Gandhiism versus Socialism

Richard Bartlett Gregg (1885-1974) was an American philosopher, pacifist and peace activist.  He was one of the first Americans to live and work with Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and brought Gandhian philosophy to America in the early 20th century. He wrote extensively on peace and simplicity. His two major works were The Power of Non-Violence (first published in 1934) and The Value of Voluntary Simplicity (he coined the term), but he also wrote many other short books and pamphlets. Throughout his life Bartlett Gregg corresponded with numerous important figures of the 20th. Century, including Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Aldous Huxley, Martin Luther King, Reinhold Niebuhr, Bertram Russell, William Edward Burghardt Du Bois and many others. He visited India several times and lived there for a number of years.The Bartlett Gregg’s pamphlet Gandhiism versus Socialism was published in New York in 1932. «Gandhiism - wrote Gregg - is superior to Socialism in providing for every person a common daily form of social service to help directly toward creating a new social and economic order». «Gandhiism never gives to the State the paramount power accorded to it by Socialism. The freedom of the human conscience is a priceless treasure which Gandhiji is not prepared to barter for anything else on earth. If he gives to the State a certain measure of obedience it is never with regard to the fundamentals».