Vol. 1 · pages 501–505

486 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES the combatants could not be achieved otherwise than by violence, i.e., without involving the sacrifice of other ends equally valuable for the stability of the world. True enough that violence cannot always be avoided and nonresistance can be adopted only when it is a better way of resistance. But the responsibility for an intelligent control of force rests on us all. In short, the point is that to achieve anything we must use force : only we must use it constructively as energy and not destructively as violence. The length of this discussion of the philosophy of war as related to the principles of growth can be justified, if need be, by more extenuating circumstances than one. The present European war has brought into unmeasured and even thoughtless censure the philosophy of force and has ushered to the forefront the gospel of quieticism and the doctrine of non-resistance. The fact that Mr. Russell’s is an anti-war book, the author of which was sentenced to six months’ goal, not for writing the book under review but for being a pacifist crank, will be construed to lend its support to the lurking desire in many a mind for a passive life as a natural reaction from the turmoil of war. It was therefore necessary to know how far Mr. Russell shared in this condemnation of force. A second justifying circumstance is furnished by the bias in the minds of the Indian readers of Mr. Russell. It will be realized that what is advocated to take the place of the philosophy of force is essentially an Eastern philosophy or to be specific, Indian philosophy. It was therefore much more important to present Indian readers of Mr. Russell with a correct interpretation of his attitude. Their innate craving for a pacific life and their philosophic bias for the doctrine of non-resistance, I am afraid, might lead them to read in Mr. Russell a justification of their view of life, if not guarded against. Is the Indian view of life a practicable view ? Nietzsche in his cynical mood said of Christianity that there was only one Christian and he was crucified-implying the impracticability of the Christian view of life. This remark, if it is true of the Christian, must be true, in a larger degree, of the Eastern view of life as well: for, though regionally Western yet Christianity in its origin as well in its content is essentially Eastern. Equally condemnatory, though not so severely, as shown above, is the attitude of Mr. Russell towards this philosophy of quieticism. One cannot however, fail to notice with dismay the persistence of this attitude towards life on the part of Indians notwithstanding its theoretical impossibility and the many vissicitudes through which the country has passed. Nay, in the present days of Indian Nationalism—which sadly enough is tantamount to justifying everything Indian—the attitude is likely to be upheld and continued. Note, that of the stock contrasts between the East and the West, thrown in relief by the war, the East is ever eager to give prominence in terms of self-glorification to one—that of its being free from the extreme

MR. RUSSELL AND THE RECONSTRUCTION OF SOCIETY 487 materialism of the West leading to war and devastation. There is however no justification for setting the West in such a cruel contrast. The East is too prone to forget that materialist we all are ; even the East in spite of itself. Regarding the war, perhaps, the West may be blamed. But it can retort and say, “not to act is to be dead. Life consists in activity: It is better to act even violently as in war than not at all for only when we act that we may hope to act well.” Thus, surprising as it may be, the pacifist Mr. Russell thinks even war as an activity leading to the growth of the individual and condemns it only because it results in death and destruction. He would welcome milder forms of war for according to him, “Every man needs some kind of contest, some sense of resistance overcome, in order to feel that he is exercising his faculties”, 8 in other words to feel that he is growing. Of the many reasons urged in support the Indian view of life one is that it is chiefly owing to its influence that India alone of all the oldest countries has survived to this day. This is a statement that is often heard and even from persons whose opinions cannot be too easily set aside. With the proof or disproof however of this statement I do not wish to concern myself. Granting the fact of survival I mean to make a statement yet more important. It is this; there are many modes of survival and not all are equally commendable. For instance, mobility to beat a timely retreat may allow weaker varieties of people to survive. So the capacity to grovel or lie low may equally as the power of rising to the occasion be the condition of the survival of a people. Consequently, it cannot be granted—as is usually supposed— that because a people have survived through ages that therefore they have been growing and improving through ages. Thus it is not survival but the quality, the plane of survival, that is important. If the Indian readers of Mr. Russell probe into the quality of their survival and not remain contented merely with having survived I feel confident that they will be convinced of the necessity of a revaluation of their values of life. This much for Mr. Russell’s outlook towards the philosophy of war. We will now turn to his analysis of the effects of property. Mr. Russell passes in review the various existing economic organizations of society, the social ills they produce and the remedies put forth. His critique is summarized by himself as follows: “The evils of present system result from the separation between the several interests of consumer, producer and capitalist. No one of these three has the same interests as the community or as either of the other two. The co-operative system amalgamates the interests of consumer and 8. Principles of Social Reconstruction, p. 96.

488 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES capitalist; syndicalism would amalgamate the interests of producer and capitalists. Neither amalgamates all three, or makes the interests of those who direct industry quite identical with those of the community. Neither, therefore, would wholly prevent industrial strife or obviate the need of the State as arbitrator. But either would be better than the present system, and probably a mixture of both would cure most of the evils of industrialism as it exists now. It is surprising that, while men and women have struggled to achieve political democracy, so little has been done to introduce democracy in industry. I believe incalculable benefits might result from industrial democracy either on the co-operative model or with recognition of a trade or industry as a unit for purposes of Government, with some kind of Home Rule such as syndicalism aims at securing. There is no reason why all Governmental units should be geographical. The system was necessary in the past because of the slowness of means of communication, but it is not necessary now. By some such system many men might come to feel again a pride in their work and to find again that outlet for the creative impulse which is now denied to all but a fortunate few. Such a system requires the abolition of the land owner and the restriction of the Capitalist, but does not entail equality of earnings. And unlike Socialism, it is not a static or final system; it is hardly more than a frame-work for energy and initiative. It is only by some such method, I believe that the free growth of the individual can be reconciled with the huge technical organizations which have been rendered necessary by industrialism”. 9 It is a common place criticism of the industrial system that it gives rise to compartmental ethics, dwarfs the personality and makes slaves of the workers. To obviate such a result Mr. Russell approaches with a cautious spirit, a breadth of outlook and philosophic grasp of the social effects of the Economic Institutions. I wish the same could be said of his analysis of the mental effects of property. On the other hand his discussion of this aspect of property is marked by certain misconceptions which it is necessary to expose. The first misconception is embodied in a statement about the “love of money” in which he says “it leads men to mutilate their own nature from a mistaken theory of what constitutes success and to give admiration to enterprises which add nothing to human welfare. It promotes a dead uniformity of character and purpose, a diminution in the joy of life, and a stress and strain which leaves whole communities weary, discouraged, and disillusioned.” 10 This is a sentiment that smacks of the antique and 9. Principles of Social Reconstruction, pp, 141-42. 10. Ibid,. p. 113.

