The Future is with Free Enterprise

By A. D. Shroff

Summary

This is the full text of A. D. Shroff’s presidential address to the general body meeting of the Forum of Free Enterprise, delivered in Bombay on October 12, 1959 and issued as an FFE booklet. Shroff opens by reflecting on the Forum’s growth since its founding in July 1956, arguing that despite dire predictions, public support for private enterprise has strengthened and that the Forum has helped win the nation greater recognition of the role of free enterprise in a democratic society.

The bulk of the address is a sustained polemic against state intervention in the Indian economy. Shroff attacks the State Trading Corporation as a ‘reprehensible’ instrument that has damaged the economy, depressed exports, and bred bureaucratic corruption, and he criticises proposals for compulsory joint co-operative farming as a back-door route to Soviet-style collectivisation that would betray the peasantry. He marshals foreign examples and authorities to support his case, citing economists and statesmen who warn against centralised planning and nationalisation.

Shroff frames socialism and communism as roads to ‘state capitalism,’ insisting that state ownership is not public ownership and that planning of the Soviet type is incompatible with the democratic way of life and individual dignity. He closes with an appeal to his countrymen to cling to democratic values, trust individual initiative, and give socialism and communism ‘a decent burial,’ so that free enterprise within socially desirable regulations can usher in an era of plenty, freedom, and social justice.

Key points

• Text of A. D. Shroff’s presidential speech to the Forum of Free Enterprise general body meeting, Bombay, 12 October 1959.

• Reviews the Forum’s growth since its founding in July 1956 and credits it with shifting public opinion toward private enterprise.

• Mounts a detailed attack on the State Trading Corporation, blaming it for falling exports, mine closures, and bureaucratic corruption.

• Condemns proposals for compulsory joint co-operative farming as a back door to Soviet-style collectivisation that would betray the peasantry.

• Cites foreign authorities — Hayek, Ludwig Erhard, R. Kelf-Cohen, the Webbs — to argue against centralised planning and nationalisation.

• Argues that socialism and communism both lead to ‘state capitalism,’ where state ownership is not public ownership and equality of opportunity is impossible.

• Invokes Gandhi and warns that collectivism builds the edifice of socialism on the graveyard of democracy.

• Concludes with an appeal to trust individual initiative and bury socialism, allowing free enterprise within socially desirable regulations.

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