Basic Documents

Summary

This pamphlet collects the three foundational documents of the Forum of Free Enterprise: “A Manifesto” (originally published 18 July 1956, the day the Forum was constituted), a “Code of Conduct” for those working in the private sector, and a position paper titled “What the Forum stands for.” The printing in hand was issued by M. R. Pai for the Forum on 10 July 1970, and it opens with frontispiece epigraphs from A. D. Shroff, the Founder-President, and from Eugene Black.

The Manifesto is built as a cascade of twelve “WE BELIEVE” articles arguing that free enterprise is an integral part of Indian democratic life and that, since Independence, its case has been allowed to go by default under sustained attack. It defines the free enterpriser broadly — shopkeeper, farmer, artisan, worker, manager, doctor, lawyer alike — and defends the legitimate expectation of reward, while sharply distinguishing it from profiteering. Crucially, the Forum does not demand the retreat of the State: it accepts that “there is ample room for State enterprise to function alongside of Free Enterprise,” warning instead against monopoly of any kind, whether state or private, and citing the displacement of normal trade channels by State trading as the kind of trend it most fears.

The Code of Conduct then translates the manifesto into ethical obligations binding producers, employers, management, professional men, and citizens at large — including fair measure to consumers, fair wages and recognition of “stable and democratic trade unions” for workers, fair return commensurate with risk for investors, honest tax payment, and the explicit condemnation of hoarding, black-marketing and profiteering. The closing essay, “What the Forum stands for,” stakes out a deliberately middle position: nineteenth-century laissez-faire is rejected as “dead as the dodo,” and the Marxist route of nationalising the means of production is rejected as “outmoded in time and thoroughly discredited in practice.” The Forum endorses the welfare-state objectives of a “socialistic pattern of society” and accepts the coexistence of State-controlled and Free Enterprise sectors, but draws the line at indefinite expansion of the State sector — singling out the nationalisation of life insurance, the introduction of State trading and the acquisition of the Kolar Gold Fields as examples of “unwarranted State intervention” that must be curbed. The pamphlet ends with a membership leaflet inviting industrialists, businessmen, professionals and students to join the Forum.

Key points

• Three-in-one charter pamphlet of the Forum of Free Enterprise: Manifesto (18 July 1956), Code of Conduct, and the essay “What the Forum stands for”; this printing is dated 10 July 1970 and was issued by M. R. Pai for the Forum.

• The Manifesto’s twelve “WE BELIEVE” articles frame free enterprise as integral to Indian democracy and as the natural condition of producers across every walk of life, from shopkeeper and artisan to manager and professional.

• The Forum explicitly accepts a role for State enterprise alongside private enterprise, but treats monopoly of any kind — public or private — as the principal threat to a free and democratic social order.

• The Code of Conduct imposes reciprocal duties: quality and fair measure for consumers, fair wages and recognition of trade unions for workers, fair return for investors, honest tax payment by all, and an explicit condemnation of hoarding, black-marketing and profiteering as “anti-social and evil.”

• “What the Forum stands for” stakes a self-consciously middle position: it rejects both 19th-century laissez-faire and the Marxist route of nationalising the means of production, while accepting the welfare-state objectives of the “socialistic pattern of society.”

• Specific contemporary State actions are flagged as unwarranted intervention: the nationalisation of life insurance, the introduction of State trading, and the acquisition of the Kolar Gold Fields — contrasted with the Bhakra-Nangal Dam, the Sindri Fertiliser Factory and the Aarey Milk Colony, which are praised as legitimate State achievements.

• The frontispiece deliberately pairs A. D. Shroff’s aphorism with Eugene Black’s call to treat private enterprise as “an affirmative good,” linking the Forum’s voice to international classical-liberal currents.

• The Forum presents itself as non-political and non-partisan, with its core mission defined as public education on the economic and moral case for voluntary enterprise.