Economic Ideal

158.Ideas derived by Gandhi from Ruskin’s Unto This Last in the year 1904:

(1) That the good of the individual is contained in the good of all.

(2) That a lawyer’s work has the same value as the barber’s, inasmuch as all l have the same right of earning their livelihood from their work.

(3) That a life of labour, i. E. the life of the tiller of the soil and the handicraftsman is the life worth living.

-Auto, 365.

159. Every human being has a right to live, and therefore to find the wherewithal to feed himself and where necessary, to clothe and house himself.

–Nat, 350 (273).

160. According to me the economic constitution of India and for the matter of that of the world, should be such that no one under it should suffer from want of food and clothing. In other words everybody should be able to get sufficient work to enable him to make the two ends meet. And this ideal can be universally realized only if the means of production of the elementary necessaries of life remain in the control of the masses. These should be freely available to all as God’s air and water are or ought to be; they should not be made a vehicle of traffic for the exploitation of others. Their monopolization by any country, nation or group of persons would be unjust. The neglect of this simple principle is the cause of the destitution that we witness today not only in this unhappy land but in other parts of the world too.

–YI, 15-11-28, 381.

Rights and Duties

153. The true source of rights is duty. If we all discharge our duties, rights will not be far to seek. If leaving duties unperformed we run after rights, they will escape us like a will-o’-the-wisp. The more we pursue them, the farther will they fly. The same teaching has been embodied by Krishna in the immortal words: ‘Action alone is thine. Leave thou the fruit severely alone.’ Action is duty: fruit is the right.
–YI. 8-1-25, 15.

The Greatest Good of All

154. A votary of ahimsa cannot subscribe to the utilitarian formula (of the greatest god of the greatest number). He will strive for the greatest good of all and die in the attempt to realize the ideal. He will therefore be willing to die, so that the others may live. He will serve himself with the rest, by himself dying. The greatest good of all inevitably includes the good of the greatest number, and therefore, he and the utilitarian will converge in many points in their career but there does come a time when they must part company, and even work in opposite directions. The utilitarian to be logical will never sacrifice himself. The absolutist will even sacrifice himself.

–YI, 9-12-26, 432.