Nature’s Plan
I suggest that we are thieves in a way. If I take anything that I do
not need for my own immediate use, and keep it, I thieve it from somebody else.
I venture to suggest that it is the fundamental law of Nature, without
exception, that Nature produces enough for our wants from day to day, and if
only everybody took enough for himself and nothing more, there would be no
pauperism in this world, there would be no man dying of starvation in this
world. But so long as we have got this inequality, so long we are thieving. I
am no socialist and I do not want to dispossess those who have got possessions:
but I do say that, personally, those of us who want to see light out of darkness
have to follow this rule. I do not want to dispossess anybody. I should then be
departing from the rule of ahimsa. If somebody else possesses more than I do,
let him. But so far as my own life has to be regulated, I do say that I dare
not possess anything which I do not want. In India we have got three millions
of people having to be satisfied with one meal a day, and that meal consisting
of a chapati containing no fat in it, and a pinch of salt. You and I have no
right to anything that we really have until these three millions are clothed
and fed better. You and I, who ought to know better, must adjust our wants, and
even undergo voluntary starvation in order that they may be nursed, fed and
clothed. - Nat, 384.
If all men realized the obligation of service (as an eternal moral
law), they would regard it as a sin to amass wealth; and then, there would be
no inequalities of wealth and consequently no famine or starvation. - ER, 58.
Non-possession is allied to non-stealing. A thing not originally
stolen must nevertheless be classified stolen property, if one possesses it
without needing it. Possession implies provision for the future. A seeker after
Truth, a follower of a Law of Love cannot hold anything against tomorrow. God
never stores for the morrow; He never creates more than what is strictly needed
for the moment. If therefore, we repose faith in His providence, we should rest
assured, that He will give us everything that we require. Saints and devotees,
who have lived in such faith, have always derived a justification for it from
their experience. Our ignorance or negligence of the Divine Law, which gives to
man from day to day his daily bread and no more, has given rise to inequalities
with al the miseries attendant upon them. The rich have a superfluous store of
things which they do not need, and which are therefore neglected and wasted,
while millions are starved to death for want of sustenance. If each retained
possession only of what he needed, no one would be in want, and all would live
in contentment. As it is, the rich are discontented no less than the poor. The
poor man would fain become a millionaire, and the millionaire a
multimillionaire. The rich should take the initiative in dispossession with a
view to a universal diffusion of the spirit of contentment. If only they keep
their own property within moderate limits, the starving will be easily fed, and
will learn the lesson of contentment along with the rich. - YM, 34.
What was best was that nobody should possess more than he could
himself use. That was the ideal society should strive to reach. - H, 2-3-47,
47.
Voluntary, not Involuntary Poverty
No one has ever suggested that grinding pauperism can lead to anything
else than moral degradation. 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. But for this very simple performance we need no
assistance from economists or their laws.
‘Take no thought for the morrow’ is an injunction which finds an echo
in almost all the religious scriptures of the world. In well-ordered society
the securing of one’s livelihood should be and is found to be the easiest thing
in the world. Indeed, the test of orderliness in a country is not the number of
millionaires it owns, but the absence of starvation among its masses. The only
statement that has to be examined is, whether it can be laid down as a law of
universal application that material advancement means moral progress.
Now let us take a few illustrations. Rome suffered a moral fall when
it attained high material affluence. So did Egypt and so perhaps most countries
of which we have any historical record. The descendants and kinsmen of the
royal and divine Krishna too fell when they were rolling in riches. We do not
deny to the Rockefellers and the Carnegies possession of an ordinary measure of
morality but we gladly judge them indulgently. I mean that we do not even
expect them to satisfy the highest standard of morality. With them material gain
has not necessarily meant moral gain. In South Africa, where I had the
privilege of associating with thousands of our countryman on most intimate
terms, 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 t4reading on dangerous ground, I would even come nearer
home and show how that possession of riches has been a hindrance to real
growth. I venture to think that the scriptures of the world are far safer and
sounder treatises on laws of economics than many of the modern text-books. -
Nat, 350.
