It can be easily demonstrated that destruction of the capitalist must mean destruction in the end of the worker and as no human being is so bad as to be beyond redemption, no human being is so perfect as to warrant his destroying him whom he wrongly considers to be wholly evil. We invite the capitalist to regard himself as trustee for those on whom he depends for the making, the retention, and the increase of his capital. Nor need the worker wait for his conversion. If capital is power, so is work. … Either is dependent on the other. Immediately the worker realizes his strength, he is in a position to become co-sharer with the capitalist instead of remaining his slave. If he aims at becoming the sole owner, he will most likely be killing the hen that lays golden eggs. Inequalities in intelligence and even opportunity will last till the end of time. A man living on the banks of a river has any day more opportunity of growing crops than one living in the arid desert.

Gandhi On Socialism and Communism: I look upon an increase of the power of the State with the greatest fear, because although while apparently doing good by minimizing exploitation, it does the greatest harm to mankind by destroying individuality, which lies at the root of all progress. We know of so many cases where men have adopted trusteeship, but none where the State has really lived for the poor. …

The socialists and communists say, they can do nothing to bring about economic equality today. They will just carry on propaganda in its favor and to that end they believe in generating and accentuating hatred. They say, when they get control over the State, they will enforce equality. Under my plan the State will be there to carry out the will of the people, not to dictate to them or force them to do its will.

It is my firm conviction that if the State suppressed capitalism by violence, it will be caught in the coils of violence itself, and will fail to develop non-violence at any time. The State represents violence in a concentrated and organized form. The individual has a soul, but as the State is a soulless machine, it can never be weaned from violence to which it owes its very existence.

Gandhi On Trusteeship

He very well identified the need for wealth creators. In the context of Ahmadabad textile strike when someone asked Gandhiji whether it is desirable to close down the mills he opined that we also need people who have the capacity to make money. Some more excerpts:

…That no matter how much money we have earned, we should regard ourselves as trustees, holding this money for the welfare of all our neighbours. If God gives us power and wealth, he gives us the same so that we may use them for the benefit of the mankind and not for our selfish, carnal purpose….

…My theory of trusteeship is no makeshift, certainly no camouflage. I am confident that it will survive all other theories. It has the sanction of philosophy and religion behind it.

I am inviting those people who consider themselves as owners today to act as trustees, i.e., owners, not in their own right, but owners in the right of those whom they have exploited.
Supposing I have come by a fair amount of wealth—either by way of legacy, or by means of trade and industry—I must know that all that wealth does not belong to me; what belongs to me is the right to an honourable livelihood, no better than that enjoyed by millions of others. The rest of my wealth belongs to the community and must be used for the welfare of the community.
http://appliedgandhi.blogspot.com/2008/02/gandhi-on-socialism-capitalism-and.html

The question how many can be real trustees according to this definition is beside the point. If the theory is true, it is immaterial whether many live up to it or only one man lives up to it. The question is of conviction.

It is my conviction that it is possible to acquire riches without consciously doing wrong. For example I may light on a gold mine in my one acre of land. But I accept the proposition that it is better not to desire wealth than to acquire it, and become its trustee. I gave up my own long ago, which should be proof enough of what I would like others to do. But what am I to advise those who are already wealthy or who would not shed the desire for wealth? I can only say to them that they should use their wealth for service.

Now Renegade can enjoy gandhian libertarianism, which demands him to give him freely that every penny which is more than his minimal needs to survive.

Lol gandhian Libertarianism says that Work according to capacities and earn according to needs, and do so with free will without violence.

isn’t it Communism without violence? lol

Why did Gandhi’s philosophy worked(sure Gargi may disagree that he didn’t get us independence, but then lets presume that by ‘working’ we mean mobilizing millions and millions of people, if we mobilize millions of people for liberty against the state in India or in America wouldn’t that solve our purpose)?
Gandhi’s philosophy worked (or lemme put it this way ‘will work’) because he put the truth out in front of people. We know state is aggression but most people don’t know that. Take for example America, in America most people believe that they live in the freest country in the world. The fascination for liberty is just magical in USA. But we know it for a fact that its just a great illusion created by the US government. If you go guns blazing against the state, you will be classified as a Terrorist(and god forbid if you are Muslim too), and the US govt will classify you are civil anarchist, they have killed people like those before and they will kill again, and the people will rejoice that they have saved democracy.

