Gandhi and Deep Ecology

Gandhi, Deep Ecology, Peace Research and BuddhistEconomics*

THOMAS WEBER

School of Sociology, Politics and Anthropology, La Trobe University

j o u r n a l o f

peaceR E S E A R C H

© 1999 Journal of Peace Researchvol. 36, no. 3, 1999, pp. 349–361Sage Publications (London, ThousandOaks, CA and New Delhi)[0022-3433 (199905) 36:3; 349–361; 007822]

The central importance of Gandhi to nonviolent activism is widely acknowledged. There are also othersignificant peace-related bodies of knowledge that have gained such popularity in the West in the rela-tively recent past that they have changed the directions of thought and have been important in encour-aging social movements – yet they have not been analysed in terms of antecedents, especially Gandhianones. The new environmentalism in the form of deep ecology, the discipline of peace research and whathas become known as ‘Buddhist economics’ very closely mirror Gandhi’s philosophy. This articleanalyses the Mahatma’s contribution to the intellectual development of three leading figures in thesefields: Arne Naess, Johan Galtung and E. F. Schumacher and argues that those who want to make aninformed study of deep ecology, peace research or Buddhist economics, and particularly those who areinterested in the philosophy of Naess, Galtung or Schumacher, should go back to Gandhi for a fullerpicture.

Gandhi as a Source of Influence

Gandhi has had a profound and celebratedinfluence on the nonviolence movementthrough Martin Luther King Jr, CesarChavez, Helder Camara, Thomas Merton,Danilo Dolci, Gene Sharp and many others.In this article, I examine Gandhi’s influenceon three significant bodies of knowledge thathave recently gained wide popularity in theWest and which have also stimulatedimportant social movements: deep ecology,peace research and what has become knownas ‘Buddhist economics’, and particularly onthe intellectual development of leadingfigures in these fields: Arne Naess, JohanGaltung and E. F. Schumacher.

Many environmental activists who claimthat ‘deep ecology’ is their guiding philos-ophy have barely heard the name of ArneNaess, who coined the term. While Naessreadily admits his debt to Gandhi, worksabout him tend to gloss over this connectionor ignore it. For example, while a recentarticle on Naess’ environmental philosophyand the Gita ( Jacobsen, 1996: 228–230)refers to the link, the chapter on deepecology in Merchant’s book (1992: 88)which surveys ‘radical ecology’ contains along list of its sources, including the debtowed to interpreters of Eastern philosophysuch as Alan Watts, Daisetz Suzuki and GarySnyder, without even mentioning Gandhi.The deep ecology of Naess not only talks ofa personal identification with nature, butalso of self-realization being dependent uponit. For those who know Gandhian philos-

* I would like to thank Arne Naess, Johan Galtung, SururHoda, Ralph Summy and Shahed Power for valuable com-ments on earlier drafts of this paper.

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ophy well, this line of reasoning is readilyrecognized. However, Naess’ writings onGandhi are not particularly well known andGandhi’s influence on him has not receiveddue recognition.

Peace research is a diverse field andGandhi’s influence has only touched certainareas of it. While he is generally not men-tioned, and potential causal links are rarelyinvestigated, the literature on conflict resol-ution is commonly quite ‘Gandhian’ in itsapproach. In much of the internationalrelations, defence, security, ethnic conflictand related peace areas the possible relevanceof Gandhian philosophy is not even an issueconsidered worthy of investigating.Although the connection between the tworeceives scant attention or is very muchimplicit (see Sørensen, 1992: 143–144, note15), and a recent speech has called for the‘adding of Gandhi to Galtung’ (Herman,1994), the work of Johan Galtung, one ofthe leading academics in the peace researcharea, is centrally and obviously influenced byGandhian philosophy. While Galtungmakes several references to this influence onhis thought in the introductory chapters tohis Essays in Peace Research and elsewhere(e.g. Gage, 1995: 7), even Lawler (1995),the recent chronicler of Galtung’s peaceresearch, does little more than mention it inpassing. For him Galtung seems to havemoved from positivism to Buddhism, whileaccording to Galtung himself ‘it was Gandhiall the time’.1

Unlike the works of Naess and Galtung,Schumacher’s writings have made it ontopopular bestseller lists. The Gandhian con-nection, at least at a superficial level, wasoriginally also more explicit. However,Schumacher’s ‘small is beautiful’ philosophyeventually came to be known as ‘Buddhisteconomics’ and gradually the links withGandhi took a back seat. His concern for

Third-World poverty led to the formation ofthe Technology Group to develop tools andwork methods which are appropriate to thepeople using them. While this practical workcan only be lauded, its philosophical under-pinning should also be remembered.