Economic Equality: The Goal
My ideal is equal distribution, but so far as I can see, it is not to
be realized. I therefore work for equitable distribution. - YI, I7-3-27, 86.
Economic equality is the master key to nonviolent independence.
Working for economic equality means abolishing the eternal conflict between
capital and labour. It means the leveling down of the few rich in whose hands
is concentrated the bulk of the nation’s wealth on the one hand, and a leveling
up of the semi-starved naked millions on the other. A non-violent system of
government is clearly an impossibility so long as the wide gulf between the
rich and the hungry millions persists. The contrast between the palaces of New
Delhi and the miserable hovels of the poor, labouring class cannot last one day
in a free India in which the poor will enjoy the same power as the richest in
the land. A violent and bloody revolution is a certainty one-day unless there
is a voluntary abdication of riches and power that riches give and sharing them
for the common good. I adhere to my doctrine of trusteeship in spite of the
ridicule that has been poured upon it. It is true that it is difficult to
reach. So is non-violence difficult to attain. But we made up our minds in 1920
to negotiate that steep ascent. - CP, 18.
The real implication of equal distribution is that each man shall have
the wherewithal to supply all his natural wants and no more. For example, if
one man has a weak digestion and requires only a pound, both should be in a
position to satisfy their wants. To bring this ideal into being the entire
social order has got to be reconstructed. A society based on non-violence
cannot nature any other ideal. We may not perhaps be able to realize the goal,
but we must bear it in mind and work unceasingly to near it. To the same extent
as we progress towards our goal we near it. To the same extent as we progress
towards our goal we shall find contentment and happiness, and to that extent
too, shall we have contributed and happiness, and to that extent too, shall we
have contributed towards the bringing into being of a nonviolent society.
Now let us consider how equal distribution can be brought about
through non-violence. The first step towards it is for him who has made this
ideal part of his being to bring about the necessary changes in his personal
life. He would reduce his wants to a minimum, bearing in mind the poverty of
India. His earnings would be free of dishonesty. The desire for speculation
would be renounced. His habitation would be in keeping with his new mode of
life. There would be self-restraint exercised in every sphere of life. When he
has done all that is possible to preach this ideal among his associates and
neighbours.
Indeed at the root of this doctrine of equal distribution must lie
that of the trusteeship of the wealthy for superfluous wealth possessed by
them. For according to the doctrine they may not possess a rupee more than
their neighbours. How is this to be brought about? Non-violently? Or should the
wealthy be dispossessed of their possessions? To do this we would naturally
have to resort to violence. This violent action cannot benefit society. Society
will be the poorer, for it will lose the gifts of a man who knows how to
accumulate wealth. Therefore nonviolent way is evidently superior. The rich man
will be left in possession of his personal needs and will act as a trustee for
the remainder to be uses for the society. In this argument, honesty on the part
of the trustee is assumed.
If however, in spite of the utmost effort, the rich do not become
guardians of the poor in the true sense of the term and the latter are more and
more crushed and die of hunger, what is to be done? In trying to find out the
solution of this riddle I have lighted on nonviolent non co-operation and civil
disobedience as the right and infallible means. The rich cannot accumulate
wealth without the co-operation of the poor in society. If this knowledge were
to penetrate to and spread amongst the poor, they would become strong and would
learn how to free themselves which have brought them to the verge of
starvation. - H, 25-8-40, 260.
"What exactly do you mean by economic equality," Gandhiji
was asked at the Constructive Worker’s Conference during his recent tour of
Madras, "and what is statutory trusteeship as conceived by you?"
Gandhiji reply was that economic equality of his conception did not
mean that everyone would literally have the same amount. It simply meant that
everybody should have enough for his or her needs. For instance, he required
two shawls in winter whereas his grand nephew Kanu Gandhi who stayed with him
and was like his own son did not require any warm clothing what-so ever.
Gandhiji required goat’s milk, oranges and other fruit. He envied Kanu but
there was no point in it. Kanu was a young man whereas he was an old man of 76.