On the other hand, if you used Gandhian philosophy and got arrested for burning plant material in front of a police station, or something like that out there in open, it makes people think (sooner or later), why is it that we are arresting and throwing people in prison for committing no physical violence against people. In NH, an activist called Sam Dodson was arrested for filming in court. He was kept in jail for 58 days, they released him because he started to get media attention. Americans hear it immediately when Iranian govt arrests some reporters but they never hear about it when something like that happens in their own backyard, and even then they rationalize it in some manner or way. These things are called ‘Satyagraha’ because they make people and masses see what the state really is(in case of Gandhi it was the King’s rule).

@Unpretentious Diva
I am sorry Diva, but everybody can clearly see you are more angry against Gandhi than to have points against him. You are so angry that you think Bhagat Singh, the new icon of the neo-socialists in India is better than Gandhi. Plus comment after comment I am getting this feeling that you did not understand my article. You are raising the point of a girl being raped, and her response should be to turn around, but I have written this thing at many places ‘We realize that responding to a common thief with aggression makes sense, but responding to state with aggression does not make any sense. How is that?’, and in bold font If the aggressor’s right and wrong are twisted around, his polarities are reversed, if what you consider right is wrong for them, and what you consider is wrong is right for them, then there is no way you could win against them by responding to their aggression with more aggression. A rapist’s right and wrong aren’t twisted around, there isn’t a whole culture of people who believe that rape is their right, and they live and die to rape(which is in the case of a marital rape, if a woman living under Hadood law shoots her husband for having sex with her when she didn’t want it, then she will be punished for killing her husband and her ‘martyrdom’ will go waste because nobody in society has been able to see what really happened there). Therefore using violence against the rapist makes all the sense because the rapist knows he is doing a wrong thing.

You are just too angry against Gandhi and that’s why you are failing to see my point. The four points against you wrote a huge tirade, you didn’t even read that I wrote that those are MISCONCEPTIONS, I do not agree with any of them, but this is what the society believes. This is what I wrote:

This is what I am talking about, nobody really understands Gandhi. Among the massive misconceptions about Gandhi a few are:
1) Gandhism is resistance for weak people and women.
2) Gandhi was fighting to kick white people out of India.
3) Gandhi was willing to do anything to get rid of Britishers.
4) Gandhi aimed to establish what Nehru eventually established in India, or Gandhi was a Socialist.

I am sorry but I am not reading another one of your comment if it has *****s appearing in it. If you have rational points against Gandhi, you will not require the clutches of curse words in them. If you just are angry with Gandhi then deal with it, or just let me know that you wanna be irrational about it. I am not going to get in a pissing competition of words with you while explaining Gandhian philosophy, that would defeat the whole point. When you curse at people, when you are expressing anger, people’s survival instincts kick in, their minds shut up and they just become super defensive.

You’re angry with Gandhi because you have been misinformed. There is a campaign of hate against Gandhi in the Shiv Sena and RSS circles. But you must understand that Gandhi was a different person.

He was an Organizer… He faced down the world’s largest Empire raising a stick. If India had decided to adopt violent resistance against the British to free India, we would have ended up like Vietnam or Cambodia… Utterly helpless against a ravaging superpower…
.-= Gauhar Kachchhi´s last blog ..GHAC Trek to Sheshachalam Mountain Ranges near Tirupati =-.

The days preceding Jalianwala Bagh Massacre(JBM), there were numerous acts of violence committed against the British living in the city of Amritsar.

I would like to see what evidences you put forth about this false. Let those evidences be neutral.
On the other hand, I can certainly provide evidences that Bhagat Singh and Chandra Shekhar Azad comprehensively declined to attack any british woman or children ever, infact they provided full safety to them when they could.
Yes you may say that Garam Dal did some acts like that of Kakori kand (Ram Prasad Bismil) and some others. But to take back one’s own money is not robbery. You must understand that.

Renegade, don’t try to paint the truth in different colours just for your personal vendetta against some of the people and your personal liking towards certain other kind of people.

For your help, I may provide you the well-conserved documents of whatever happened before and after Jalianwala Bagh and what caused it. For now, you may look a note on wikipedia’s account on JWBM.

