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G R O W T H AND
DISTRIBUTION
SECOND EDITION
 G R O W T H AND
DISTRIBUTION
SECOND EDITION

Duncan K. Foley
Thomas R. Michl
Daniele Tavani

Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England 2019

 Copyright © 1999, 2019 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
First printing
Jacket image: Photograph courtesy of Getty Images
Jacket design: Tim Jones
9780674239418 (EPUB)
9780674239425 (MOBI)
9780674239395 (PDF)

The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

Names: Foley, Duncan K., author. | Michl, Thomas R., author. | Tavani,
Daniele, 1975- author.
Title: Growth and distribution / Duncan K. Foley, Thomas R. Michl, Daniele
Tavani.
Description: Second edition. | Cambridge,Massachusetts : Harvard University
Press, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018024465 | ISBN 9780674986428 (alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Economic development. | Income distribution.
Classification: LCC HD75 .F65 2019 | DDC 338.9–dc23 LC record available at
https://lccn.loc.gov/2018024465
For Betsy, Glyn, and Meredith
For Ruth and Gerry
For Silvia and Luca
 Contents

Preface to the Second Edition xiii

Preface to the First Edition xvii
Notation xix

1 Introduction 1
1.1 Economic Growth in Historical Perspective 1
1.2 Quality and Quantity 3
1.3 Human Relationships 4
1.4 Economic Theories of Growth 5
1.5 Using This Book 9
1.6 Suggested Readings 10

2 Measuring Growth and Distribution 13

2.1 Measuring Output and Inputs 13
2.2 Time and Production 17
2.3 A Note on Units 18
2.4 Technology in the Real World 19
2.5 The Uses of Output: Investment and Consumption 21
2.6 The Social Consumption-Growth Rate Schedule 23
2.7 The Distribution of Income: Wages and Profit 25
2.8 The Real Wage-Profit Rate Schedule 26
2.9 Income Shares 28
2.10 The Growth-Distribution Schedule 31
2.11 Changes in Labor and Capital Productivity 33
2.12 Comparing Economies 36
2.13 Global Economic Leadership 37
viii Contents

2.14 Labor Productivity Growth in Real Economies 39

2.15 Stylized Facts 42
2.16 Suggested Readings 43

3 Models of Production 45
3.1 Accounting Frameworks and Explanatory Models 45
3.2 A Model of Production 46
3.3 Agents and Distribution 48
3.4 Social Accounting Matrix 49
3.5 Choice of Technique and Production Functions 52
3.6 Particular Production Functions 57
3.7 Classifying Technical Change 64
3.8 Two-Sector Growth-Distribution Schedules 67
3.9 Models of Production and Models of Growth 72
3.10 Suggested Readings 72

4 The Labor Market 75

4.1 Models of Economic Growth 75
4.2 Demand for Labor 77
4.3 The Classical Conventional Wage Model 78
4.4 The Neoclassical Full Employment Model 82
4.5 Toward a Model of Economic Growth 86
4.6 Growth in Real Economies 86
4.7 Suggested Readings 88

5 Models of Consumption and Saving 89

5.1 A Two-Period Consumption-Saving Model 91
5.2 An Infinite-Horizon Model 95
5.3 The Constant Saving Rate Model 99
5.4 Saving Rates and Growth Rates 100
5.5 Suggested Readings 102

6 Classical Models of Economic Growth 103

6.1 The Classical Conventional Wage Model 103
6.2 Comparative Dynamics in the Conventional Wage Model 106
6.3 Labor-Saving Technical Change in the Classical Model 108
6.4 Choice of Technique in the Classical Model 113
6.5 A Classical Model of Growth with Full Employment 115
6.6 Choice of Technique in the Classical Full Employment Model 118
6.7 Growth and Cycles 120
Contents ix

6.8 The Classical Approach to Growth 125

6.9 Suggested Readings 126

7 Induced Technical Change, Growth, and Cycles 127

7.1 The Induced Invention Hypothesis 127
7.2 Induced Technical Change in the Classical Full Employment
Model 131
7.3 Growth Cycles with Induced Technical Change 132
7.4 Comparative Dynamics 135
7.5 Conclusions 136
7.6 Suggested Readings 137