The monthly expense of his food was far more than that of Kanu but it did not
mean that there was economic inequality between them. The elephant needs a
thousand times more food than the ant, but that is no indication of inequality.
So the real meaning of economic equality was: "To each according to his
need." That was the definition of Marx. If a single man demanded as much
as a man with wife and four children that would be a violation of economic
equality.
"Let no one try to justify the blaring difference between the
classes and the masses, the prince and the pauper, by saying that the former
need more. That will be idle sophistry and a travesty of my argument," he
continued." he contrast between the rich and the poor today is a painful
sight. The poor villagers are exploited by the foreign government and also by
their own countrymen-the city-dwellers. They produce the food and go hungry.
They produce milk and their children have to go without it. It is disgraceful.
Everyone must have a balanced diet, a decent house to live in, facilities for
the education of one's children and adequate medical relief." That constituted
his picture of economic equality. He did not want to taboo everything above and
beyond the bare necessaries but they must come after the essential needs of the
poor are satisfied. First things must come first.
Statutory Trusteeship
As for the present owners of wealth they would have to make a choice
between class war and voluntarily converting themselves into trustees of their
wealth. They would be allowed to retain the stewardship of their possessions
and use their talent to increase the wealth, not for their own sakes, but for
the sake of the nation and therefore without exploitation. The state would
regulate the rate of commission which they would get commensurate with the
service rendered and its value to society. Their children would inherit the stewardship
only if they proved their fitness for it.
"Supposing India becomes a free country tomorrow," he
concluded, "all the capitalists will have an opportunity of becoming
statutory trustees." But such a statute will not be imposed from above. It
will have to come from below. When the people understand the implications of
trusteeship and the atmosphere is ripe for it, the people themselves, beginning
with gram Panchayat, will begin to introduce such statutes. Such a thing coming
from below is easy to swallow. Coming from above, it is liable to prove a dead
weight. - H, 31-3-46, 63.
In Favour of Equality of Income
Put your talents in the service of the country instead of converting
them into £. S. d. If you Are a medical man, there is disease enough in India
to need all your medical skill. If you are a lawyer, there are difference and
quarrels enough in India. Instead of fomenting more trouble, patch up those
quarrels and stop litigation. If you are an engineer, build model houses suited
to the means and needs of our people and yet full of health and fresh air.
There is nothing that you have learnt which cannot be turned to account. (The
friend who asked the question was a Chartered Accountant and Gandhiji then said
to him:) There is a dire need everywhere for accountants to audit the accounts
of Congress and its adjunct associations. Come to India-I will give you enough
work and also your hire-4 annas per day which is surely much more than millions
in India get. - YI, 5-11-31, 334.
(Several Mysore lawyers who had taken part in the Mysore Satyagraha
struggle had been disbarred by the Mysore Chief Court. Gandhiji wrote about
them:) Let these lawyers be proud of their poverty which will be probably their
lot now. Let them remember Thoreau’s saying that possession of riches is a
crime and poverty a virtue under an unjust administration. This is an eternal
maxim for Satyagrahis. The disbarred lawyers have a rare opportunity of so
remodeling their lives that they can always be above want. Let them remember
that practice of law ought not to mean taking more daily than, say, a village
carpenter’s wage. - H, 13-7-40, 205.
Q. To those who had lost all their trade, your advice is that they
should voluntarily turn themselves into labourers. Who will then look after
education, commerce and the like? If you thus dissolve the division of labour,
will not the cause of civilization suffer?
A. The question betrayed ignorance of his meaning. If a man could not
carry on his original business, it was not open to him but obligatory on him to
take to physical labour say scavenging or breaking stones. He believed in the
division of labour of work. But he did insist on the equality of wages. The
lawyer, the doctor, or the teacher was entitled to no more than the bhang. Then
only would division of work uplift the nation or the earth. There was no other
royal road to true civilization of happiness. - H, 23-3-47, 78.
