open exposed to sun and rain, heat and cold for centuries on end,
yet, there is not a speck of rust on it. The composition of this alloy has
confounded the best of modern metallurgists. The iron smiths of old who cash
this wonderful pillar did not seek any shortcuts to produce this effect. They did
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not shirk the routine labour and discipline involved in manufacturing such
metal. They took work as nature meant it to be. Hence we have this monument
declaring that fact to us today.
One would associate the idea of wealth and comfort with the industry of mining
gold. But this system of relegating drudgery to one class and appropriating
pleasure by another has made the district of the most famous gold mines in
India one of the poorest localities. The farmer of that district has been reduced
to such a wretched condition financially that he is driven to maintain a 'dual
purpose cow', i.e., a cow yields a few drops of milk at one time and when dry is
used to plough the land !
While on a visit there I was taken down the shaft of one of the deepest mines,
about 7000 ft. There in darkness made visible by small Davy's lamps men
worked in tunnels, blasting the rock, in dust, in dirt and danger from morning
till evening for a pittance that hardly helped to keep the wolf from the door.
The strain of this labour was so great that men were completely done up when
brought up into the fresh air and light. This district contributes the greatest
revenue from liquor to the State. Is it a wonder that after the nerves of the
miners had been strained to this extent they should find refuge in the oblivion
provided by merciful alcohol? Venereal diseases are also rampant among such
miners. Wherever the nervous system is overwrought it is but to be expected
that it will naturally rush for relaxation made available in wine and women.
This is a pathological condition of the human constitution. At the end of my
visit, when the manager of the mine asked if I could suggest any social welfare
work that he can introduce for the betterment of the conditions of life of the
miners I gave him these two alternatives-1. The best welfare work will be to
restore the dignity of work and labour by closing down such a mine, or in the
alternative, 2. To provide more liquor shops to enable the men to drown their
miseries. It is needless to say that these shocked the manager, and that neither
of them were found acceptable as the company was one which paid the
heaviest dividends. Money and gold were much more to them than human
beings.

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If we are to derive full benefit from work as designed by nature we have to
keep as close as we can to the simple original form of work without dividing it
up into its ineffective parts.
Wages: We saw that nature rewarded work in a wholesome manner by
conferring benefits on the worker. Such benefits derived from work are the
natural wages.
As life became more and more complex, division of labour was brought into
being by man with a dole in the form of a money wage representing a share of
the natural benefit derived on the whole. But such complications need not
carry us off our track if we constantly keep the true function of work before us.
Unfortunately, since the appearance of the wage system, the emphasis had
shifted from the function of work to the product of work, so much so that today
the product holds the field to the exclusion of the function. An employer thinks
of the product he can sell with the greatest profit in the open market. He pro-
ceeds to obtain such products with the least cost. He offers a wage for making
it. The overcrowded labour force volunteers in keen competition to produce
the articles for a wage whatever may be the moral outcome, conditions of
work, the methods adopted and their consequences. No scale of values other
than money enters into the equation. In this manner, work has been
commercialised and labour has been degraded into a commodity at the disposal
of the highest bidder. The employer seeks to obtain his labour at the cheapest
rate possible.
A slave trader wants sailors to man his ships to transport slaves captured in the
West Coast of Africa to the plantations of the U. S. A. or a poppy planter wants
labour on his estate for producing opium to be forced down on China. The
required labour should be forthcoming regardless of any social or moral
consideration, other than money wages. Thus moral values etc. are sought to
be sterilised.
When a mother nurses her baby or cooks food for her children she functions in
the way intended by nature in the 'Economy of Service'. All the return she gets
is the joy of seeing her children well fed and happy-that is her wage'.
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From this there is a fall to the 'Economy of Enterprise' when a wet nurse feeds
the baby or a hired cook prepares the meals. In either case the mother's work
and function has been commercialised. The wet nurse and the cook derive their
satisfaction from the amount of money-wages received, the good of the
children takes a secondary place.
A mother nursing the child
Then we descend further to the 'Economy of Predation' when the natural other's
milk is sought to be substituted not out of mere necessity but to preserve the
mother's 'figure', and the poor baby is bottle-fed on synthetic milk. The
manufacturer does not worry about the baby but is only concerned to push his
goods in the market by all forms of claims for his product and concern for the
mother's 'figure'.
When the extravagant claims of baby feeds do not bear any close relation to
facts we go right down to the 'Parasitic Economy' where the profit made is the
overruling consideration irrespective of any harm that may befall the baby.