Arne Naess and Deep Ecology

Although a conservation ethic had beenaround for decades (Nash, 1989) before thepublication of books such as Carson’s SilentSpring (1962) and studies such as The Limitsto Growth (Meadows et al., 1972), ArneNaess took environmental philosophy intonew areas with his call for a ‘deep ecology’.

In 1973, Naess provided a summary of alecture given the year before in Bucharest atthe World Future Research Conference.That short article (Naess, 1973) was to takeon paradigm-shifting proportions. It intro-duced us to a terminology that has sincebecome commonplace.

Naess (1973: 95) points out that ashallow but influential ecological movementand a deep but less influential one competefor our attention. He characterizes the‘shallow’ ecological movement as one thatfights pollution and resource depletion inorder to preserve human health and afflu-ence, while the ‘deep’ ecological movementoperates out of a deep-seated respect andeven veneration for ways and forms of life,and accords them an ‘equal right to live andblossom’.2

In a later elaboration, Naess puts the con-trast between the two in its most stark form:shallow ecology sees that ‘natural diversity isvaluable as a resource for us’. He notes that‘it is nonsense to talk about value except asvalue for mankind’, and adds that in this for-

j ournal o f PE AC E RE S E A RC H volume 36 / number 3 / may 1999350

1 Personal communication, 30 January 1998.

2 More recently, Naess has substituted the term ‘samerights’ for ‘equal rights’, explaining that this provides lessopportunity for misinterpretation – after all, a parent has aduty to protect a child, for example from a poisonousinsect, even if he or she risks killing the insect (personalcommunication, 27 January 1998).

mulation ‘plant species should be savedbecause of their value as genetic reserves forhuman agriculture and medicine’. On theother hand, deep ecology sees that ‘naturaldiversity has its own (intrinsic) value’ and henotes that ‘equating value with value forhumans reveals a racial prejudice’, and addsthat ‘plant species should be saved because oftheir intrinsic value’ (Naess, 1984: 257).

During a camping trip in California,Arne Naess and George Sessions (1985:69–70) jointly formulated a set of basicprinciples which they presented as aminimum description of the general featuresof the deep ecology movement: the ‘wellbeing and flourishing’ of human and non-human life have intrinsic value;3 the richnessand diversity of life forms contribute to therealization of these values and are thereforealso intrinsic values; humans have no rightto reduce this richness or diversity exceptwhere it is necessary to satisfy vital needs; theflourishing of human life and culture is com-patible with a large decrease in the humanpopulation, and a flourishing of non-humanlife requires it; human interference withnature is excessive and increasing; and,therefore, economic, technological and ideo-logical policies must change. This ideo-logical change will mean an appreciation ofthe quality of life rather than the standard ofliving; and those who subscribe to thesepoints ‘have an obligation directly orindirectly to try to implement the necessarychanges’.

Naess loved nature and identified with itfrom early childhood. As a philosopher heresearched and was influenced by Spinoza(Rothenberg, 1993: 91–101) who main-tained a spiritual vision of the unity andsacredness of nature and believed that thehighest level of knowledge was an intuitive

and mystical kind of knowing wheresubject/object distinctions disappeared asthe mind united with the whole of nature.However, as important as those inputs were,the influence of Gandhi is also clearly visiblein his formulation of deep ecology. In factNaess himself admits in a brief third-personaccount of his philosophy that ‘his work onthe philosophy of ecology, or ecosophy, devel-oped out of his work on Spinoza andGandhi and his relationship with the moun-tains of Norway’ (Devall & Sessions, 1985:225).

Gandhi experimented with and wrote agreat deal about simple living in harmonywith the environment (Power, 1991) but helived before the advent of the articulation ofthe deep ecological strands of environmentalphilosophy. His ideas about human con-nectedness with nature, therefore, ratherthan being explicit, must be inferred from anoverall reading of the Mahatma’s writings.Naess (1986: 11) explains that ‘Gandhimade manifest the internal relation betweenself-realisation, non-violence and whatsometimes has been called biospherical egal-itarianism’, and points out that he was‘inevitably’ influenced by the Mahatma’smetaphysics ‘which contributed to keepinghim (the Mahatma) going until his death’.Moreover, ‘Gandhi’s utopia is one of the fewthat shows ecological balance, and today hisrejection of the Western World’s materialabundance and waste is accepted by progres-sives of the ecological movement’ (Naess,1974: 10).