Q. You wrote about economic equality in 1941. Do you hold that all
persons who perform useful and necessary service in society, whether farmer of
bhangi (sweeper), engineer of accountant, doctor or teacher, have a more right
only to equal wages with the rest? Of course, it is understood, educational or
other expenses shall be a charge of the State Our question is, should not all
persons get the same wages for this equality, it will cut sooner under the root
of untouchability than any other process?
A. As to this Gandhiji had no doubt that if India was to live an
exemplary life of independence which would be the envy of the world, all the
bhangis, doctors, lawyers, teachers, merchants and others would get the same
wages for an honest day’s work. Indian society may never reach the goal but it
was the duty of every Indian to set his sail towards that goal and no other if
India was to be a happy land. - H, 16-3-47, 67.
The Hypnotic Influence of Capital
We have unfortunately come under the hypnotic suggestion and the
hypnotic influence of Capital is all in all on earth. But a moment’s thought
would show that Labour has at its disposal Capital which the Capitalist will
never possess. Ruskin taught in his age that Labour has unrivalled
opportunities. But he spoke above our heads. At the present moment there is an
Englishman, Sir Daniel Hamilton, who is really making the experiment. He is an
economist. He is a Capitalist also; but through his economic research and
experiments he has come to the same conclusions as Ruskin had arrived at
intuitively, and he has brought to Labour a vital message. He says it is wrong
to think that a piece of metal constitutes Capital. He says it is wrong to
think that so much produce is Capital; but he adds that if we go the very
source, it is Labour that is Capital, and that living Capital is inexhaustible.
- IC, 393.
Earlier Writings on Capital and Labour
The avowed policy of Non-co-operation has been not to make political
use of disputes between Labour and Capital. They have endeavored to hold the
balance evenly between the two-we would be fools id we wantonly set Labour
against Capital. It would be just the way to play into the hands of a
Government which would greatly strengthen its hold on the country by setting
capitalist against labourers and vice versa. In Jharia, for instance, it was a
non-co-operator. The latter will not hesitate to advance the cause of strikers
where they have a just grievance. They have ever refused to lend their assistance
to unjust strikes. - YI, 20-4-21 124.
Swaraj as conceived by me does not mean the end of kingship. Nor does
it mean the end of capital. Accumulated capital means ruling power. I am for
the establishment of right relations between capital and labour etc. I do not
wish for the supremacy of the one over the other. I do not think there is any
natural antagonism between them. The rich and the poor will always be with us.
But their mutual relations will be subject to constant change. - YI, 8-1-25, 10.
I do not fight shy of capital. I fight capitalism. The West teaches us
to avoid concentration of capital, to avoid a racial war in another and
deadlier form. Capital and labour need not be antagonistic to each other. I
cannot picture to myself a time when no man shall be richer than another. But I
do picture to myself a time when the rich will spurn to enrich themselves at
the expense of the poor and the poor will cease to envy the rich. Even in a
most perfect world, we shall fail to avoid inequalities, but we can and must
avoid strife and bitterness. There are numerous examples extant of the rich and
the poor living in perfect friendliness. We have but to multiply such
instances. - YI, 7-10-26, 348.
I have not been writing much about the agriculturists advisedly. For I
know that it is impossible for us to do anything for them today. There are
thousand and one things that need to be done for the amelioration of the lot of
the agriculturists. But so long as the reins of Government are not in the hands
of the agriculturists’ representatives, i.e. so long as we have no
Swaraj-Dharmaraj-that amelioration is very difficult if not impossible. I know
that the peasant is dragging a miserable existence and hardly gets even a
scanty meal a day. That is why I have suggested the revival of the spinning
wheel.
And the need for internal reform is as that for legislative reform.
And internal reform can be only partly achieved when numerous volunteers are
found to take up village-work as the mission of their lives. The evil habits of
ages cannot go in a year or two.
