Socialism: a Study

About The Book: When this book was published for the first time in 1962, Shri Jaiprakash Narayan wrote in the introduction that this book, written on such an important subject as socialism by a business tycoon, should be welcomed. He expressed some reservations about the slightly unorganised structure and a few digressions in the book. In order to remove these shortcomings, the manuscript of the book was given to me by my friend Kamal Morarka (the son of the author) before the present edition was printed. I have tried to do this job to the best of my ability, yet I have taken care that the basic content of the book does not suffer even a scratch. , While editing the book, I felt how nice it would be if this book was prescribed in schools and colleges as a textbook of economics. If students have to take the help of a foreign language to learn the knowledge of trade and commerce in which our country and our languages were very rich, then it would be as ridiculous as ‘carrying coals to Newcastle’. But, unfortunately, this is the present trend, wherein the efforts should be to teach not only economics, but all disciplines of knowledge and the sciences in our own languages. By doing this not only the needless waste of the time and energy of the students could be avoided, but at least onethird of the time would be saved in the curricula related to medicine and engineering. But this realisation has not yet dawned on the intelligentsia and educationists of this country. They are all caught up in the delusion of the Knowledge Commission of the Government of India. Although we are unable to contribute any original thought, our educational centres have become the junkyards of the world and the scholars coming out of these institutions are but educated indentured labourers for the foreign countries., At this juncture when the book is going to press, this feeling has become all the more acute. The reason for this is that the capitalist system is in such crises that it is difficult for us to even comprehend it. An economic depression which began in some large financial companies of America is grabbing all the economies of the world in its clutches. This epidemic has become for us like some unfathomable celestial calamity, and to ward it off we have no other recourse except to resort to spelllike conjurings. Our government or the institution (Reserve Bank of India) which regulates the financial system is trying to stem off this depression by blindly imitating the central banks of America, England, France, etc. We can see now that the analysis of capitalism, carried out by scholars like Adam Smith, Marx, Keynes, etc., is proving to be inadequate in reference to the present crisis and the essay ‘Economics after Marx’ by the eminent socialist thinker Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia has become more relevant., The crisis of capitalism can be resolved only by following the path of socialism. This is the subject of this book, and it is interesting to note that it is an advocacy of socialism by a capitalist. Inspired by George Bernard Shaw’s book The Intelligent Women’s Guide to Socialism, this book can help us to understand the present economic crisis of the world. Some chapters of this book especially, ‘The Magical Illusion of Extra Money’, ‘Various Forms of Cost Capital’, ‘The Capital Market’, ‘Speculation’, ‘Banking’, ‘Money’, ‘Currency Control’, etc., are very relevant right now. In the entire book one will not come across the second or thirdhand bookish knowledge which is often found in the works of university teachers; rather, lively and energising knowledge infused with insights from direct experience. In the way Gulabdas Broker had enriched Gujarati language with the knowledge of the mysterious vales and meadows of the economic world through his literature, this book by Mahavirprasad Morarka would enrich the deep knowledge of the valleys of the economic sphere., The third path of socialism advocated by the author after moving away from both capitalism and communism becomes all the more important because the author himself belongs to the capitalist class and the book, to quite an extent, is free of class prejudice.