While Gandhi allowed injured animals tobe killed humanely to save them from unrea-sonable pain and at times even because theycaused undue nuisance, his nonviolenceencompassed a reverence for all life. In hishut at the Sevagram Ashram there is a largepair of wooden tongs which were used topick up snakes so that they could be takenbeyond the perimeter and released as analternative to killing them.

351Thomas Weber GA N D H I, DE E P EC O LO G Y, PE AC E RE S E A RC H

3 Naess now prefers the following formulation: ‘everyliving being has intrinsic value; the wellbeing and flour-ishing of human and nonhuman beings have intrinsicvalue’ (personal communication, 27 January 1998).

A review of the Gandhian literature(while keeping in mind the time in which itwas written as a reason for anthropocentricexpression) readily reveals statements suchas: ‘If our sense of right and wrong had notbecome blunt, we would recognise thatanimals had rights, no less than men’(Hingorani, 1985: 10); ‘I do believe that allGod’s creatures have the right to live asmuch as we have’ (Harijan, 19 January1937); and ‘We should feel a more livingbond between ourselves and the rest of theanimate world’ (Patel & Sykes, 1987: 50).The clearest indication of Gandhi’s respectfor nature, however, comes through hisinterpretation of the Hindu worship of thecow. Gandhi saw cow protection as one ofthe most wonderful phenomena in humanevolution. ‘It takes the human being beyondhis species. The cow to me means the entiresub-human world. Man, through the cow, isenjoined to realise his identity with all thatlives’ (Young India, 6 October 1921).

Another way to illustrate Gandhi’s con-cerns with the oneness of life is to look at hiswritings on ahimsa. Usually translated asnonviolence, it can be seen as the fountain-head of Truth – the ultimate goal of life.From his prison cell in 1930, Gandhi wroteto his ashramites that ‘Ahimsa and Truth areso intertwined that it is practically impossibleto distangle and separate them. They are liketwo sides of a coin …’ (Gandhi, 1932: 6).

For Gandhi, ahimsa meant ‘love’ in thePauline sense and was violated by ‘holdingon to what the world needs’ (Gandhi, 1932:5). As a Hindu, Gandhi had a strong sense ofthe unity of all life. For him, nonviolencemeant not only the non-injury of humanlife, but as noted above, of all living things.This was important because it was the wayto Truth (with a capital ‘T’) which he saw asAbsolute – as God or an impersonal all-per-vading reality – rather than truth (with alowercase ‘t’) which was relative, the currentposition on the way to Truth.

Naess had been an admirer of Gandhisince 1930 (Naess, 1986: 9). When he readRomain Rolland’s Gandhi biography(Rolland, 1924) as a young philosophystudent in Paris in 1931, he must often havecome across Gandhi’s statements on Truthand the essential oneness of all life. In someof his works, Naess notes that ‘nature con-servation is non-violent at its very core’ andquotes Gandhi to this effect:

I believe in advaita (non-duality), I believe inthe essential unity of man and, for thatmatter, of all that lives. Therefore I believethat if one man gains spiritually, the wholeworld gains with him and, if one man fails,the whole world fails to that extent. (YoungIndia, 4 December 1924)

As this implies, for Arne Naess deep ecologyis not fundamentally about the value ofnature per se, it is about who we are in thelarger scheme of things. He notes theidentification of the ‘self ’ with ‘Self ’ interms that it is used in the Bhagavad Gita(that is, as the unity which is one) as thesource of deep ecological attitudes. In otherwords, he links the tenets of his approach toecology with what may be termed self-real-ization. And here the influence of theMahatma is most clearly discernible. Naessnotes (1986: 9) that while Gandhi may havebeen concerned about the political libera-tion of his homeland, ‘the liberation of theindividual human being was his supremeaim’.