We may not forcibly dispossess the Zamindars and Talukdars of their
thousands of bighas. And among whom shall we distribute them? We need not
dispossess them. They only need a change of heart. When that is done, and when
they learn to melt at their tenants’ woe, they will hold their lands in trust
of them, will give them a major part of the produce keeping only sufficient for
themselves. ‘We had better wait for that day until the Greek Kalends’ someone
will say. I do not think so. I think that the world is moving toward peace i.e.
Ahimsa. The way of violence has been tried for ages and found wanting. Let no
one believe that the people of Russia, Italy, and other countries are happy or
are independent. The sword of Damocles is always hanging over their heads.
Those who have the good of the Indian agriculturists at heart must pin their
faith on nonviolence and plod on. Those who think of other methods are vainly
flattering themselves with the hope of success. The agriculturist never figures
in their calculation, or at any rate they do not know their condition.
What I have said above applies equally to the sowkar and other
exploiters. Nothing but their own profit appeals to them. But there too the
remedy is the moral education of both. The oppressed need no other education
except in Satyagraha and non-co-operation. A slave is a slave because he
consents to slavery. If training in physical resistance is possible, why should
that in spiritual resistance be impossible? If we know the use of the body why
can we not know the use and power of the soul? - YI, 4-2-26, 45.
Position of Labour: Later Views
Q. What is your opinion about the social economics of Bolshevism and
how far do you think they are fit to be copied by our country?
A. I must confess that I have not yet been able fully to understand
the meaning of Bolshevism. All that I know is that it aims at the abolition of
the institution of private property. This is only an application of the ethical
ideal of non-possession in the realm of economics and if the people adopted
this ideal of their own accord of could be made to accept it by means of
peaceful persuasion, there would be nothing like it. But from what I know of
Bolshevism it not only does not preclude the use of force but freely sanctions
it for the expropriation of private property and maintaining the Collective
State ownership of the same. And if that is so I have no hesitation in saying
that the Bolshevik regime in its present form cannot last for long. For it s my
firm conviction that nothing enduring can be built on violence. But be that as
it may there is no questioning the fact that the Bolshevik ideal has behind it
the purest sacrifice of countless men and woman who have given up their all for
its sake, and an ideal that is sanctified by the sacrifices of such master
spirits as Lenin cannot go in vain: the noble example of their renunciation
will be emblazoned for ever and quicken and purify the ideal as time passes. -
YI, 15-11-28, 381.
Q. How exactly do you think the Indian princes, landlords, mill-owners
and money-lenders and other profiteers are enriched?
A. At the present moment by exploiting the masses.
Q. Can these classes be enriched without the exploitation of the
Indian workers and peasants?
A. To a certain extent, yes.
Q . Have these classes any social justification to live more
comfortable than the ordinary worker and peasant who does the work which
provides their wealth?
A. No justification. My idea of society is that while we are born
equal, meaning that we have a right to equal opportunity, all have not the same
capacity. It is, in the nature of things, impossible. For instance, all cannot
have the same height, or colour or degree of intelligence, etc; therefore in
the nature of things, some will have ability to earn more and others less.
People with talents will have more, and they will utilize their talents for
this purpose. If they utilize their talents kindly, they will be performing the
work of the State. Such people exist as trustees, on no other terms. I would
allow a man of intellect to earn more, I would not cramp his talent. *But the
bulk of his greater earnings must be used for the good of the State. Just as
the income of all earning sons of the father go to the common family fund. They
would have their earnings only as trustees. It may be that I would fail
miserable in this. But that is what I am sailing for.
The masses do not today see in landlords and other profiteers their
enemy; but the consciousness of the wrong done to them by these classes has to
be created in them. I do not teach the masses to regard the capitalists as
their enemies, but I teach them that they are their own enemies.
Non-co-operators never told the people that the British or General Dyer were
bad, but that they were the victims of a system. So that, the system must be
destroyed and not the individual.
The zamindar is merely a tool of a system. It is not necessary to take
up a movement against them at the same time as against the British system. It
is possible to distinguish between the two. But, we had to tell the people not
to pay to the Zamindars, because, out of this money the Zamindars paid to the
Government. But, we have no quarrel with the zamindars as such, so long as they
act well by the tenants. - YI, 26-11-31, 363. cf. 306, 14.
