E-Book - Mahatma Gandhi

199 Contextualising Gandhian Thoughtto property would be subjected to scrutiny, and confiscationordered, where necessary, with or without compensation as thecase demanded. 25He believed that riches had not been taxed adequately.He would therefore support the imposition of death duties, andcould hardly think of a maximum for the rate of taxation onriches beyond a certain level. 26He would thus fight the inequality of wealth by scrutinyof titles, taxation, abolition of the right of inheritance, anddispossession, where necessary and unavoidable.Gandhi believed that instruments of production whetherin industry or in agriculture, should belong to the worker or thetiller. 27 He claimed that he had become a socialist long beforemany who claimed to be socialists accepted the idea ofsocialism. 28 He said he did not know the meaning ofBolshevism fully. "All that I know is that it aims at theabolition of the institution of private property." If that was so, itwas "only an application of the ethical ideal of non-possessionin the realm of economics"; and he had accepted it long ago. 29He did not believe in the perpetuation of classes or inone class eliminating all others. He believed in the ideal of aclassless society, and held that a classless society would beborn only when the technological revolution is harnessed toeliminate the distinction between the owner or employer andthe employee.Reduction of disparities in wealth and income does notdispose of the disparities in power and the potential forrecurrent inequality that 'ownership' signifies. It is theinstitution of ownership that bas then to be attacked and alteredThe toiling masses will not be liberated from exploitation