“Nationalism has been exploited for purposes of Mammon worship. The rituals are abhorrent and nauseating. As Tagore puts it, “the vital ambition of the present civilization of Europe is to have the exclusive possession of the devil.” The country has been glorified at the cost of humanity. This insular and virulent type of nationalism has set nation against nation and has lowered man below the level of even brutes.”

(Nationalism)

“The wealth of a nation consists not in what a few possess, but in the extent to which the majority can satisfy their daily wants, especially needs. Looked at from this angle, increase in the number of millionaires in a country need not indicate increase in the prosperity of the nation. Indeed, it may indicate the opposite, if the accumulated wealth was occasioned by restricted distribution. When judging the well-being of a nation, our consideration should centre round the way in which purchasing power is distributed among the citizens…  Democracy cannot exist where there is starvation, nakedness and poverty alongside of glut and glamorous living, which condition indicates exploitation of the weak by the strong.”

(The Unitary Basis for a Non-violent Democracy)

This volume puts together selected writings by the Gandhian economist J.C. Kumarappa in the contemporary context of aggressive neoliberal economics being executed by global corporations with national governments in the role of able facilitators. The selection covers themes like Kumarappa’s economic thought, his politics of anti-imperialism and world peace, his views on religion—particularly on Christianity—his ideas about education, science, agriculture, the village economy and the land question, cottage and large-scale industries, and on the socialist models presented by the then Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China. Self-reliance and sustainability are vital themes, in short an economy of permanence.