He was no lover of the zamindari system. He had often spoken against
it; but he frankly confessed that he was not the enemy of the zamindars. He
owned no enemies. The best way to bring About reform in the economic and social
systems, whose evils were admittedly many, was through the royal road of
self-suffering. Any departure from it only resulted in merely changing the form
of the evil that was sought to be liquidated violently. Violence was incapable
of destroying the evil root and branch. - H, 30-3-47, 87.
An Appeal to the Upper Classes
The village work frightens us. We who are town bred find it trying to
take to the village life. But it is a difficulty which we have to face boldly,
even heroically, if our desire is to establish Swaraj for the people, not
substitute one class rule by another, which may be even worse. Hitherto the
villagers have died in their thousands so that we might live. Now we might have
to die so that they may live. The difference will be fundamental. The former
have died unknowingly and involuntarily. Their enforced sacrifice had degraded
us. If now we die knowingly and willingly, our sacrifice will ennoble us and
the whole nation. Let us not flinch from the necessary sacrifice, if we will
live as an independent self-respecting nation. - YI, 17-4-24, 130.
A model zamindar would therefore at once reduce mush of the burden the
ryot and know their wants and inject hope into them in the place of despair
which is killing the very life out of them. He will not be satisfied with the
ryots’ ignorance of the laws of sanitation and hygiene. He will reduce himself
to poverty in order that the ryot may have the necessaries of life. He will
study the economic condition of the ryots under his care, establish schools in
which he will educate his own children side by side with those of the ryots. He
will purify the village well and the village tank. He will teach the ryot to
sweep his roads and clean his latrines by himself doing this necessary labour.
He will throw open without reserve his own gardens for the unrestricted use of
the ryot. He will use as hospital, school, or the like most of the unnecessary
buildings which he keeps for his pleasure. If only the capitalist class will
read the signs of the times, revise their notions of God-given right to all
they possess, in an incredibly short space of time the seven hundred thousand
dung-heaps which today pass muster as villages can be turned into abodes of
peace, health and comfort. I am convinced that the capitalist, if he follows
the Samurai of Japan, has nothing really to lose and everything to gain. There
is no other choice than between voluntary surrender on the part of the
capitalist of superfluities and consequent acquisition of the real happiness of
all on the one hand, and on the other, the impending chaos into which, if the
capitalist does not wake up betimes, awakened but ignorant, famishing millions
will plunge the country and which not even the armed force that a powerful
Government can bring into play can avert. - YI, 5-I2-29, 396.
The Method of Securing Economic Justice
Q. How then will you bring about the trusteeship? Is it by persuasion?
A. Not merely by verbal persuasion. I will concentrate on my means.
Some have called me the greatest revolutionary of my time. It may be false, but
I believe myself to be a revolutionary-a nonviolent revolutionary. My means are
non-co-operation. No person can amass wealth without the co-operation, willing
or forced, of the people concerned. YI, 26-II-3I, 369.
The greatest obstacle in the path of nonviolence is the presence in
our midst of the indigenous interests that have sprung up from British rule,
the interests of monied men, speculators, scrip-holders, landholders,
factory-owners and the like. All these do not always realize that they are
living on the blood of the masses, and when they do, they become as callous as
the British principals whose tools and agents they are. If like the Japanese
Samurai they could but realize that they must give up their blood-stained
gains, the battle is won for nonviolence. It must not be difficult for them to
see that the holding of millions is a crime when millions of their own kith and
kin are starving and that, therefore, they must give up their agency. No
principal has yet been found able to work without faithful agents.
But non-violence has to be patient with these as with the British
principals. The aim of the non-violent worker must ever be to convert. He may
not however wait endlessly. When therefore the limit is reached, he takes risks
and conceives plans of active Satyagraha which may mean civil disobedience and
the like. His patience is never exhausted to the point of giving up his creed.
YI, 6-2-30, 44.