The link between self-realization andNaess’ environmental philosophy can beclearly seen in his discussion of the connec-tion between nonviolence and self-realiza-tion in his analysis of the context ofGandhian political ethics. Starting with the‘one basic proposition of a normative kind’when investigating Gandhi’s teachings ongroup conflict – ‘Seek complete self-realis-ation’ (the ‘manifestation of one’s potentialto the greatest possible degree’) – Naesssummarizes this connection as:


(1) Self-realization presupposes a search fortruth.

(2) In the last analysis, all living beings are one.(3) Himsa (violence) against oneself makes

complete self-realization impossible.(4) Himsa against a living being is himsa

against oneself.(5) Himsa against a living being makes com-

plete self-realization impossible. (adapted from Naess, 1965: 28–33)

This conceptual construction evolved intoever more complex and graphic presen-tations. In his 1974 work, Naess providesvarious systematizations of Gandhi’s teach-ings on group struggle where self-realiza-tion is the top norm and which contain thecritical hypothesis that all living beings areultimately one, as set out in in Figure 1.

In a discussion with David Rothenbergover human destruction of the environmentwithout adequate reason (for example,

where a parent kills the last animal of aspecies to save his or her child from itsattack), Naess is asked whether protectionof nature should occur because we shouldthink not only of ourselves or becausenatural things are part of us also. Naessrefuses to separate the two approaches. Heanswers with another allusion to Gandhi:‘When he was asked, “How do you do thesealtruistic things all year long?” he said, “Iam not doing something altruistic at all. Iam trying to improve in Self-realisation” ’(Rothenberg, 1993: 141–142). There needbe no divide between the intrinsically valu-able and the useful. And, in a Gandhianway of feeling rather than intellectualizing,he adds: ‘if you hear a phrase like, “All lifeis fundamentally one”, you should be opento tasting this, before asking immediately,“What does this mean?” ’ (Rothenberg,1993: 151).

Along with other deep ecological theorists,


Figure 1. Naess’ Systematization of Gandhian Ethics

Realizetruth

Act upon‘all beings are

ultimately one’

Realizeyourself

Refrain fromviolence against

yourself

Refrain fromviolence against

others

Reduce violence in general

Help othersrealize

themselves

RealizeGod

Seektruth

Source : Naess (1974: 55)

Naess is attempting to clarify what the deepecology movement stands for. Ecologicalphilosophies are continually expanding, andother writers have also added their analyticalskills to the deep ecology literature (see, forexample, Devall & Sessions, 1985). Recently,we have seen the rise of eco-feminism,Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis and aggressivelyradical movements and philosophies such asEarth First! While Gandhi certainly would nothave welcomed some of these later develop-ments (for example, the employment of‘ecotage’ techniques such as tree-spiking andthedisablingof loggingequipment), andNaessdoes not, the Mahatma’s influence is clearlydiscernible through the writings of Arne Naess.

Johan Galtung and Peace Research

After the mass slaughter of World War II andfear of nuclear Armageddon in the late 1950s,the budding discipline of peace research con-centrated on the elimination of internationalarmed conflict. Researchers, led by those in theUSA, attempted to understand war in terms ofperceptions that international actors were pur-suing incompatible goals and that tried to findways to prevent misconceptions (Pardesi,1982: 4). Peace was interpreted as an absenceof war and the discipline of peace research leftother social problems to different disciplines.

In some religious traditions, ‘peace’ isunderstood in the affirmative as wholeness,rather than negatively as the absence of war.Thus, threats to peace may come not fromthose who stir up conflict, but from those whoacquiesce in the existing state of affairs(Macquarrie, 1973: 30). If peace is so con-strued, wholeness and fulfilment must beopened up for all, and all must have a share inpower, which is an essential ingredient ina fully human existence (Macquarrie, 1973:33, 38).

This line of thinking is echoed in thepeace research of Johan Galtung, which out-lined a broader notion of peace than the

negative definitions previously favoured bythe American school:

Peace research should liberate itself from amaterialistic bias dealing with bodies, dead oralive, healthy or unhealthy – in other wordswith mortality and morbidity only, and notwith the mental and spiritual dimensions ofviolence and human growth and development(Galtung, 1985: 156).

Primarily as a response to the work ofGaltung (1969, 1971b), the central concernof peace research for many researchersmoved from direct violence and its elimin-ation or reduction (negative peace) to thebroader agenda of structural violence and itselimination (positive peace). This increas-ingly popular school of peace research (seefor example Barash, 1991: 7–11) placesgreat emphasis on the elimination ofexploitation and oppression.