8 Biased Technical Change in the Classical Model 139

8.1 The Classical Conventional Wage Share Model with Biased
Technical Change 140
8.2 Viability of Technical Change 143
8.3 Biased Technical Change and the Fossil Production Function 145
8.4 The Classical Full Employment Model with Marx-Biased
Technical Change 149
8.5 Reverse Marx-Biased Technical Change 152
8.6 One Vision of Economic Growth 157
8.7 Suggested Readings 158

9 Endogenous Technical Change 159

9.1 Technical Change in a Capitalist Economy 159
9.2 Learning by Doing 159
9.3 R&D Investment in Technical Change 162
9.4 How Much R&D? 165
9.5 Steady State Growth with No Persistent Effects of R&D 167
9.6 Steady State Growth with Persistent Effects of R&D 168
9.7 Persistent Effects of R&D with a Conventional Wage Share 170
9.8 Suggested Readings 172

10 The Neoclassical Growth Model 175

10.1 The Solow–Swan Model 175
10.2 The Intensive Production Function 176
10.3 Saving, Population, and Steady State Growth 177
10.4 The Solow–Swan Model and the Growth-Distribution
Schedule 182
10.5 The Complete Model 184
x Contents

10.6 Substitution and Distribution 186

10.7 Comparative Dynamics 188
10.8 Transitional Dynamics 190
10.9 Limitations of the Solow–Swan Model 192
10.10 Suggested Readings 193

11 Technical Change in the Neoclassical Model 195

11.1 Technical Change and the Production Function 195
11.2 The Solow–Swan Model with Harrod-Neutral
Technical Change 197
11.3 Growth Accounting 199
11.4 Classical and Neoclassical Interpretations of the Residual 204
11.5 Comparative Dynamics in the Solow–Swan Model 205
11.6 Transitional Dynamics in the Solow–Swan Model 209
11.7 Suggested Readings 213
Appendix: Deriving the Convergence Equation 213

12 Demand-Constrained Economic Growth 215

12.1 The Global Crisis 215
12.2 Measuring Demand Shocks 216
12.3 Saving, Investment, and Output 218
12.4 A Model of Demand-Constrained Growth 220
12.5 Equilibrium in the Demand-Constrained Model 224
12.6 Comparative Dynamics in the Demand-Constrained Model 227
12.7 Profit-Led or Wage-Led Growth? 230
12.8 Long Run or Short Run? 233
12.9 The Distributive Curve 237
12.10 The Keynesian Contribution to Growth Theory 239
12.11 Suggested Readings 240
Appendix: The Marglin-Bhaduri Model 241

13 Land-Limited Growth 243

13.1 Non-Reproducible Resources 243
13.2 Ricardo’s Stationary State 244
13.3 Production with Land 246
13.4 The Capitalist’s Decision Problem with Land 248
13.5 The Arbitrage Principle 250
13.6 Equilibrium Conditions 251
13.7 The Abundant Land Regime 253
Contents xi

13.8 The Scarce Land Regime 254

13.9 From the Abundant to the Scarce Land Regime 255
13.10 Lessons of the Land-Limited Model 258
13.11 Suggested Readings 260

14 Exhaustible Resources 261

14.1 Growth with an Exhaustible Resource 261
14.2 Production with an Exhaustible Resource 262
14.3 Saving and Portfolio Choice 265
14.4 The Growth Path 266
14.5 Exhaustible Resources in the Real World 269
14.6 Suggested Readings 270

15 Corporate Capitalism 271

15.1 Accounting in the Corporate Capitalist Economy 272
15.2 Stocks and the Capitalist Decision Problem 276
15.3 Investment-Saving Equilibrium 279
15.4 The Corporate Capitalist Model 281
15.5 Stock Prices and the Asset Market 283
15.6 The Rentier Capitalist Regime 284
15.7 The Managerial Capitalist Regime 286
15.8 The Hybrid Capitalist Regime 288
15.9 Corporate Saving and the Equity Yield 291
15.10 Ownership and Control 293
15.11 An Application 294
15.12 Suggested Readings 296

16 Government Debt and Social Security: The Overlapping

Generations Model 297
16.1 Government Finance and Accumulation 297
16.2 Government and Private Budget Constraints 298
16.3 Saving and Consumption with Selfish Households 301
16.4 Accounting in the Overlapping Generations Model 304
16.5 A Classical Overlapping Generations Growth Model 305
16.6 A Neoclassical Overlapping Generations Growth Model 309
16.7 Pareto-Efficiency in the Overlapping Generations Model 311
16.8 Analyzing Social Security and Budget Deficits 316
16.9 Social Security in the Overlapping Generations Model 318
16.10 Government Debt in the Overlapping Generations Model 325
xii Contents