On April 10, 1919, a protest was held at the residence of the Deputy Commissioner of Amritsar, a city in Punjab, a large province in the northwestern part of the then unpartitioned India. The demonstration was held to demand the release of two popular leaders of the Indian Independence Movement, Satya Pal and Saifuddin Kitchlew, who had been earlier arrested by the government and removed to a secret location. Both were proponents of the Satyagraha movement led by Mahatma Gandhi. The crowd was fired on by a military picket, killing several protesters. The firing set off a chain of violence. Later in the day, several banks and other government buildings, including the Town Hall and the railway station were attacked and set on fire. The violence continued to escalate, culminating in the deaths of at least 5 Europeans, including government employees and civilians. There was retaliatory firing on the crowd from the military several times during the day, and between 8 and 20 people were killed.

For the next two days, the city of Amritsar was quiet, but violence continued in other parts of the Punjab. Railway lines were cut, telegraph posts destroyed, government buildings burnt, and three Europeans were killed. By April 13, the British government had decided to place most of the Punjab under martial law. The legislation placed restrictions on a number of civil liberties, including freedom of assembly, banning gatherings of more than four people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jallianwala_Bagh_massacre

So you see, British Army fired against peaceful protestors who surely were gandhians. The supporters and fans of those Gandhians couldn’t bear the attack (they were not gandhians) so they tried to oppose it by throwing stones/sticks and other things at the armed police of britishers, and that killed almost 5 Europeans. Lol. So you believe that Indians were righteously to be killed at Jalian Wala Bagh because they tried to protest against British army’s gun fires against the peacful “Gandhian” protesters? Yes in the abrupt protest of Indians against gun firing by British army killed five Europeans, but try to answer me, if stones could kill five Europeans, how many Indians would have been killed by British guns? Unaccountable.

To revenge the killing of those 5 Europeans, Indian women and children were attacked in Jalianwala Bagh after that.

You are highly mistaken about the facts. Gandhi simply ignored the inhuman brutal killing of Peaceful and Defenseless masses in Jalianwala Bagh.
Do you really understand what does that mean?

In no way my understanding of Gandhi is complete, but I DID take a look at Jalianwala Bagh when I was researching about Gandhi.
My point here isn’t to glorify Gandhism as an ideal form of Libertarianism or portray Gandhi as a champion of Liberty, rather to review him in the light of Libertarianism, and how his method is the most effective method of fighting an aggressor.
It doesn’t matter what Gandhi said about Jalianwala Bagh massacre, is Ron Paul less libertarian because he refuse to vote an condemnation of atrocities committed by the Burmese government(his vote was the only vote against the 450+ congressmen voting for it)?
If an American president refuses to invade Germany where Hitler is killing millions of Jews, is he more libertarian or less libertarian(its a question and I want you to answer it)?

What matters is what really happend in Amritsar preceding Jalianwala Bagh massacre. The days preceding Jalianwala Bagh Massacre(JBM), there were numerous acts of violence committed against the British living in the city of Amritsar. Women were attacked, an atmosphere of fear was created for the Europeans. The response wasn’t unprovoked, there were many arrests, firing, deaths of people. This was followed by greater violence from the people of Punjab, telegraph lines were cut, Railway lines were cut, government buildings were burnt and Europeans killed.
Then the next day they held a large demonstration in Jalianwala Bagh, British and Indian soldiers did not flinch an eyelid before they shot all the demonstrators. Why? Because they did not believe they were firing at peaceful people, they believed they were firing at a violent mob gathering. And that’s my point of the whole article.

About other non-gandhian freedom fighters being Libertarians, then I don’t wanna go into that, lemme repeat it for the second time, you are letting your hatred of Gandhi blind an objective observation of his ideology and what he tried to achieve. This is not a defense of Gandhi, but merely an attempt to understand his ideology and how modern day libertarians can use it.

Even though the protesters of Amritsar weren’t the ideal Gandhi peace protesters and are not an example of what I am trying to talk here, it did create a massive wave of unrest against the British government. When Amritsar unrest started, the British had 1 rebel city in front of them, when JBM took place they had many many rebel cities in front of them and by 1920-22(Non-cooperation movement) they had whole nation against them.