‘Structural violence’ is unintended struc-ture-generated (rather than actor-generated)harm done to human beings. It is an indirectform of violence built into social, politicaland economic structures that gives rise tounequal power and consequently unequallife chances. It includes exploitation, alien-ation, marginalization, poverty, deprivation,misery etc. and exists when basic needs forsecurity, freedom, welfare and identity arenot being met (see Galtung, 1969). In itshorizontal version, violent structures keepapart people who want to be together, andkeep together people who want to be apart(Galtung, 1996: 67). ‘Violence can bedefined as the cause of the differencebetween the potential and the actual,between what could have been and what is’(Galtung, 1969: 169). In other words, andto put it into terms that Naess wouldapprove of, this conception of violence isbased ‘on a distinction between the potentialand actual level of self-realization of humanbeings, particularly on the “avoidable causesof a differential between the two” ’ (Galtung,1975: 24).


Extreme structural violence can lead todeath by denying even the most basic needssuch as food and shelter. So negative peacecan be insufficient to protect human life.Positive peace encompasses an absence ofstructural as well as direct violence. It meansnot only ending wars, but also freedom fromwant, the attainment of justice, the protec-tion of human rights and an absence ofexploitation (Galtung, 1985: 145).

Even earlier, Galtung (1959) had beenedging towards this distinction, yet it was notmade explicit until his 1969 paper. This articlewas written on the roof of the GandhianInstitute of Studies at Rajghat in Varanasi. Inexplaining its origins, Galtung points to hisdesire to link the theories of peace, conflictand development; the emerging distinctionbetween actor-oriented and structure-orientedsocial cosmologies, and ‘the exposure toGandhian thinking’ (Galtung, 1975: 22).

Development for the poor is frequentlychampioned in order to prevent violence,whereas for Galtung inequalities ‘were in andby themselves violence … unnecessary evilsin their own right’ (Galtung, 1975: 23–24).For him, Gandhi was the only author orpolitician who ‘clearly fought against boththe sudden, deliberate direct violenceengaged in by actors, and the continuous,not necessarily intended, violence built intothe social structures’ (Galtung, 1975: 24).While some used structural violence toprevent direct violence (in the law and ordertradition), some used direct violence toabolish structural violence (in the revol-utionary tradition), and still others condonedone or the other while attempting to alleviatethe plight of the victims (in the Christiancaritas tradition), Gandhi ‘was equallyopposed to all three’. But in fact ‘Gandhi’sgeneral pattern of action is more tailor-madefor structural conflict’ (Galtung, 1982: 225).

This work set the future agenda for apeace research concerned with more thaninternational relations. For those who have

followed Galtung’s intellectual career, theinfluence of Gandhi is evident.4 In a sense,Gandhi was Galtung’s entree into the worldof peace research. He has acknowledged thatas a seventeen-year-old he ‘cried bitterly’when he heard the news of the Mahatma’sassassination (Galtung, 1992: v). One of hisfirst jobs was as an assistant to Naess, a col-laboration which eventually resulted in abook on Gandhi’s political ethics (Galtung& Naess, 1955). Much of Galtung’s contri-bution to that book was written in prisonwhere he was serving time as a conscientiousobjector against military service.

The project with Naess, Galtung com-mented later, ‘was also the way I got startedon peace research’ (Galtung, 1992: vii).Since that time, his writings have containedmany references to the Mahatma.5 Indescribing important sources of inspiration,Galtung has noted that Gandhi is ‘the majorone … and increasingly Buddhism ingeneral’ (Galtung, 1990b: 280).

Gandhi’s wide conception of nonviolenceincluded not treating another with less dignitythan was warranted by a shared humanity.Dehumanization is violence, as Gandhi madeclear when he spoke of exploitation in econ-omic terms. He pointed out that someonewho claims as his or her own ‘more than theminimum that is really necessary for him isguilty of theft’ (Gandhi, 1955: 58).

I venture to suggest that it is the fundamentallaw of nature, without exception, that Natureproduces enough for our wants from day today, and if only everybody took enough forhimself and nothing more, there would be nopauperism in this world …. (Gandhi, 1933:384)


4 Twenty years after his formulation of the concept of‘structural violence’, Galtung was to introduce a new termto peace research: ‘cultural violence’ (‘any aspect of aculture that can be used to legitimize violence in its director structural form’). Again it is closely linked to Gandhiandoctrines of the unity of life and the unity of means andends (Galtung, 1990a).5 In recognition of this, Johan Galtung was awarded theJamnalal Bajaj International Prize in 1993 for the pro-motion of Gandhian values outside India.