Thus ultimately the natural function of the mother is sought to be performed by
various agents for a money reward. Thus the dignity of work of the mother is
lost along with the healthy constituents attached to it, all that is left being
pure commerce which is bought and sold for money.
At one time, Kashmir used to manufacture a kind of carriage rug with furry
appearance-somewhat like a turkish towel—these were extremely soft and
warm and needed skill in making them. They also took a long time to produce
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with the consequence that they were comparatively expensive. These gradually
fell out of use-yielding place to mill-made rugs.
Once a worker of the Charkha Sangh found some poor labourers breaking stones
for road making. On enquiry he discovered these were skilled weavers of this
type of rugs who were specialists in that particular department of the art.
When their product was dislodged they lost their occupation and the world of
art the use of their trained faculties.
By the shifting of the emphasis from work to the product, skilled workmen are
reduced to stone breakers. Is this an economic and natural utilization of human
faculties? Such is the degradation of work caused by the money wage system
ignoring the function of work.
Importation of manufactured wares have deprived artisans of the benefit of
ennobling work. Earlier we noticed how independent farmers in England were
converted into subservient 'hands' in British Factories. The imports of the
products of such factories have driven human beings in our country to compete
with dumb animals for a livelihood. In most cities it is a common sight to see
man taking the place of bullocks and horses in drawing carts and rickshaws.
This is the counterpart of the 'Labour Saving Devices' in the industrialized
countries. It may save labour in England, but drives men in India to desperation
to find the where-withal to keep body and soul together. What may cause
plenty *n one sphere should not create scarcity in another, if it lays claim to
solve problems without bringing in its wake a crop of fresh difficulties. Is it
progress to reduce a skilled artisan into a stone-breaker or a rickshaw puller,
and thus make them compete for the fodder of animals?
We have restore work to its pristine glory as the moulder of character and the
developer of the best in human faculties. This can be done only by releasing
work from its fetters and allowing it free scope to function naturally.
Man needs the fire of work to let him glow with the radiance of life. Proper
work will radiate warmth, not only to the actual worker, but to all those
around. When a devoted mother works hard for her children not only does she
find her own happiness in it but the whole household comes under effect of her
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love and devotion. The children are well-looked after in body and in mind and
they will grow up to be sturdy citizens. A nurse or a house-keeper, however
efficient, cannot replace a mother in the home.
In the same manner, the true function of work cannot be performed by the
mere bait of money wage. Just as mother-love cannot be bought or sold, the
professional interest in work loses much by commercialization.
A physician, who takes an interest both in the patient and the disease, and
studies every case diligently, will gain much more experience and knowledge
than one who attends on his patient for the fees he gets. The former works
because he loves the work, the latter practices because of his desire for
wealth. The first is strictly a professional man while the second is but a trader
in medicine and so far as he prescribes patent medicines he becomes a
salesman of the manufacturers. A man may be dying but in a money-based
economy, if he has not the money to pay the fees of a good physician he will
not be given any attention. Another man may be just fussy, but if he has a fat
purse, all the medical profession will be at his beck and call.
In the same way, a lawyer who takes a moral interest in his case and deals with
it on that level is a professional man, while another who takes his case for the
fees he is paid, is only commercializing law. There is many a man rotting
behind bars today just because he is not able to produce the wherewithal to
satisfy the voracious appetite of his lawyer.
Unfortunately, every walk of life has been brought down into the market place
and is held firmly under the grip of money economy, so much so that it is hardly
possible to meet with professional persons with a human outlook.
In all these cases we have examined, the emphasis has shifted from work to
wages, and as there is no creative factor in wages, progress is absent. People
deplore that the science of medicine in our country has not produced any
research-worker worthy of notice. The reason is not far to seek. The profession
is being practised on the level of the 'Parasitic Economy' or that of 'Predation
Few indeed reach that of the 'Economy of Enterprise'. The rare ones in the
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'Economy of Gregation' or that of 'Service' are hardly effective because of the
enormous field and the lack of facilities in an organized fashion.
Such dearth of true and honest workers is felt in every sphere of life. Perhaps it
is indispensable in a money-ridden economy where the emphasis has shifted
progressively from work to wages and produce.
