The proceedings of the divorce courts show other aspects of the result of wealth and leisure, while a friend who had been a good deal in London society assured me that both in country houses and in London various kinds of orgies were occasionally to be met with which would hardly have been surpassed in the period of the most dissolute emperors. Of war, too, I need say nothing. It has always been more or less chronic since the rise of the Roman Empire; but there is now undoubtedly a disinclination for war among all civilized peoples. Yet the vast burden of armaments, taken together with the most pious declarations in favour of peace, must be held to show an almost total absence of morality as a guiding principle among the governing classes.
Under the British aegis,[284] we have learnt much, but it is my firm belief that there is little to gain from Britain in intrinsic morality, that if we are not careful, we shall introduce all the vices that she has been a prey to, owing to the disease of materialism. We can profit by that connection only if we keep our civilization, and our morals, straight, i.e., if instead of boasting of the glorious past, we express the ancient moral glory in our own lives and let our lives bear witness to our past. Then we shall benefit her and ourselves. If we copy her because she provides us with rulers, both they and we shall suffer degradation. We need not be afraid of ideals or of reducing them to practice even to the uttermost. Ours will only then be a truly spiritual nation when we shall show more truth than gold, greater fearlessness than pomp of power and wealth, greater charity than love of self. If we will but clean our houses, our palaces and temples of the attributes of wealth and show in them the attributes of morality, we can offer battle to any combinations of hostile forces without having to carry the burden of a heavy militia. Let us seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness14 and the irrevocable promise is that everything will be added with us. These are real economics. May you and I treasure them and enforce them in our daily life.
UNDERSTANDING THE TEXT
What does Mohandas Gandhi mean by "economic progress"? What does he mean by "moral progress"? How are the two terms interrelated in this speech?
Though Gandhi was a Hindu speaking to a largely Hindu audience, his primary religious source for this speech is the New Testament. Why does he emphasize Christian scriptures? What does this choice say about the ethos (p. 663) he was trying to construct?
"But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you."
What is Gandhi's position on poverty? Does he suggest that moral development requires the renunciation of physical needs? Are extremely poor people morally superior to others? Are wealthy people morally inferior? Explain.
What does Gandhi see as "real progress"? Whom does he name as having furthered the real progress of humankind? What traits do these individuals share? What are the "real economics" that he refers to at the end of this speech?
MAKING CONNECTIONS
Compare Gandhi's position on the connection between wealth and morality with similar discussions in the New Testament (p. 541) and "The Flower Market" (p. 545). How do these texts, taken together, support the idea of a universal (or at least widespread) religious approach to economics?
Would Simone Weil (p. 571) support Gandhi's view that economic progress is at odds with moral progress? Do Gandhi and Weil define "moral" in similar ways?
Martin Luther King Jr. cited Gandhi as a major influence on his thinking and social activism. How might "Economic and Moral Progress" have informed "Letter from Birmingham Jail" (p. 425)?
WRITING ABOUT THE TEXT
Write your own response to the key question that Gandhi raises: What is the relationship between economic progress and moral progress?
Compare Gandhi's arguments about wealth and morality with those of Jesus in the sixteenth chapter of Luke (p. 541). How substantially do the views differ?
Refute Gandhi's claim by arguing that many people have been able to accomplish good things through their material wealth.
dorothea lange
Migrant Mother
[1936]
OF ALL THE IMAGES OF POVERTY and despair that came out of the Great Depression, none had more impact than Dorothea Lange's Migrant Mother. Lange (1895-1965) took this photograph while working for the federal government's Resettlement Administration—later called the Farm Security Administration—a Depression-era agency that attempted to combat rural poverty by purchasing land from subsistence farmers and resettling the farmers on larger tracts of land where they could work in large collectives under the supervision of government scientists. Between 1935 and 1944, the agency employed a number of photographers— including Lange—to create support for their mission by documenting the effects of poverty on sharecroppers, homesteaders, migrant farmers, and other rural victims of the Great Depression.
The photograph now commonly known as Migrant Mother is in the Library of Congress under the title "Destitute pea pickers in California. Mother of seven children. Age thirty-two. Nipomo, California." In 1960, Lange recounted her experience the day that the iconic photograph was taken:
I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet. I do not remember how I explained my presence or my camera to her, but I do remember she asked me no questions. I made five exposures, working closer and closer from the same direction. I did not ask her name or her history. She told me her age, that she was thirty-two. She said that they had been living on frozen vegetables from the surrounding fields, and birds that the children killed. She had just sold the tires from her car to buy food. There she sat in that lean-to tent with her children huddled around her, and seemed to know that my pictures might help her, and so she helped me. There was a sort of equality about it.
For years, this was all that was known about the woman in the image. However, in 1978, a reporter named Emmett Corrigan found her living in a mobile home in Modesto, California. He was able to identify her as Florence Owens Thompson (1903-1983), a Cherokee woman who had moved with her husband from Oklahoma to California in 1922 and was later caught up in the economic hardships of the Depression. Thompson expressed frustration and anger that the picture that had made her face famous had never helped her or her family in any way. Five years later, however, when Americans learned that Thompson was dying of cancer and had no way to pay her medical bills, her family received more than $30,000 in contributions from those who had been moved by the photograph over the years.
dorothea lange Migrant Mother, 1936. Library of Congress.
UNDERSTANDING THE TEXT
What does the woman in Dorothea Lange's photograph appear to be looking at? What is she looking away from? What might the direction of her gaze communicate about her state of mind?
Why do you think the two older children in the picture have their faces turned away from the camera? What effect might the photographer herself have had on the picture?
From what is visible in the picture, what can you tell about the baby that the mother is holding?
Imagine that you saw this photograph without any knowledge of the title, the photographer, the cultural and historical context of the photo, or its subject. What would the photograph mean to you? What would you think the photographer was trying to say? How does knowing the context and other information about the photo change how you see it?
MAKING CONNECTIONS
Compare the mother in this picture with the mothers in Gin Lane (p. 548) and Guernica (p. 497). How does each mother respond to the misery of her family? What might account for the differences?