Gandhi was willing to push this line of rea-soning to its logical conclusion. If our aidprograms are not sufficient to reduce ourtheft then our neighbours must be invited‘to come and to share our resources, and liveas we have been trying to do. If there is notenough to go around, we must all tightenour belts, but yet not exclude anyone who isreally in want’ (Harijan, 13 April 1940).

During his 1969 reading of Gandhi,Galtung defined him as a ‘structuralist’ inthe sense that he saw:

conflict in the deeper sense as something thatwas built into social structures, not into thepersons … Colonialism was a structure andcaste was a structure; both of them filled withpersons performing their duties according totheir roles or statuses … The evil was in thestructure, not in the person who carried outhis obligations … Exploitation is violence,but it is quite clear that Gandhi sees it as astructural relation more than as the intendedevil inflicted upon innocent victims by evilmen’. (Galtung, 1971a: 124, 133–134)

Unfortunately, the incisive fifty-page paperon Gandhi entitled ‘Gandhi and Con-flictology’ (Galtung, 1971a), which grew outof this and a later visit to India, was not pub-lished at the time. Not until twenty yearslater did a reworked version appear in print(Galtung, 1992). Much of Galtung’s centralwritings on peace research can be linked toGandhi through this source.

E. F. Schumacher and ‘Buddhist’Economics

Some editions of Schumacher’s landmarkbook, Small is Beautiful, had a picture of theMahatma on the cover, and for many in theWest it provided an introduction to theeconomic ideas of Gandhi. As important asits popular appeal was, that book also intro-duced Gandhian ideas to economists andallowed these ideas to become the focus ofserious study. It also earned the author the

title of ‘later-day [sic] Gandhi’ (Hoda, 1978:2).

According to his daughter, Schumacheradmired Gandhi and was greatly shockedwhen he learned of his assassination. In themid-1950s Schumacher began a study ofEastern thought, including the writings andspeeches of Gandhi, noting that theMahatma’s view of economic developmentwas quite different from that of the main-stream and required careful examination(Wood, 1984: 243). The various strandscrystallized during a trip to Burma as aneconomic adviser in 1955, when he realizedthat Western economic philosophy couldnot merely be transferred to Burma becauseit would merely lead to a transfer of Westerndemands (Hoda, 1978: 5–6). What wasneeded was, in his terms, a ‘Buddhist econ-omics’ (Wood, 1984: 246).

Schumacher realized that economics didnot stand alone. As with other disciplines, itderived from a view of the meaning andpurpose of life – in this case a purely materi-alistic one. Gandhi’s economic thinking, onthe other hand, was based on a spiritual cri-terion. Schumacher took Gandhi’s ideas ofswadeshi (local production) and khadi(hand-spun, hand-woven cloth) and appliedthem to modern economic problems(Wood, 1984: 247).

Gandhi claimed that

True economics never militates against thehighest ethical standard just as all true ethics,to be worth its name, must at the same timebe also good economics … True economicsstands for social justice; it promotes the goodof all equally, including the weakest and isindispensable for decent life’ (Harijan, 9October 1937); and that he had to confessthat he did not ‘draw a sharp line or make anydistinction between economics and ethics(Young India, 13 October 1921).

Gandhi’s notion of revitalizing village Indiathrough the spinning wheel struck many asanachronistic, but the logic of his argumentstook on greater force after his death.


Gandhi’s economic ideals were not aboutthe destruction of all machinery, but a regu-lation of their excesses. Khadi requiresdecentralization of production and con-sumption, which in turn should take place asnear as possible to the source of production.Such localization would do away with thetemptation to speed up production regard-less of the costs and would alleviate the prob-lems of an inappropriately structuredeconomic system.

In his economics of locally handmadegoods, the Mahatma saw the poor as beingdelivered from the ‘bonds of the rich’(Young India, 17 March 1927). Hisapproach ‘wholly concerns itself with thehuman’, while ordinary economics ‘isfrankly selfish’ (Young India, 16 July 1931).