If the nature of work is properly appreciated and applied, it will stand in the
same relation to the higher faculties as food is to the physical body. It
nourishes and enlivens the higher man and urges him to produce the best he is
capable of. It directs his freewill along the proper course and disciplines the
animal in him into progressive channels. It furnishes an excellent background
for man to display his scale of values and develop his personality.
Conclusion: We have noted that the attempt at division of labour ended in
shifting the emphasis from the function of work, and fixing it on the produce as
far as the owner of machines was concerned, and on wages in regard to the
workers. The consequence of this has been disastrous in that the most
important aspect, the reaction of work on the worker has been lost sight of.
We also noticed that in nature the motive for cooperation war the self-interest
of the worker and the benefit derived directly. The honey-bee does not
consider the fertilizing of the plants as its primary duty but concerns itself
mainly with obtaining nectar and pollen which, from the point of view of
nature, are its full and undivided wages for services rendered.
Division of labour has also resulted in subdivision of the benefits derived into
profits, salaries, wages, rent, interest etc. which has had the effect of
depriving the worker of the bulk of the fruits of his labour. The exploiter has
stepped in and has carried away a large slice of the benefits like the wax-moth
in a honeycomb eating away the products of the activity of the bee.
Our analysis leads us to the conclusion that self-interest is the only incentive in
nature for creatures to extend their co-operation. All efforts to nibble away
such benefits are contrary to the Economy of Permanence and will lead to
violence sooner or later. Socialists, who aim at equitable distribution but plan
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on collecting the profits together first and then set about distributing, are
going counter to their bountiful nature, which rewards directly. This socialist
method also will spell violence in the long run.
Planning : Though this is not the place to consider in detail a proper scheme of
Planned Economy, yet it may not be out of place to point out at this stage that
no plan centering its consideration solely on products and wages will be in
alignment with nature. Any plan to answer our purpose and to lead to the
achievement of the Economy of Permanence will have to be centered on the
function of work, and be founded on the capacity and the nature of the human
being for whom the work is intended.
A farmer had his grains harvested and stored in his barns, rats made inroads on
his stock. Then he considered the problem and planned his household based on
the ways of nature. To keep the rats away he obtained a cat: the very nature of
a cat being to hunt down the rats, his method was in accordance with the
natural order. Then to feed the cat he bought a cow and, finally, to look after
the cow and the household he married a wife! Such functional planning will
lead to success.
Unfortunately, most of the plans that are brought out at present are product-
centered with a certain amount of attention paid to wages. As in Germany and
Russia, such plans will no doubt produce quick results, but they will not be
lasting and in time will generate violence, as they do not follow the way of
Permanence.
[ In Part II of this book, while dealing with the question arising out of 'Man in
Gregation', we shall have occasion to consider our approach to a planned
economy as well as discuss such subjects as Democracy, Government or State,
Trade Exchange, Communication, Natural resources, Education, etc. ]
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PART TWO
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INTRODUCTION
In the first part of this book we considered man as an individual and saw how
he acts as a single creation. We noticed the way. Nature works and we
observed that science is our study of Nature and its working, and the object of
science is to enable man to work along the lines on which the universe moves.
Any deviation from this leads us into violence and disorder. Most creatures work
in alignment with Nature merely by instinct, but man, with his gift of freewill
and intelligence, co-operates with Nature consciously, this being the main
difference between the lower orders and man. We noted the various standards
of values that man, in this conscious existence, Utilizes to gauge his action and
the part work plays in developing and improving his faculties.
When man works in this way he is able to bring about an economy of
permanence which will do away with the need for periodic upheavals in the
form of global wars.
In this second part of the book we shall study how man lives in Gregation.
Among animals also there are to be observed forces which bring like creatures
together for certain purposes. In the case of animals of prey, such as the wolf,
they hunt in packs, their motive is self-centered and their life is parasitic.
On the other hand, we have animals which get together, for motives other than
aggression, and very often purely for defence, such as herds of cattle and
elephants. Here though taken individually each has a selfish motive in its own
safety, yet in the aggregate each has a duty in defending the whole.
The social and economic order of the West as we had observed in the first part,
being parasitic, can be placed in the pack type of gregation, depending for its
welfare on the harm it can do to other groups. From the parasitic stage we
advance on through predatory and enterprising stages to the gregarious stage.
In the gregarious stage, as we have seen, there can be two kinds, the pack-type
which represents the right-centred economy and the herd-type which repesents
the duty-centred economy.
