Industrialization - M.K. Gandhi (Mahatma Gandhi)-Part Four

 

 

Mad Rush for Wealth must Cease

 

 'But in that case there would have to be a factory for making these Singer Sewing Machines, and it would have to contain power-driven machinery of ordinary type.'

 

 Yes, but I am socialist enough to say that such factories should be nationalized, or state-controlled. They ought only to be working under the most attractive and ideal conditions, not for profit, but for the benefit of humanity, love taking the place of greed as the motive. It is an alternation in the condition of labor that I want. This mad rush for wealth must cease, and the laborer must be assured, not only of a living wage, but a daily task that is not a mere drudgery. The machine will, under these conditions, be as much a help to the man working it as to the state, or the man who owns it.

 

The present mad rush will cease, and the laborer will work (as I have said) under attractive and ideal conditions. This is but one of the exceptions I have in mind. The sewing machine had love at its back. The individual is the one supreme consideration. The saving of the labor of the individual should be the object, and honest humanitarian consideration, and not greed, the motive. Replace greed by love and everything will come right.

 

Rural Economy- Natural Economy

 

'You are against this machine age, I see.'

         

To say that is to caricature my views. I am not against machinery as such, but I am totally opposed to it when it masters us.

 

 'You would not industrialize India?'

 

 I would indeed, in my sense of the term. The village communities should be revived. Indian villages produced and supplied to the Indian towns and cities all their wants. India became impoverished when our cities became foreign markets and began to drain the villages dry by dumping cheap and shoddy goods from foreign lands.

              

'You would then go back to the natural economy?'

 

Yes, Otherwise I should go back to the city. I am quite capable of running a big enterprise, but I deliberately sacrifice the ambition, not as a sacrifice, but because my heart rebelled against it. For, I should have no share in the spoliation of the nation which is going on from day to day. But I am industrializing the village in a different way.

 

Production & Consumption to be Localized

 

 Granting for the moment that machinery may supply all the needs of humanity, still, it would concentrate production in particular areas, so that you would have to go about in a round-about way to regulate distribution, whereas, if there is production and distribution both in the respective areas where things are required, it is automatically regulated, and there is less chance for fraud, none for speculation. When production and consumption both become localized, the temptation to speed up production, indefinitely and at any price, disappears.

 

 All the endless difficulties and problems that our present-day economic system presents, too, would then come to an end… oh yes, mass production certainly…but mass-production (on individual basis) in people's own homes. If you multiply individual production millions of times, would it not give you mass-production on a tremendous scale? Your 'mass-production' is production by the fewest possible number through the aid of highly complicated machinery. My machinery must be of the most elementary type which I can put in the homes of the millions.

 

Let us be Industrious & Self Dependent

 

I know that man cannot live without industry. Therefore, I cannot be opposed to industrialization. But I have a great concern about introducing machine industry. The machine produces much too fast, and brings with it a sort of economic system which I cannot grasp. I do not want to accept something when I see its evil effects which outweigh whatever good it brings with it.

 

 I want the dumb millions of our land to be healthy and happy and I want them to grow spiritually. As yet for this purpose we do not need the machine. There are many, too many idle hands. But as we grow in understanding, if we feel the need of machines, we certainly will have them. We want industry, let us become industrious. Let us become more self-dependent, then we will not follow the other people's lead so much. We shall introduce machines if and when we need them. Once we shall have shaped our life on Ahimsa, we shall know how to control the machine.

 

Reference: Extract from reported interview, the origin of which is not known

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