Responsible Individualism

The presumption on which the Statist policies of both the Congress and the communists are based and obstinately maintained is that the citizens of India will not as individuals do the right thing or the wise thing of themselves; and therefore that they have to be compelled by law to do it or to suffer it done by the State at their expense.

     As against this gratuitous presumption, we have to give thought to the waste, inefficiency and administrative expense of the tremendous centralization involved in government management and control of the total national economy, be it by the Central or the State administration.

     What according to the Statist assumption makes the ministers do the right or the wise thing? It cannot be that they are demigods, a separate kind of superior human beings. The subtle moral forces, which it is assumed will impel these VIPs, can also be conceived in respect of the ordinary citizens. The individual, though he does not hold any office in the State, has his status and reputation in society, which he would like to keep untarnished even as the elected representatives and ministers claim to do. Why then should we not trust the individual to do the right and the wises thing in the use and management of his own wealth? The good and wise men of the land can always guide them, along with public opinion and tradition.

     A man does not care for himself alone. He cares for his wife and children. In India he cares for his other relations too. This is notorious, so much so that it is thought necessary to curb it! He cares for the good opinion of his caste or community and often of the class to which by choice he may have made himself one. It would be a wise and workable policy to exploit all these attachments of the citizen, which have a certain kind and degree of selfishness at their base but which at the same time are projected outside of himself and the narrow circle of his family. It would be good State policy to induce the citizen who earns and manages his own wealth to use it in fulfilment of all these varying degrees of attachment and concern outside of himself. Facilities, rewards, and due recognition can operate on the minds of men, be they citizens or ministers.

     There are limitations in the working of human nature which we should take into account instead of merely deprecating them. Demands on the individual, be it over-much taxation or insistence on a much wider philanthropy than what naturally and spontaneously inspires him, tend to atrophy his natural inclinations and shape him into a selfish and dishonest person. One can see that this has happened already. Many charitable and philanthropic minded people have, under the stress of State levies and demands, now changed into cautious and completely selfish people.

     The policy advocated here is the policy of trusteeship of private wealth advocated by Gandhiji as a definitely preferable alternative to the State-socialism which was pressed on him by some of his disciples, as the only effective and speedy way to advance the condition of the poorer classes.

     Recently a US Senate candidate Robert Taft (grandson of President W. H. Taft) pleaded for what he called ‘responsible individualism’ as against excessive State control. Responsible individualism is just what has been advocated here and what Gandhiji advised. Let us put this responsible individualism as the alternative and in clear opposition to the wasteful centralization of the national economy in the hands of the ministers and the bureaucracy. A total refusal to place faith in the individual is the meaning and substance of the Statism of the Congress and communist parties, and this cannot be allowed to be the foundation of national policy. The individual citizen should be entrusted with moral responsibility for the sphere wherein he can efficiently help. Let the laws encourage every individual benefit to look upon the wealth he makes and keeps as his own, to use it for the benefit of those around him, and of those to whom he believes he belongs’. Therein let him exercise his free will and choice. This sense of freedom of choice will beget an unbelievable amount of unselfish action. The other day a person left all his property—and it was a substantial amount—— for the benefit of the Veterinary College in Madras. He would have violently rebelled—I say this as I knew him well— if he had been ordered to part with even a half of it in favour of Government. We should remove all difficulties in the way of limited charities and endowments. Tax concessions, matching grants and other kinds of encouragement can be given to help this ‘responsible individualism’. No one in India commands respect or status but incurs tangible social opprobrium who neglects his people, himself being wealthy. Let the State also do what it can to help this opprobrium.

     The total result of this decentralized voluntary socialism spread out nation-wide, which is in accordance with our best traditions, and which does not interfere with the right to own and enjoy property, will be much bigger and better than the net result of the Statist disparity-removing socialism to which the Congress and communist parties have pledged themselves, and in which such a great deal of waste and expense is inherent and unavoidable. The State should recognize and fulfill its responsibility for classes left untouched by this responsible individualism; and the general tax-payer will not grudge the demands made on him, for that purpose.

     We should set going a massive competition in the founding of such benefactions wherein the donors feel they are doing their natural duty by those who ‘belong’ to them. There should be no discouragement of men who part with their wealth for unselfish purposes, simply on the ground that they are not as broadminded as they could be or as we want them to be. The limited benefactions will in the end add up to what we want. The nation in India is composed actually of numerous communities, each of which has some wealthy and generous minded individuals. We should shed the fear that denominational and sectional trusts and foundations impede national integration.

     Let us respect the earnest plea of the Father of the Nation and give an honest and fair trial to his scheme of Trusteeship as opposed to Western Socialism based on what he considered to be a form of violence. Till very recently in our land no one believed that one could honestly get rich or earn money except in competition with others. But now competition has been displaced by quasi-monopolies in the gift of a political party; and feathering one’s nest at the expense of others has become the chief preoccupation in our permit-licence-raj society. It is not good certainly to let men with money become powerful. But as Hayek has written, it would be worse if only men politically powerful can make money. And this is the essence of the permit-licence-raj and the planned economy which is its parent. The oxygen of competition has been displaced by the foul air of monopolies in the gift of a political party. Let us turn people’s minds to something better, something in our own tradition, to Dharma which dictates from within and speaks in the voice of our Rshis.