Gandhian Economics is based on ethical foundations. Gandhi wrote “ Economics that hurts the moral well-being of an individual or a nation is immoral, and therefore, Sinful”. Again in 1924, Gandhi repeated the same belief “ that economy is untrue which ignores or disregards moral values”.
Salient features of Gandhian Economic Thought:
1. Village Republics:
- India lives in villages.
- He was interested in developing the villages as self-sufficient units.
- He opposed extensive use of machinery, urbanization and industrialization.
2. On Machinery:
- Gandhi described machinery as ‘Great sin’. He said that “Books could be written to demonstrate its evils”.
- It is necessary to realize that machinery is bad.
- Instead of welcoming machinery as a boon, we should look upon it as an evil.
- It would ultimately cease.
3. Industrialism:
- Gandhi considered industrialism as a curse on mankind.
- He thought industrialism depended entirely on a country’s capacity to exploit.
4. Decentralization :
- Gandhi advocated a decentralized economy i. e., production at a large number of places on a small scale or production in the people’s homes.
5. Village Sarvodaya:
- According to Gandhi, “ Real India was to be found in villages and not in towns or cities”.
- So, he suggested the development of selfsufficient, self-dependent villages.
6. Bread Labour:
- Gandhi realized the dignity of human labour.
- He believed that God created man to eat his bread by the sweat of his brow.
- Bread labour or body labour was the expression that Gandhi used to mean manual labour.
7. The Doctrine of Trusteeship:
- Trusteeship provides a means of transforming the present capitalist order of society into an egalitarian one.
8. On the Food Problem:
- Gandhi was against any sort of food controls.
- Once India was begging for food grain, but now India tops the world with very large production of food grains, fruits, vegetables, milk, egg, meat etc.
9. On Population:
- Gandhi opposed the method of population control through contraceptives.
- He was, however, in favour of birth control through Brahmacharya or self-control.
- He considered self-control as a sovereign remedy to the problem of overpopulation.
10. On Prohibition:
- Gandhi advocated cent percent prohibition.
- Gandhi regarded the use of liquor as a disease rather than a vice.
- He felt that it was better for India to be poor than to have thousands of drunkards.
- Many states depend on revenue from liquor sales.