16.11 The Lessons of the Overlapping Generations Model 327

16.12 Suggested Readings 327

17 Two-Class Models of Wealth Accumulation 329

17.1 Worker and Capitalist Saving 330
17.2 Accounting in the Two-Class Models 331
17.3 Accumulation with a Conventional Wage 333
17.4 Accumulation in the Full Employment Model 339
17.5 Wealth Distribution in the US 346
17.6 Conclusions 348
17.7 Suggested Readings 349
Appendix: Stability in the Full Employment Model 349

18 Global Warming 351

18.1 Global Warming and Economic Growth 351
18.2 Production with Greenhouse Gas Emissions 354
18.3 Saving and Portfolio Choice 357
18.4 The Growth Path with Fossil-Fuel Technology 359
18.5 The Growth Path with Solar Technology 363
18.6 Coordinated Growth with Global Warming 364
18.7 Optimal and BAU Growth Paths 369
18.8 Centralized and Decentralized Economic Control 372
18.9 Suggested Readings 373

References 375
Index 387
 Preface to the Second Edition

By the time this book is in print, two decades will have passed since the
publication of the first edition. We have benefited enormously from the feed-
back we have received from the students, instructors, and researchers who
have used this book. The current edition incorporates both the positive and
the negative reactions to the first edition. In this regard we would like to
thank Deepankar Basu, Scott Carter, Laura Carvalho, Heinz Kurz, Javier
Lopez Bernardo, Ulrich Morawetz, Michalis Nikiforos, Engelbert Stockham-
mer, and Luca Zamparelli for their insightful comments and suggestions,
and Adalmir Marquetti, who maintains the EPWT database we use in this
book and has also given us helpful comments on this second edition revision.
We are especially grateful to Mike Aronson, who edited the first edition, for
his encouragement in getting the new edition off the ground and insightful
comments on drafts. We have ruthlessly cut chapters that did not work out.
Also, we have tried to build on our distinctive emphasis on the wage-profit
schedule and the problem of closure that runs like a thread through the text.
The original authors are pleased to have been joined in this effort by Daniele
Tavani, who is part of a new generation of political economists influenced by
the first edition.
Aside from improving the pedagogy and exposition, we have been mo-
tivated by the stunning changes in modern capitalism at the close of the
twentieth century and opening of the twenty-first century. At the time the
first edition was written, the major crisis of capitalism that occupied our at-
tention had taken place in the 1970s. This was, by most accounts, a crisis of
low or declining profitability. The focus of the book was then on explain-
ing the slowdowns in economic growth that had occurred in the intervening
xiv Preface to the Second Edition

years through this lens. One pattern that seemed to predominate was a per-
sistent capital-using bias in technical change that we dubbed “Marx-biased
technical change.” We continue to believe that understanding biased techni-
cal change is one of the central tasks of a theory of economic growth. But
over the last decades, the patterns of technical change in the advanced world
have grown increasingly diverse, and in the developing world, as users of our
text reported, we find instances of labor-using technical change that turn the
Marx-biased pattern on its head.
While its outlines were only beginning to come into focus in the 1990s, it
has become clear that a new variant of capitalism has emerged that is now
generally referred to as neoliberal capitalism. Among its characteristic fea-
tures, most sharply visible in the United States but global in scope, has been
an unrelenting rise in income inequality taking the form of a decoupling be-
tween real wage growth and productivity growth that has shifted massive
amounts of income from wages toward profits and toward the compensa-
tion of top corporate executives. This has been accompanied by an increased
role for financial mechanisms and a hypertrophied financial system, where
executive compensation has reached almost unbelievable levels. The Global
Financial Crisis that began in 2008 can only be understood as a crisis of ne-
oliberal capitalism, in a sense a crisis of high or rising profitability. It is not
surprising that there has been a renewed interest among professional econ-
omists and the lay public in the growing polarization of income and wealth.
We have attempted to engage with this new reality in the current edition
by including new material on financial markets, corporate capitalism, and
wealth distribution, and by revising our treatment of aggregate demand.
There have also been exciting theoretical developments in alternative
macroeconomics that demanded our attention. In order to provide the nec-
essary background, we have added material on induced technical changes
and the Goodwin cycle that deepens the treatment of biased technical change
and provides a view of distribution that is an alternative to the neoclas-
sical theory. We also included a discussion of the structuralist approach
that broadens the scope of the demand-constrained growth and distribution
model. Because they integrate distribution, technical change, and capital ac-
cumulation, we hope that these additions contribute to an understanding
of neoliberal capitalism and make the book more useful for instructors and
economists in the post-Keynesian and Classical traditions.
Finally, a near-universal consensus that global warming presents an exis-
tential challenge to humanity has emerged in the last decades. The economic
Preface to the Second Edition xv