Gandhi’s ideas on swadeshi were summedup during his first major struggle in Indiaand repeated almost verbatim throughoutthe next 30 years:

Swadeshi is that spirit in us which requires usto serve our immediate neighbours beforeothers, and to use things produced in ourneighbourhood in preference to those moreremote. So doing, we serve humanity to thebest of our capacity. We cannot servehumanity by neglecting our neighbours.(Young India, 20 August 1919)

In a similar vein, following the Burma trip,Schumacher gives an example of contrastingviews on freight rates between the thinkingof an economic expert and an economist inthe Gandhian tradition or, as he later termedit, a ‘Buddhist economist’ (Schumacher,1974: 49). A traditional economist:

may be inclined to advise that the rates perton/mile should ‘taper-off ’, so that they arethe lower the longer the haul. He may suggestthat this is simply the ‘right’ system, becauseit encourages long distance transport, pro-motes large scale, specialised production, andthus leads to an ‘optimum use of resources’.

The latter would argue the opposite:

Local, short-distance transportation should

receive every encouragement but long haulsshould be discouraged because they wouldpromote urbanisation, specialisation beyondthe point of human integrity, the growth of arootless proletariat, – in short, a most unde-sirable and uneconomic way of life. (Wood,1984: 247)

Later, Schumacher was to explore the linkbetween economics and war in the light ofGandhi’s thinking and came to the conclu-sion that what was needed was a ‘non-violent economics’ (Wood, 1984: 292). In1960, he published what was to become hismanifesto:

A way of life that ever more rapidly depletesthe power of earth to sustain it and piles upever more insoluble problems for each suc-ceeding generation can only be called‘violent’ … In short, man’s urgent task is todiscover a non-violent way in his economicsas well as in his political life … Non-violencemust permeate the whole of man’s activities, ifmankind is to be secure against a war of anni-hilation … Present day economics, whileclaiming to be ethically neutral, in fact propa-gates a philosophy of unlimited expansionismwithout any regard to the true and genuineneeds of man which are limited.(Schumacher, 1960)

Only months later, through his friendshipwith leading Gandhian JayaprakashNarayan, Schumacher paid a short visit toIndia, and the crushed spirit of the countrywhich he saw led him on a further quest.Following Gandhi, Schumacher saw the dis-tinction between ‘production by the masses’and ‘mass production’. The former providesdignity, meaningful contact with others andis appropriate in a country with a hugepopulation, while the latter is violent, eco-logically damaging, self-destructive in itsconsumption of non-renewable resourcesand dehumanizing for the individualsinvolved (Schumacher, 1974: 128).Following a longer trip among theGandhians in 1962, he saw that the key tosolving the dilemma of implementingGandhi’s dream was the development of a


level of technology which would be appro-priate to the needs and resources of the poorwith tools and equipment designed to besmall, simple, low-cost, environmentallyfriendly (Schumacher, 1979, ch. 2), and‘compatible with man’s need for creativity’(Schumacher, 1974: 27).

Several decades before, Gandhi hadexplained that while he was not againstmachinery per se, he did object to the ‘crazefor machinery’:

The craze is for what they call labour-savingmachinery. Men go on ‘saving labour’ tillthousands are without work and thrown onthe open streets to die of starvation. I want tosave time and labour, not for a fraction ofmankind, but for all. I want the concentrationof wealth, not in the hands of a few but in thehands of all. Today machinery merely helps afew to ride on the backs of millions. Theimpetus behind it all is not the philanthropyto save labour, but greed. (Young India, 13November 1924)

This leads to what he termed ‘parasitism’:

Man is made to obey the machine. Thewealthy and middle classes become helplessand parasitic upon the working classes. Andthe latter become so specialized that they alsobecome helpless. The ordinary city-dwellercannot make his own clothing or produce orprepare his own food. The cities become par-asitic upon the country. Industrial nationsupon agricultural nations. (Young India, 15April 1926)

Schumacher’s book (1974) echoed thismessage, claiming that we are moving evermore rapidly into a world dominated by thelarge-scale; complexity; high capital intensitywhich eliminates the human factor; and viol-ence. In order to ensure survival, he rec-ommended new guidelines which pointtowards smallness rather than giantism, sim-plification rather than complexity, capitalsaving rather than labour saving – andtowards nonviolence (Schumacher, 1978:25). The profit motive throws humanity andthe planet out of equilibrium. The emphasishas to be shifted back to the person rather

than the product. Costs have to be measuredin human terms by taking cognizance ofhappiness, beauty, health and the protectionof the planet.

