Dharma is duty. For someone else, an ethic of duty might be a conservative ethic. Not for Gandhi. His synthesis of tradition and liberalism exposes dharma to constant reconsideration in the light of truth. It is my duty to constantly seek to determine what my duty is. All institutions are questioned, especially property. Thus Gandhi writes: “Real socialism has been handed down to us by our ancestors who taught: ‘All land belongs to Gopal, where then is the boundary line ? Man is the maker of that line, and he can therefore unmake it.’ Gopal literally means shepherd. It also means God. In modern language it means the State, i.e. the people. That the land today does not belong to the people is too true. But the fault is not in the teaching. It is in us who have not lived up to it.” (28) If Gandhi’s message is identified with dharma, then the spinning wheel was only an experiment with truth with mixed results, while its underlying principle, if consistently applied, would result in people cooperating, sharing, and working together to do whatever needs to be done to make the world work for everybody without ecological damage.  

Gandhi’s principle is a tautology. If every person did her or his duty in a well-organized society, then all needs would be met, insofar as meeting them was not prevented by natural obstacles beyond human control. A = A. Duty done equals duty done. Duty done equals the deeds required by duty performed. In a well-organized society, when the deeds required by duty are performed, all of its institutions are functional and not dysfunctional. Everything depends on answers to moral questions: How do we discern in the light of facts what should be done ? How do we educate ourselves and others to acquire the discipline and motivation to do joyfully what we should do ? What should be the community’s response to trustees who do not act as trustees, but instead put self above service ? (29) Concerning this last question, Gandhi gave different answers: Sometimes he called for patience and for the gradual nonviolent conversion of the thief. Sometimes he said that property owners who do not faithfully discharge their duties as trustees of their wealth should be legally compelled to do so by laws defining and governing their duties. Sometimes he said that as a last resort their property should be taken over by the state. This last solution, however, only postpones the problem, since it raises the new question how to ensure that public servants faithfully discharge their duties to the public. Whatever the answers to these questions may be, when the members of a community are engaged in asking them, and in seeking answers to them, it is a sure sign that they have shifted to a new paradigm.  

Although skeptics might doubt that Gandhi’s vision of a society guided more by ethics than by buying cheap and selling dear could possibly be brought into existence, nobody would deny that it would be desirable to have such a society if it could be brought into existence … except ….. perhaps ….. thinkers like Amartya Sen.