analysis of global warming we have added as the culminating chapter of

the book builds on the existing chapters by applying the models of land-
and resource-limited growth. Some understanding of the theory of growth
and distribution is indispensable for any serious attack on the problem of
global warming.
In order to facilitate the formation of a community around the approach
of this book, as well as to make its use as current as possible, this edition has
a companion website, www.growthdistribution.net. Our immediate goal is
to provide regular updates to keep the content alive. But we also hope that
the users of the book will contribute to the project by sharing their own
teaching materials.
 Preface to the First Edition

This book began as a set of notes for courses at Barnard College and Colgate
University.
Inspiration for this work and a good deal of the substance of the models
came from André Burgstaller, who gave us the privilege of reading the man-
uscript of his Property and Prices (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1994), and with whom we have had extensive conversations on the topics
covered here. In particular, Burgstaller’s idea that equilibrium prices in a clas-
sical model can be viewed as the outcome of speculation in forward-looking
asset markets is central to the point of view developed in Chapters 13 and 14.
Other important sources for our general approach are Stephen Marglin’s
Growth, Distribution, and Prices (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1984), and John Broome’s The Microeconomics of Capitalism (London: Aca-
demic Press, 1983).
We thank Adalmir Marquetti for preparing the Extended Penn World Ta-
bles dataset, which made an indispensable contribution to our work and to
this book.
We would like to thank Milind Rao, Peter Hans Matthews, Sergio Par-
rinello, Christophre Georges, and our students at Colgate University and
Barnard College of Columbia University for their help in rectifying errors
in earlier drafts.
We retain the responsibility for all the things that are wrong.
 Notation

A Scale parameter in Cobb-Douglas production function

α Capital coefficient in Cobb-Douglas production function
B Effective labor productivity; Nominal value of government liabilities (ch. 16)
b Social Security benefit (ch. 16)
β Capitalist propensity to save out of wealth
βw Worker propensity to save out of wealth (ch. 17)
C, c Consumption, social consumption per worker
Cw , Cc Worker consumption, capitalist consumption
Cw , Cr Consumption of active, retired workers (chs. 16, 17)
cr , cw Consumption of household in retired and working periods (ch 16)
CD CO2 concentration (ch. 18)
χ Rate of capital-saving technical progress
D Depreciation; Climate damage (ch. 18)
δ Depreciation rate per unit of capital
E Nominal primary fiscal surplus (ch. 16); Number of corporate stocks (ch. 15)
e Employment rate (chs. 6, 7)
 Rate of CO2 dissipation (ch. 18)
η Propensity to invest out of profit (ch. 12); Investment sensitivity to q-ratio
(ch. 15)
f Production function; Invention possibility frontier (ch. 7); Social security
reserve fund (ch. 16)
gvariable Growth rate of variable. Thus:
gK Growth rate of capital
gP Growth rate of stock prices (ch. 15)
gX Growth rate of output
gx Growth rate of labor productivity (ch. 2)
gρ Growth rate of capital productivity (ch. 2)
gW Growth rate of workers wealth (ch. 17)
γ Rate of labor-saving technical progress
I, i Gross investment, gross investment per worker
i Real interest rate (ch. 18)
xx Notation