Q. If you benefit the workers, the peasant and the factory-hand, can
you avoid class war?
A. I can most decidedly, if only the people will follow the nonviolent
method. By the nonviolent method, we seek not to destroy the capitalist, we
seek to destroy capitalism. We invite the capitalist to regard himself as a
trustee for those on whom he depends for the making, the retention and the
increase of his capital. Nor need the worker wait for his conversion. If
capital is power, so is work. Either power can be used destructively or
creatively. Either is dependent on the other. Immediately the worker realizes
his strength, he is in a position to become a co-sharer with the capitalist
instead of remaining his slave. If he aims at becoming the sole owner, he will
most likely be killing the hen that lays golden eggs. Inequalities in
intelligence and even opportunity will last till the end of time. A man living
on the banks of a river has any day more opportunity of growing crops than one
living in an arid desert. But if inequalities stare us in the face the essential
equality too is not to be missed. Every man has an equal right to the
necessaries of life even as birds and beasts have. And since every right
carries with it a corresponding duty and the corresponding remedy for resisting
an attack upon it, it is merely a matter of finding out the corresponding
duties and remedies to vindicate the elementary equality. The corresponding
duty is to labour with my limbs and the corresponding remedy is to
non-co-operate with him who deprives me of the fruit of my labour. And if I
would recognize the fundamental equality, as I must, of the capitalist and the
labourer, I must not aim at his destruction. I must strive for his conversion.
My non-co-operation with him will open his eyes to the wrong he may be doing.
Nor need I be afraid of someone else taking my coworkers so as not to help the
wrong-doing of the employer. This kind of education of the mass of workers is
no doubt a slow process, but as it is also the surest, it is necessarily the
quickest. It can be easily demonstrated that destruction of the capitalist must
mean destruction in the end of the worker; and as no human being is so bad as
to be beyond redemption, no human being is so perfect as to warrant his
destroying him whom he wrongly considers to be wholly evil. - YI, 26-3-3I, 49.
There is in English a very potent world, and you have it in French
also; all the languages of the world have it-it is ‘No’: and the secret that we
have hit upon is that when Capital wants Labour to say ‘Yes, Labour roars out
‘No’, if it means ‘No’. And immediately Labour comes to recognize that it has
got its choice of saying ‘Yes’ when it wants to say ‘Yes’, and ‘No’ when it
wants to say ‘No’. Labour is free of Capital and Capital has to woo Labour. And
it would not matter in the slightest degree that Capital has guns and even
poison gas at its disposal. Capital would still be perfectly helpless if Labour
would assert its dignity by making good its ‘No’. Labour does not need to
retaliate, but Labour stands defiant receiving the bullets and poison gas and
still insists upon its ‘No.
The whole reason why Labour so often fails is that instead of
sterilizing Capital, as I have suggested, Labour (I am speaking as a labourer
myself) want to seize that capital and become capitalist itself in the worse
sense of the term. And the capitalist, therefore, who is properly entrenched
and organized, finding among labourers also candidates for the same office,
makes use of a portion of these to suppress Labour. If we really were not under
the hypnotic spell, everyone of us, men and women, would recognize this
rock-bottom truth without the slightest difficulty. Having proved it for myself
through a series of experiments carried on in different departments of life, I
am speaking to you with authority (you will pardon me for saying so) that when
I put this scheme before you, it was not as something superhuman but as
something within the grasp of every labourer, man or woman.
Again, you will see what Labour is called upon to do under this scheme
of non-violence is nothing more than what the Swiss soldier does under
gun-fire, or the ordinary soldier who is armed from top to toe is called upon
to do. While he undoubtedly seeks to inflict death and destruction upon his
adversary, he also carries his own life in his pocket. I want Labour, then to
copy the courage of the soldier without copying the brute in the soldier namely
the ability to inflict death; and I suggest to you that a labourer who courts
death and has the courage to die without even carrying arms, with no weapon of
self-defense, show a courage of a much higher degree than a man who is armed
from top to toe. - IC, 394.