Gandhian Economics is based on ethical foundations. Gandhi wrote “ Economics that hurts the moral well-being of an individual or a nation is immoral, and therefore , Sinful”. Gandhi repeated the same belief “ that economy is untrue which ignores or disregards moral values”.

Salient features of Gandhian Economic Thought:

(I) Village Republics: 

1. India lives in villages. 

2. He was interested in developing the villages as self – sufficient units.

3. He opposed extensive use of machinery, urbanization and industrialization.

(II) On Machinery:

1. Gandhi described machinery as ‘Great sin’. He said that “Books could be written to demonstrate its evils”. 

2. It is necessary to realize that machinery is bad. 

3. Instead of welcoming machinery as a boon, we should look upon it as an evil. 

4. It would ultimately cease..

(III) Industrialism:

1. Gandhi considered industrialism as a curse on mankind. 

2. He thought industrialism depended entirely on a country’s capacity to exploit.

(IV) Decentralization: Gandhi advocated a decentralized economy i.e., production at a large number of places on a small scale or production in the people’s homes. 

(V) Village Sarvodaya: 

1. According to Gandhi, “Real India was to be found in villages and not in towns or cities”. 

2. He suggested, self – dependent villages. 

(VI) Bread Labour: 

1. Gandhi realized the dignity of human labour. 

2. He believed that God created man to eat his bread by the sweat of his brow. 

3. Bread labour or body labour was the expression that Gandhi used to mean manual labour.

(VII) The Doctrine of Trusteeship: Trusteeship provides a means of transforming the present capitalist order of society into an egalitarian one.

(VIII) On the Food Problem:

1. Gandhi was against any sort of food controls. 

2. Once India was begging for food grain, but now India tops the world with very large production of food grains, fruits, vegetables, milk, egg, meat etc.

(IX) On Population:

1. Gandhi opposed the method of population control through contraceptives. 

2. He was, however, in favour of birth control through Brahmacharya or self – control.

3. He considered self – control as a sovereign remedy to the problem of over population,

(X) On Prohibition:

1. Gandhi regarded the use of liquor as a disease rather than a vice. 

2. He felt that it was better for India to be poor than to have thousands of drunkards. 

3. Many states depend on revenue from liquor sales.