J Capitalist wealth
JF Corporate net worth
K, k Capital stock, capital stock per worker (or capital intensity)
Kw, Kc Workers’ wealth, capitalist wealth (ch. 17)
λ Shadow price, Lagrange multiplier
μ Bargaining power of workers (ch. 6); Shadow price of CO2 (ch. 18)
N Labor employed
NS Total labor force
n Growth rate of labor force
ω Viability threshold
P Price of stock share (ch. 15)
p Price of capital goods in terms of consumption (ch. 3)
p cd Price of CO2 (ch. 18)
p u , pq Price of land, oil
φ Workers’ share of wealth
π Profit share
Q, Q Oil reserves, oil depletion
q Tobin’s q
R Profits; Total return factor (ch. 16)
r Net profit rate
rE Equity yield (ch. 15)
ρ Output-capital ratio, capital productivity
S Saving
Sr , Sw Saving of retired, active workers (chs. 16, 17)
Sc , Sf Capitalist household saving, firm saving (ch. 15)
s Saving as a proportion of output
sF Corporate retention (saving) rate
sw Saving per worker (ch. 16)
σ Elasticity of substitution in production
t Lump-sum tax (ch. 16)
U Land
u Utility function (ch. 5); Capacity utilization (ch. 12)
V Dividends
v Gross profit rate
v k , vu Rental on capital, land
W, w Real wage bill, real wage per worker
w̄ Conventional real wage
X, x Gross output, gross output per worker
Y, y Net output, net output per worker
Z, z Cash flow, cash flow per worker
G R O W T H AND
DISTRIBUTION
SECOND EDITION
 1
Introduction

Economic growth is the hallmark of our historical epoch. It finances and di-
rects the ongoing revolution in technology that continually transforms our
social and personal lives. The political preeminence of nation states and the
emergence of supra-national institutions have their roots in the process of
economic growth. The unprecedented growth and aging of the world’s pop-
ulation are to a large extent the result of economic growth, as are the relative
decline of agriculture and the dominance of industrial and post-industrial
production centered in cities. National political and military power and in-
fluence increasingly reflect relative economic performance. Economic prac-
tices have transformed social relations and ideological beliefs. The great chal-
lenges we perceive for the future, including the protection of our environ-
mental heritage and the preservation of social justice in a world polarized
between wealth and poverty, arise from the effects of economic growth.
In this book we present theories that economists have devised over the last
200 years to analyze and explain various aspects of economic growth, and
the movement of economies through time more generally. As a background
to these theories, we review in this introductory chapter some of the social
history of economic growth.

1.1 Economic Growth in Historical Perspective

Human history shows a slow improvement in technology and productivity
from the earliest periods we know anything about. This improvement seems
to have occurred in distinct waves, punctuated by such rapid leaps as the
adoption of settled agriculture, the emergence of cities, the establishment of
2 Introduction

long-distance sea trade, and so forth. The earth’s human population grew
very slowly, if at all, for the thousand years before 1500 C.E. Around the
fifteenth century in Europe we see a noticeable acceleration of the pace of
social and technological change, and in the rate of growth of population.
This acceleration was marked by the enlargement of towns and cities, the
spread of trade in goods and money, the growing importance of wealth
invested in capitalist trade and production in towns in relation to traditional
landed wealth, and a systematic focus on the improvement of technologies in
production and transportation. By the sixteenth century the more advanced
European societies had become recognizable forerunners of capitalist nation
states. During this period people began to view trade and production as
the central sources of national influence and power. The phenomenon of
economic growth, with its problems and promises, had arrived.
Toward the end of the eighteenth century these developments underwent
another sharp acceleration with the emergence, most notably in Britain, of
industrialization. The scale of production increased dramatically and became
concentrated in large towns and cities. A pattern emerged in which tradi-
tional farming, still based heavily on the needs of local subsistence, gave
way to market-oriented agriculture, in the process displacing large numbers
of the rural poor as common lands and forests were appropriated by large
landowners and converted to the production of marketable commodities.
The displaced agricultural poor moved to towns and cities, becoming both
the wage-seeking labor force necessary to run rapidly expanding industries,
and the mass of the urban poor. These economic developments precipitated
huge migrations of people, not just from the countryside to cities, but from
continent to continent. The growing economic and military power of the ad-
vanced nineteenth-century European nations led to their race to carve out
colonies, empires, and spheres of influence all over the globe. In this way the
phenomenon of economic growth sooner or later invaded every corner of
the earth.
From its earliest stages the fostering, shaping, and taxing of economic
growth was a preoccupation of the politically powerful. Economic growth
confers immense political and military advantages on nations. Political econ-
omy arose as a discussion of the impact of national policies toward trade,
labor markets, and taxation on economic growth.
Despite the evident fact that world economic growth is a unified, articu-
lated, self-reinforcing phenomenon, political economy emphasizes national
1.2 Quality and Quantity 3

differences in policy and their impact on national economies. Thus the

theories we will examine below take the national economy as their starting
point, and treat each nation’s economic growth as a separate experimental
observation.