And I am glad Gandhi declined to favor clemency to Bhagat Singh by using his favors with British Govt. Would Bhagat Singh a violent revolutionary accepted to give names of all his accomplices in order to defend a non-violent Gandhian revolutionary? The thing you don’t understand her eis, that if Gandhi did Satyagrah for a violent man like Bhagat Singh, he might as well as give up Satyagrah and move back to South Africa or London.
The question you must as is, why did we really fight the British? The way we lived in India, them being of white race and us being of a brown race it seemed sufficient for most people. But then should Americans try to get rid of Barack Obama and kick him back to Kenya?
Freedom fighters fought against the KING, not the people with white skin. They fought against a tyrannical government(they may have replaced one with another tyrannical govt but that’s beside the point).
Gandhi was fighting for truth, and it may sound like a ridiculous and boring statement, but if you were to define a term (in Hindi)for fight for objective reality you cannot come up with a better term than Satyagraha. Defending Bhagat Singh was Druagraha, and Gandhi could just not do it.
Gandhi took back Non-cooperation movement, which made him immensely unpopular nationwide, just to stick with his principles. He did not want to associate it with Chauri Chaura violence.

100s and 100s of satyagrahi ate bullets of Britishers, how come Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekar Azad somehow are greater human beings than them for you? On what grounds should Gandhi justify defending Bhagat Singh on his soul, that the political favor he acquired by using the power of truth, by the bloods of numerous Satyagrahis, he should use it to defend a guy who does not even understand the meaning of Satyagraha(Bhagat Singh) and believed in the usage of violence to attain his ends.

This is what I am talking about, nobody really understands Gandhi. Among the massive misconceptions about Gandhi a few are:
1) Gandhism is resistance for weak people and women.
2) Gandhi was fighting to kick white people out of India.
3) Gandhi was willing to do anything to get rid of Britishers.
4) Gandhi aimed to establish what Nehru eventually established in India, or Gandhi was a Socialist.

Lemme put some quotes from Gandhi about Socialism, Capitalism and State, and judge for yourself:

..the railways and other means of transportation and communication,the mines and other kinds of very great industries… shall be nationalised…Instead of private and unorganised business enterprise, the Party prefers co-operative unions.

SORRY, that was Bhagat Singh the Libertarian’s political party Hindustan Socialist Republican Association’s party manifesto. Also he was reading Lenin’s biography when he was hanged, and his last regret was ‘I only wish I could finish Lenin’s biography before dying’.

Anyways coming back to Gandhi, Gandhi on Capitalism:

It can be easily demonstrated that destruction of the capitalist must mean destruction in the end of the worker and as no human being is so bad as to be beyond redemption, no human being is so perfect as to warrant his destroying him whom he wrongly considers to be wholly evil. We invite the capitalist to regard himself as trustee for those on whom he depends for the making, the retention, and the increase of his capital. Nor need the worker wait for his conversion. If capital is power, so is work. … Either is dependent on the other. Immediately the worker realizes his strength, he is in a position to become co-sharer with the capitalist instead of remaining his slave. If he aims at becoming the sole owner, he will most likely be killing the hen that lays golden eggs. Inequalities in intelligence and even opportunity will last till the end of time. A man living on the banks of a river has any day more opportunity of growing crops than one living in the arid desert.

Gandhi on Socialism, Communism and State:

I look upon an increase of the power of the State with the greatest fear, because although while apparently doing good by minimizing exploitation, it does the greatest harm to mankind by destroying individuality, which lies at the root of all progress. We know of so many cases where men have adopted trusteeship, but none where the State has really lived for the poor. …

The socialists and communists say, they can do nothing to bring about economic equality today. They will just carry on propaganda in its favor and to that end they believe in generating and accentuating hatred. They say, when they get control over the State, they will enforce equality. Under my plan the State will be there to carry out the will of the people, not to dictate to them or force them to do its will.

It is my firm conviction that if the State suppressed capitalism by violence, it will be caught in the coils of violence itself, and will fail to develop non-violence at any time. The State represents violence in a concentrated and organized form. The individual has a soul, but as the State is a soulless machine, it can never be weaned from violence to which it owes its very existence.

And this is my favorite quote by Gandhi:

“The ideally non-violent state will be an ordered anarchy.That State is the best governed which is governed the least”-Gandhi

When the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre took place in 1919, Gandhi was a small time leader experimenting with Satyagrah.

After the massacre, Gandhi said, “The impossible men of India shall rise and liberate their Motherland.”
.-= Gauhar Kachchhi´s last blog ..GHAC Trek to Sheshachalam Mountain Ranges near Tirupati =-.