World of Philosophy

Author(s): Christopher Key Chapple, Intaj Malek, Dilip Charan, Sunanda Shastri, Prashant Dave
Publisher: Shanti Prakashan

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According to him, the societies that were on limitless material acquisition path experienced a moral fall in the end. Rome suffered a moral fall after it achieved material affluence. The Yadavas during Lord Krishna's time in India ruined themselves morally when they were rolling in riches. Gandhi thought that an ordinary measure of morality is possessed by most including the very rich, but their material gains did not ensure moral richness. Sharing his longstanding observation of the society of the rich he said, "I observed almost invariably that the greater the possession of riches, the greater was their moral turpitude. Our rich men, to say the least, did not advance the moral struggle of passive resistance, as did the poor. The rich men's sense of self-respect was not so much injured as that of the poorest. If I were not afraid of treading on dangerous ground, I would even come nearer home and show you that possession of riches has been a hindrance to real growth". Gandhi then says that Jesus Christ was the greatest economist of his time. Quoting the dialogue between the Christ, a citizen and other disciples described by St. Mark, Gandhi emphasises in his lecture the virtue of spending wealth in the service of the poor and the have-nots. He further said, "I have not taken the trouble of copying similar passages from the other non Hindu scriptures and I will not insult you by quoting in support of the law stated by Jesus passages from writings and sayings of our own sages, passages stronger even if possible than the Biblical extracts have drawn your attention to. Jesus, Mohamed, Buddha, Nanak, Kabir, Chaitanya, Shankara, Dayanand, Ramakrishna were men who exercised an immense influence over and moulded the character of thousands of men HHAnd they were all men who deliberately embraced poverty as their lot."
A Gandhian scholar Mashruwala has termed Gandhi's vision of culture and civilisation as sant sanskriti - saint culture. The goal of human being is to live with values where material prosperity is not the ultimate aim. Ultimate aim is to live according to indication given in Ishavasya Upanishad, which says that you should renunciate first and then indulge - ten tyakten bhunjhithaha. This is a moral value. It should thus be clear to all of us that the foundation of Gandhian economic system is based on moral values.
It should now be possible to understand the process and outcome with and without ethical values in economic affairs. Modern economic thought had a religious foundation in supporting Protestant ethics against the Catholic Church values that had asked the human beings to work for all rewards that were other worldly. The consequences of such an approach and the revolt against it are well known and need not be repeated here. However, the Prot. estant ethics which began with an alternative religious value was soon deserted in favour of what was called rationality and creating a Frankenstein named 'Economic Man'. While this assumed entity of 'economic man' helped in analysis of economic behaviour in quantifiable, measurable and predictable way and helped Economics gain the status of science, in reality the
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