1.2 Quality and Quantity

We experience economic growth overwhelmingly as qualitative change. Eco-
nomic growth has moved most of us from small rural communities where
individuals had lifelong personal relationships and employed simple and
undifferentiated techniques of production to large urban agglomerations
where most interactions are mediated by the anonymity of the market and
we specialize in tiny aspects of a bewilderingly complex technology in or-
der to produce. Economic growth means qualitatively new products and
services—railroads, airplanes, and automobiles; electrical and electronic ap-
pliances; radio, television, telephones, and computers; anesthesia, X-rays,
and MRI scans.
But despite constant change in the commodities actually produced and the
techniques through which people produce them, economic growth repro-
duces the same basic social relationships on an ever-increasing quantitative
scale. Capitalist economic growth arises from the organization of production
in particular firms or enterprises, which assemble human workers and the
means of production they require to transform inputs available on the mar-
ket into marketable outputs. Capitalist production rests on the quantitative
increase in the money value of the product through the process of produc-
tion, insofar as the marketed output is worth more than the inputs that were
consumed to produce it. This value added appears as the wages of the work-
ers who actually transform the inputs into outputs, and the profit, interest,
and rent that constitute the incomes of the capitalist owners of factories and
machines, money and natural resources including land. Economic growth is
financed by the decisions of capitalists to reinvest some part of their incomes
to allow production to take place on a larger scale.
The reinvestment of profits in the expansion of capitalist production, how-
ever, always involves a qualitative change in the technique of production and
the actual commodities produced. The larger scale of production is carried
out with somewhat different machines, in different locations, with differ-
ently trained and organized workers. On a larger scale, improvements and
4 Introduction

adaptations of the output are possible. In the process of economic growth the
quantitative aspect of simple expansion of production through the reinvest-
ment of profit incomes and the qualitative aspect of change in the products
and the lives of the producers of the product are inextricably intertwined.
While the mathematically based theories of political economy emphasize
the quantitative aspects of economic growth, it is important not to lose sight
of the profound qualitative changes that ensue.

1.3 Human Relationships

The self-reinforcing cycle of capitalist economic growth cannot establish it-
self without deep changes in the ways people relate to each other. The con-
stant expansion and restless change of capitalist production require a flexible
labor force that can be redeployed, expanded, and contracted rapidly. Be-
fore the emergence of capitalism, these changes simply could not take place:
workers were bound either to their employers as slaves or to the land they
worked on as serfs. Capitalist economic growth rests on the free worker, who
can accept or reject jobs, move from city to city and country to country in
response to the incentives of wage differentials, and who takes the ultimate
responsibility for her or his own survival and reproduction. The preoccupa-
tion of the free worker is to control the massive insecurity that wage labor
brings with it. Thus in the capitalist world economy the great mass of the
population becomes free labor that works for a wage. Because workers are
free, and their wages are regulated only by the vagaries of competition, some
prosper and some find themselves on the margin of existence.
On the other hand, the organization of work on a national and world scale
requires the separately flexible deployment of factories, machines, and trans-
portation facilities. This is the realm of capital, enormous concentrations of
money available to finance production.
The owners and managers of capital have very different interests from
those of workers. Wages and profit incomes divide the value added from
production, so that capital and labor often find themselves on opposite sides
of issues of social policy that affect the level of wages. Capital seeks a flexible
and adaptable labor force, a goal that runs counter to the workers’ desire for
stability and security in their employment and conditions of life.
The political economic theory we survey in this book centers on the
impact of the distribution of income between workers and capitalists on
1.4 Economic Theories of Growth 5

the quantitative aspects of economic growth, and the impact of growth on

distribution.

