What were Gandhi’s views on the wealthy and the poor? A new book explores his economic philosophy

Gandhi for the Wealthy

For the wealthy, Gandhi’s advice was pretty much taken out of the Gospels. Wealth has a seductive appeal. And like all seductive objects, it can be corrosive. Hedonistic excesses, slavish kowtowing to wealth and the serving of Mammon exclusively can result in loss of opportunity to engage with the kingdom of god. And one need not take this metaphor to mean engagement with organised religion. Rather, it implies an acknowledgement that human beings are more than selfish brutes, that deep within each of us there exists an element of our consciousness that needs to have communion with the sacred. And implied by the existence of this element, an umbilical cord that ties us with the sacred, is mankind’s attachment to the noblest in human traditions – the Upanishads, the Gita and the Gospels.

It is the complete disconnect from the sacred that might be the persistent weakness in modern capitalist doctrines. This disconnect would have suited David Hume, but may not have passed muster with Smith’s English friend Edmund Burke, and certainly not with Burke’s worthy successor in recent times, Roger Scruton.

Being a worldly ascetic, as envisaged by Gandhi, meant that the individual is engaged in constructive service with her…

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