In a Gandhi Memorial Lecture at theGandhian Institute of Studies at Varanasi in1973, Schumacher noted that the affluenceof a small part of the world was pushing thewhole world into the three concurrent crisesconcerning resources, ecology and alienation(Schumacher, 1978: 14). He explained thatthe modern world finds itself in trouble andthat this would not have come as a surpriseto Gandhi (Schumacher, 1978: 16). Voicinghis debt to the economic thought of theMahatma, Schumacher noted that Gandhienunciated his economic position in the lan-guage of the people, rather than that of aca-demic economists: ‘And so the economistsnever noticed that he was, in fact, a verygreat economist in his own right, and … itmay well emerge … [as] the greatest of themall’ (Schumacher, 1978: 18).

Gandhi’s admission that he had not madea study of the great economic thinkers didnot concern Schumacher, who himself hadturned his back on traditional orthodoxy.Gandhi’s ultimate goal of self-realizationnaturally carried over into his economicthinking. It meant more than identificationwith the mere personal ego, it required amerging with a greater Self. This could notcome about through exploitation, butdemanded social justice and the good of all.For Gandhi, economics was an economics ofnonviolence. Towards the end of his life hewrote:

I will give you a talisman. Whenever you arein doubt or when the self becomes too muchfor you, apply the following test. Recall theface of the poorest and weakest man whomyou have seen, and ask yourself if the step youcontemplate is going to be of any use to him.Will he gain anything by it? Will it restorehim to a control over his own life and destiny?In other words, will it lead to Swaraj [self-rule] for the hungry and spiritually starving


millions? Then you will find your doubt andyour self melting away. (Tendulkar, 1963,288–289)

In 1962, the Gandhians were alreadyembracing Schumacher’s vision and he wasacclaimed as ‘the man who could interpretGandhi to the Indians’ (Wood, 1984: 322).The concept of intermediate technology, fol-lowing initial criticisms by the economiccommunity, was eventually taken up by UNagencies, governments and nongovern-mental organizations around the world andled to a proliferation of studies in Gandhianeconomics (cf. Diwan & Lutz, 1985).

Just before his death, Schumacher out-lined his personal philosophy of the meaningof human life, talking of the transformationof the inner self through ‘inner work’ inways reminiscent of Gandhi and Naess(Schumacher, 1977a; cf. also Schumacher,1975: 104–106). In a film (1977b) and inlanguage which could have come straightfrom the Mahatma, Schumacher explainedthat the ‘religion’ of economics is the enemyof all the things that really matter – beauty,sympathy and harmony; it is, in fact, uneco-nomical because it produces waste. In this‘religion’ the only thing considered worthyof economizing is human labour – paradox-ically the very thing that is free and of whichthere is plenty. Schumacher emphasized thatwe are part of the environment, that if wewin the fight against nature we will find our-selves on the losing side. Finally, he empha-sized that if we do not develop an economicsof permanence then we are too ‘clever’ tosurvive, that we can be classified as a speciesin danger of extinction (cf. Schumacher,1975: 101) – again sentiments familiar toanyone who is versed in Gandhi’s economicwritings.

Conclusion

There is certainly no shortage of writings onGandhi or Gandhian philosophy. However,

attention to his influence on, or relevance to,fields of knowledge or praxis other than non-violent activism has been scant. There is, ofcourse, a risk perhaps of peddling a con-spiracy theory of sorts, one that sees theMahatma lurking under every bed.Nevertheless, to those who want to make astudy of deep ecology, peace research orBuddhist economics, and more particularlywho are interested in the philosophy ofNaess, Galtung or Schumacher, a recom-mendation to go back to Gandhi for a fullerpicture is not out of place.

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THOMAS WEBER, b. 1950, PhD in SocialSciences (La Trobe University, 1991); SeniorLecturer in Politics and Head of the PeaceStudies Area, La Trobe University. Mostrecent books: Gandhi’s Peace Army: TheShanti Sena and Unarmed Peacekeeping(Syracuse University Press, 1996) and On theSalt March: The Historiography of Gandhi’sMarch to Dandi (HarperCollins, 1997).


Documents

Gandhi and Deep Ecology