1.4 Economic Theories of Growth

Adam Smith, whose Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Na-
tions (Smith 1937 [1776]) marks a key turning-point in the development
of political economy, was primarily concerned with economic growth. In
Smith’s view the central aspects of economic growth were the division of la-
bor, the separation of production processes into smaller tasks that can be
assigned to specialists, and the extent of the market, the growth of popula-
tion, income, and transportation and communication facilities that allow
more output to be sold. The division of labor raises labor productivity as
labor becomes more skilled in specialized tasks, and as machinery can be
devised to take over the routine aspects of production. Smith sees technolog-
ical progress as an aspect of the widening division of labor. The increasing
division of labor and the widening extent of the market are mutually rein-
forcing tendencies in Smith’s vision, since a wider market makes possible a
more detailed division of labor, and a higher degree of division of labor in-
creases productivity and incomes, encourages investment in transportation
and the growth of population, and thus widens the market. The two phe-
nomena are linked through a set of positive feedbacks into an unstable cycle
of upward spiraling development. Smith thought that governments should
try to foster this process by securing property, providing cheap legal services
and national security, and otherwise staying out of private decisions about
investment (the policy now known as laissez-faire). He argues that the cycle
of growth is virtuous in that it benefits both workers and capitalists (a ver-
sion of trickle-down economics): capitalists will be free to pursue maximum
profitability of their investments, but the growth of capital will create a de-
mand for labor and tend to pull up workers’ wages as well. While population
will grow along with capital in the process of growth, Smith thought that it
would lag enough to assure a long period of higher wages. In Smith’s version
economic growth is spontaneous, or endogenous: it tends to take hold like the
spread of a wildfire unless restrictive government policies repress it. We will
study a simplified version of Smith’s model in Chapter 6.
Thomas Malthus, whose Essay on the Principle of Population first appeared
in 1798 (Malthus 1986), had a distinctly gloomier view than Smith. Malthus
6 Introduction

could see that capital accumulation is a self-reinforcing feedback system,

but doubted that it could do anything in the long run for the well-being
of workers. Malthus reasoned that an increase in the real wage would raise
workers’ standards of living, encourage them to marry earlier, and reduce
infant mortality among their offspring, thus producing a surge in popula-
tion. The growing population would in turn crowd the labor market, driving
real wages back down to the point where infant mortality and later marriage
would stabilize population growth. The real wage at this demographic equilib-
rium would constitute a natural wage level around which actual wages could
only fluctuate temporarily.
David Ricardo in his Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, pub-
lished in 1817 (Ricardo 1951), took up Malthus’s ideas about population and
the real wage and combined them with his own theory that rent arises from
the limited supply of fertile land. In Ricardo’s view, Smith’s virtuous cycle
was doomed to extinction as capital accumulation and population growth
eventually used up all the fertile land, food prices rose, and profit rates de-
clined to zero in what he called the stationary state. Ricardo’s methods of
analysis had an immense influence on later thinking about political econ-
omy. In particular, Ricardo emphasized the class divisions of early industrial
capitalist society. Workers, with wages depressed to the minimum compati-
ble with reproduction by Malthusian forces, had no surplus available to save.
Landowners, the remnants of the feudal aristocracy, dissipated their incomes
in the support of retainers and clients for political advantage and social sta-
tus. Capitalists, on the other hand, forced by competition with each other to
accumulate as much of their incomes as possible, were the engine of capital
accumulation and growth. As profit rates fell as a result of rising rents and
wages with population growth, however, Ricardo argued that the capitalist
engine of growth would be choked off by a falling rate of profit. We work out
Ricardo’s reasoning in modern terms in Chapter 13.
Karl Marx published the first volume of his work Capital (Marx 1977) in
1867, after spending his youth in the development of a revolutionary philos-
ophy of historical materialism. Marx, along with his close associate Friedrich
Engels, saw the secret of human history in the ways in which particular classes
controlled the surplus product of their societies. In a slave-based society, for
example, slaveowners controlled the whole product of the slave producers
and were able to use the surplus over the required maintenance of the slaves
to perpetuate the system. Feudal lords bound serfs to work a certain pro-
portion of each week on their own fields, thus providing themselves with a
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CHAPTER VIII
 HEALING OF HATE AND FEAR
hat dog," Ghond took up the story, "must have
lost his French master early in the war. Probably
the Germans had shot the man, and after that,
when he saw his master's home looted and the
barn set on fire, he went wild with terror and ran
away into the woods, where he lived hidden from
the sight of men under the thick thorn-bush,
spacious as a hut and dark as the interior of a tomb. Probably he
ventured out only at night in quest of food, and being a hunting dog
by heredity, all his savage qualities returned as he spent day after
day and night after night in the woods like an outlaw.
"When he came across me, he was surprised because I was not
afraid. I gave out no odour of fear. I must have been the first man in
months whose fear did not frighten him to attack.
"Of course he thought, like himself, I too was hungry and was
looking for food. So he led me to the German food depôt, and
through an underground passage he crawled into a vast provision
chamber—a very gold mine of food—and fetched some meat for me.
I drew the conclusion that there were a series of underground
chambers in which the Germans kept not only food, but also oil and
explosives, and I acted accordingly. Thank the Gods it turned out to
be correct. Let us change the subject.
"To tell you the truth I hate to talk about the war. Look, the sunset is
lighting the peaks of the Himalayas. The Everest burns like a
crucible of gold. Let us pray.