MR. RUSSELL AND THE RECONSTRUCTION OF SOCIETY 489 once served as a basic philosophy of life, probably with justification. The economic life and the philosophic outlook of a society are more intimately connected than is commonly supposed 11 and chipped off its exaggerations, the Economical Interpretation of History holds true. This time-honoured complaint of the moralists against “love of money” is only a part of their general complaint against the goods of the world and finds its justification in the economic circumstances which gave rise to this particular belief. Bearing this in mind, it becomes easy to understand why the philosophy of sour grapes, of the have-nots, is the most human of all beliefs and why it so largely pervades our values about things which we can and things which we cannot possess in spite of our efforts to have them. When we cannot have a thing we argue that it is not worth having. There is thus a genuine difference between the outlooks of the “haves” and the “havenots” towards worldly goods as there is between the religions of the downcast and the successful. Each one in obedience to its profoundly moral nature—moral even in its immorality in that it seeks justification for everything it does—idealises its own attitude. At a time when the whole world was living in “pain economy” as did the ancient world and when the productivity of human labour was extremely low and when no efforts could augment its return, in short, when the whole world was living in poverty it is but natural that moralists should have preached the gospel of poverty and renunciation of worldly pleasures only because they were not to be had. The belief of a society of “pain economy” is that a thing must be bad if it cannot be had just as a society of “pleasure economy” addicted to “ conspicuous consumption “ believes that a thing must be nasty if it is cheap. Neither does the re-statement of the evils of “love of money” by Mr. Russell add any philosophic weight to its historic value. The misconception arises from the fact that he criticises the love of money without inquiring into the purpose of it. In a healthy mind, it may be urged, there is no such thing as a love of money in the abstract. Love of money is always for something and it is the purpose embodied in that “for something” that will endow it with credit or cover it with shame. Having regard to this, there can be no “dead uniformity of character” among the individual for, though actuated by love of money, their purposes on different occasions are likely to be different. Thus even love of money as a pursuit may result in a variety of character. If Mr. Russell’s thesis is shaky when looked at from the production side of our life, it entirely falls to the ground when looked at from the consumption side. Really to prove that human nature mutilates itself by feeding, exclusively, some one appetite we shall have to find our support by scrutinizing not the production but the consumption side of life. Now 11. Cf James Bonar “Philosophy in its Relation to Political Economy”, more particularly, Achille Lorla, “Economic Foundations of Society”.

490 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES knowing as we do the laws of consumption 12 is there a possibility of such mutilation? The answer, as we shall see, is in the negative. The laws of consumption, it may be noted, are simply certain deductions from the economic doctrine of the utility theory of value Formulated, as a reaction to the classical theory by Cournot, Gossen, Walres Menger and Jevons, it no longer thinks of utility as a quality inherent in the objective thing or condition but as dependent upon the capacity it possesses to satisfy human wants. This being so, the utility of an object varies according to the varying condition of the organism needing satisfaction. Even an object of our strongest desire like food may please or disgust, according as we are hungry or have over-indulged the appetite. Thus utility diminishes as satisfaction increases. In other words as satisfaction is the pleasurable activity of a particular organ or a group of them, the curve representing the relation of the organ to the object of its satisfaction varies inversely with the condition of the organ. If Mr. Russell had carefully gone into the implications of this psychological analysis, he would certainly have avoided the misconception in question. For what does the psychological analysis really mean ? Why does the utility of an object tend to be zero or even negative ? This takes place it may be argued either (1) because at some point in the process of satisfaction the particular organ irritated ceases to derive any further satisfaction by feeding itself on the object of its craving or (2) because other organs needing a different kind of satisfaction clamour against the over-indulgence of some one organ at their expense. Prof. Giddings holding the latter view says “ if the cravings of a particular organ or a group of organs are being liberally met with appropriate satisfactions, while other organs suffer deprivation, the neglected organs set up a protest, which is usually sufficiently importunate to compel us to attempt their appeasing. The hunger of the neglected parts of our nature normally takes possession of consciousness, and diverts our attention and our efforts from the organ which is receiving more than its due share of indulgence”.13 Of the two alternative explanations that of Prof. Giddings is probably the more correct. Having regard to the behaviouristic hypothesis, of the organism as an active entity, it is but proper to suppose that there does exist this hunger of the entire organism for a varied satisfaction appropriate to each of its organ which would engender such a protest. It is this protest that compels obedience to what is called the law of variety in consumption. If this is a fact it is difficult to understand how one organ by perpetual dominance can mutilate the whole organism. On the other hand, though one at a time, all the appetites have their turn. Human nature is, thus, fortunately, provided by its very make-up against a one-sided development leaving no doubt as to its promise for an all-round development in a congenial environment. Whether it will be able to obtain the miscellaneous 12. For a brilliant discussion of them C/o. Prof. S. N. Patten’s “A Theory of Consumption”. 13. Democracy and Empire, p. 19.