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As man evolves, his consciousness of duties enlarges and he becomes more and
more aware, not of the benefits he gets by being a member of society, but of
the duties he is to perform towards the well-being of that society. In the final
stage he reaches the service economy in which he realizes himself in the
service of others.
In this part of the book we shall consider not the gragation of the pack-type but
man working together for the common good of mankind.
What the world needs today is the knowledge of how people can work together
and bring about general welfare of mankind without involving the destruction
of others. It may be that in this economy the apparent well being may not be
flashy but if would certainly be lasting.
The Western pack-type gregation economy is today an example of what would
be the result of following those methods. Those who have eyes to see need only
behold and note in what stare Europe is today to study the end of the pack-
type gregation. Nearly 150 years of large scale production at a feverish heat has
resulted in starvation and nakedness and lack of consumers of goods, not to
mention the millions of lives that have been lost and the untold material
wealth that has been either blown up into the air or sunk in the sea, leaving
man tearing his hair not knowing what to do next. The pack-type gregation,
therefore, is one of which we should beware, as we are interested only in
bringing about an economy of permanence. The economy of pack-type
gregation ultimately leads to conflict and destruction. Though it may seem to
flourish for a while it ends up in a conflagration and therefore it is in the long
run a transient economy. Hence we need not spend our time and effort in
studying the working of this type of economy in India.
For our part, as we are interested in an economy of permanence, we have to
study how man should act in a group and as a group to be able to work towards
an economy of permanence.
In the first part of this book we saw man's action individually in the group. We
studied the values that should govern his consumption.
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In this second part we shall see how man should act as a group in production as
well as in distribution. Here there are three forms in which man may be said to
work as a group. (1) In production he works individually, though in certain
processes he may have to combine with others similarly placed. This part of
man's work along with his neighbours, considers not only his interest, but also
theirs and in the long run his larger interests. (2) Then man works jointly, in a
group of similar interests, this we call co-operative effort, which is the second
type of work in gregation. (3) Then comes the third type where the short range
work having been assigned to individuals and co-operative bodies, the purely
long range work is taken up by a body of selfless individuals who perform their
duties purely with a view to benefit society at large. Such a group we call the
State. At the present time it is difficult to point out anywhere in the world
where the State is composed of the type of individuals who would be qualified
to undertake this responsibility. The present forms of States are largely failing
in their duty towards the common man.
We shall first take up planning for the group, then we shall consider how
economic activity is carried on by individuals in conjunction with their fellow-
being. Then we shall look at the various functions that can be done by co-
operative effort, and finally we shall study how the State can work and what
the State can do to accomplish the ends for which the people are striving. In all
of these we have to keep before us the various principles we have studied in
the first part, as these will also govern the actions of men when they act in
gregation.
The scheme put forward in part I and part II, if worked out thoroughly, ought to
lead us ultimately to social order based on non-violence which should provide
the people with plenty as far as their primary needs are concerned and would
bring about peace amongst nations.
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THE NEED AND NATURE OF PLANNING
What is it that we plan for? Many people think that national planning is a very
intricate matter to be understood only by technicians and experts. Planning will
have no life if the man in the street does not understand what we are planning
for. We cannot call it national planning if the farmers do not comprehend the
purpose of it and lend their whole-hearted support to the carrying out of the
plan. Unless we are able to get that intellectual understanding we shall not be
able to carry through our plan, except by tremendous violence as has been
done in Russia. We do not want bloodshed to carry out our plan. The people
should understand whether or not what is laid before them is to their interest.
If they approve of it we shall have their willing co-operation.
Our object is to organise the villages for a happier, more prosperous and fuller
life in which the individual villager will have the opportunity to develop both as
an individual and as a unit of a well integrated society. This has to be done by
using local initiative and local resources to the utmost extent possible in the
economic, political, and social fields, building these on cooperative lines. Self-
reliant and properly organised life in the villages will thus be the aim of our
planning. Whatever schemes of activity are taken up locally should not merely
be good for the locality, but should fit in harmoniously with the general plan.
Such work should ultimately lead to the establishment of a just and democratic
social order.
WHAT IS PLANNING
Planning means the getting together of certain factors to serve an end. What
are the factors in India that we have got to get together? There may be factors
today in our plans that do not exist in other countries. Therefore, the plan that
Russia has taken or the plan that England or America has followed need not
necessarily be the same that will lead us to the goal.
When the plan of Great Britain is mentioned it will cause astonishment. People
have never heard of it. The British do not plan but they work to plan. That is
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