Sarvodaya: Marx, Gandhi and Ruskin!

This book discusses the great flaw of conventional economics, which overlooks human spirituality and ethics in its calculations and economic programs, viewing the human being as a mechanical puppet whose only physical labor power is accounted for in the production process, devoid of human affection, empathy, and dynamism, and merely a silent parameter in the equations of supply and demand; consequently, in the author's words, it breeds human injustices and miseries. In the simplest language and manner, we become acquainted with the accumulation of wealth and surplus value on one side of economic relations, and then we arrive at seeking a remedy.

What is Sarvodaya?!

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Karl Marx (1818–1883), philosopher, sociologist, historian, philosopher of history, economist, politician, social activist, and one of the most epoch-making thinkers of the modern era, offered highly challenging views in all his fields of interest in the second half of the nineteenth century; and among them, the theory of “surplus value” in political economy and the recognition of the rights of “labor power” was one of the most important, elaborated in detail in his book “Capital.” Since then, this theory has been considered in all schools of political economy.

Among those who have pondered “surplus value” and held a different view of it, the preeminent critic of Victorian art and architecture, art patron, working watercolorist, prominent thinker of social economy (relying on charitable organizations, cooperatives, and other NGOs and the foundation of the welfare state), and great philanthropist, the Englishman “John Ruskin” (1819–1900), is someone who, like Marx, also had various other interests. But he shared one of them with Marx: “political economy.”

Marx wrote the first volume of “Capital” in 1867, and Ruskin wrote “Unto This Last” in 1862, that is, 5 years earlier. The main subject of this work by Ruskin is also the recognition of the rights of labor, but in his own way. Unlike Marx, he seemingly does not see an inherent and intrinsic struggle between the owners of labor power (wage earners) and capital (or employers), but he does see obvious injustice and unfairness in capitalist exchanges in the specific contemporary historical sense, as well as in its general sense (the ancient, prevailing law of supply and demand), and offers a solution to remedy it. Ultimately, the book “Unto This Last,” unlike Marx, does not frame the problem as a win-lose for one class and strives, by introducing the intervention of ethics into the self-evident assumptions of conventional market economics, to propose a win-win solution.

Gandhi – this social activist, saintly politician, political saint, and anarchist activist who, contrary to popular perception, for most of his active life, turned to the most practical form of realizing non-violent anarchism (that is, the reconstruction of India’s villages and the establishment of a healthy society, arising from an archipelago of proud and contented villages, with a self-governing, decentralized, and voluntary organizational structure, along with ceasing to expect services from the stupid giant of the state, the large, highly centralized, and inefficient government) – in his youth, by chance, came across this very book in South Africa and read it.

He, unlike most intellectuals and mental workers, was not much of a book reader; he was not a pedant; and it is well known that in his later life, he owned no more than six books. He had no knowledge of philosophical discussion at all; he read less and insisted more on reading what he had previously read with greater depth and acting upon it better. Gandhi read this book over the course of a day and night on a train journey and absorbed its meaning. And thus, another Gandhi was born.

From the very next day, he resolves to change his entire being, but for this inner transformation, he must alter the "relations of labor" so that through this outward change, he might also sense inward transformations within himself. He establishes a "commune" named "Phoenix" in South Africa to put those readings into practice; he also publishes a summary of the book itself in Gujarati, under the title "Sarvodaya," in his journal Indian Opinion. Later, he organizes another commune under the esteemed name of Tolstoy.

Now, the translation of this adaptation by Gandhi is presented in Persian to interested readers who:

Day and night, in alleys, streets, media, and social networks, witness all manner of disruptions, deficiencies, and injustices that appear irremediable, untouchable, eternal, and primordial.

Proudhon, Feuerbach, Marx, Ruskin, and many others have claimed to offer remedies for unjust "relations of labor," the "free market," and "supply and demand," but this time,

we will read a remedy in the words of Ruskin-Gandhi, injecting ethics into the rigid, mechanical framework of market economics, and we will become acquainted with various appendices that not only introduce us to a different kind of Gandhi but also offer dozens of new ways to think about alternative paths to today's economy, yet along the very same trajectory of Gandhi and Ruskin:

Here you have the fruit of the work of Gandhi, Ruskin, and many others:

Village Self-Governance (Village Independence) by Gandhi

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Books and articles translated by Gholamali Keshani, all of which are available for free

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Source: Non-Violence | Writings of Gholamali Keshani

Gholamali Keshani's Telegram Channel

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