all the other four devices of social control. New methods are needed even more than a new plan.
Hence, the eventual structure of the State under Gandhiism will and must grow out of the circumstances at the time when India attains freedom, and out of the nature of the methods and means used in attaining that end. These circumstances cannot be predicted in advance. To try to create a detailed, rigid form and structure ahead of time and to hope to get the country to adopt it after freedom is attained, would be a waste of energy.
Hence, to sum up, it seems to me that the valuations, methods and symbols of Gandhi’s program are more important and valuable than the more definite and rigid plan of organization proposed by Socialism. Appropriate symbols rouse and carry more energy than any plan of organization by itself. The control exercised by a system of values and symbols is more profound, powerful and lasting, especially among Indian peasants, than the exterior control of press, radio, telegraphs, railways and other mechanical means of communication and transport. Systems of value will control even propaganda, because they determine to whom the people will listen and give credence.
Lincoln Steffens believes that economic privilege has been the arch-corrupter of governments and of society. But false values and inadequate, unstable and ambiguous symbols seem to me to lie deeper and to be more powerful even than economic privilege. Gandhiism is psychologically wiser and more effective than Socialism, not only as a means of revolution, but also as a long time mode of life and social organization.
