Forum of Free Enterprise

Summary

This pamphlet reproduces A. D. Shroff’s address at the first press conference of the Forum of Free Enterprise, held on July 25, 1956. Shroff opens by responding to press criticism that the Forum’s sponsors are hiding in the background, insisting that the group is an ad hoc body with no written constitution, formed by observers who felt it was time to articulate publicly what Free Enterprise means in India, what it has already achieved, and what it can still do for the country. He extends the meaning of Free Enterprise beyond industrialists and businessmen to include shop-keepers, clerical employees, and professional groups, arguing that its essence is the democratic way of life and that the Forum exists to educate the public and warn it against trends of thinking that could ultimately destroy that way of life.

The substantive economic argument identifies State Trading as the most sinister encroachment on Free Enterprise. Shroff warns that its extension would deprive millions of small people of the right to choose their own way of living. At the same time he distances the Forum from doctrinal laissez-faire and from what he calls the “outmoded concept of capitalism”: he accepts planned development and some regulation, provided regulation does not destroy initiative or the profit motive, which he defends as legitimate, inherent in human nature, and necessary for social progress.

On the welfare-state question Shroff offers a counter-intuitive provocation — that the greatest Welfare State on earth is the United States of America — and uses it to criticise the means and methods being adopted to build a Welfare State in India. He closes with an appeal to the Press, praising the independent Judiciary and an open-minded press as the two institutions that have remained precious to India, and asking that the Forum be granted the same facilities and opportunities of expression as others, even where editors disagree with its creed.

Key points

• Shroff inaugurates the Forum of Free Enterprise at its first press conference on July 25, 1956, describing it as an ad hoc body with no written constitution, formed to articulate and defend Free Enterprise in India.

• He widens the constituency of Free Enterprise from industrialists to every citizen — shop-keepers, clerks, professionals — on the grounds that its essence is the democratic way of life.

• State Trading is singled out as the most sinister encroachment on Free Enterprise, threatening to strip millions of small people of the right to choose their own way of living.

• The Forum disavows both laissez-faire and the “outmoded concept of capitalism”, accepting planned development and regulation as long as initiative and the profit motive survive.

• The profit motive is defended as legitimate and inherent in human nature, and as the motivating force without which society cannot progress and develop.

• Shroff calls the United States the greatest Welfare State on earth, using the comparison to criticise the means India is adopting to build its own welfare state.

• He closes with an appeal to the Press, praising the independent Judiciary and an open-minded Press as the two institutions that have remained precious to India, and asking that the Forum be granted the same facilities of expression as others.