"'Lead me from the unreal to the Real,

From darkness into Light,
From sound into Silence.'"
After meditation was over, Ghond silently walked out of our house to
begin a journey from Calcutta to the Lamasery near Singalele. But
before I recount his adventure there I must tell the reader how
Ghond happened to be transferred from the battlefields of France to
our home.
The last part of February 1915 it became quite clear to the Bengal
Regiment that Gay-Neck would fly no more. Ghond, who had
brought him, was no soldier. With the exception of a tiger or a
leopard he had never killed anything in his life, and now that he too
was sick, they were both invalided back to India together. They
reached Calcutta in March. I could not believe my eyes when I saw
them. Ghond looked as frightened as Gay-Neck and both of them
appeared very sick.
Ghond, after he had delivered my pigeon to me, explained a few
matters, before he departed to the Himalayas. "I need to be healed
of fear and hate. I saw too much killing of man by man. I was
invalided home for I am sick with a fell disease—sickness of fear,
and I must go alone to nature to be cured of my ill."
So he went up to Singalele to the Lamasery, there to be healed by
prayer and meditation. In the meantime I tried my utmost to cure
Gay-Neck. His wife and full-grown children failed to help him. His
children saw in him but a stranger, for he showed no care for them,
but his wife interested him intensely, though even she could not
make him fly. He refused steadily to do anything but hop a little, and
nothing would induce him to go up in the air. I had his wings and legs
examined by good pigeon doctors, who said that there was nothing
wrong with him. His bones and both of his wings were sound, yet he
would not fly. He refused even to open his right wing; and whenever
he was not running or hopping he developed the habit of standing on
one foot.
I would not have minded that, if he and his wife had not set about
nesting just then. Towards the middle of April when vacation for the
hot weather began, I received Ghond's letter. "Your Gay-Neck," he
informed me, "should not nest yet. If there are eggs, destroy them.
Do not let them hatch under any circumstances. A sick father like
Gay-Neck—diseased with fright—cannot but give the world poor and
sick baby pigeons. Bring him here. Before I close, I must say that I
am better. Bring Gay-Neck soon; the holy Lama wishes to see you
and him. Besides, all the five swifts have arrived this week from the
south; they will surely divert your pet bird."
I took Ghond's advice. I put Gay-Neck in one cage and his wife in
another, and set out for the north.
How different the hills were in the spring from the previous autumn.
Owing to the exigencies that had arisen, my parents had opened
their house in Dentam months earlier than usual. After settling down
there towards the last week of April, I took Gay-Neck along with me
and set out in the company of a Thibetan caravan of ponies for
Singalele, leaving his wife behind, so that if he were able to fly again
he would return to her—just the thing needed to cure him. She was
to be the drawing card. He might do it, Ghond had hoped, in order to
return and help her hatch the newly laid eggs, though the day after
our departure my parents destroyed the eggs; for we did not want
sick and degenerate children who would grow up to shame the name
of Gay-Neck.
I carried my bird on my shoulder, where he perched all day. During
the night we kept him safely locked up in his cage, which proved
beneficial to him. Twelve hours of mountain air and light improved
his body, yet not once did he make the effort to fly off my shoulder
and return to his mate to help her hatch the eggs.
The Himalayas in the spring are unique. The ground glittered with
white violets, interspersed with raspberries already ripening here and
there in the hot moist gorges where the ferns were spreading their
large arms as if to embrace the white hills lying like precious stones
on the indigo-blue throat of the sky. Sometimes we passed through
thick forests where stunted oaks, prodigious elms, deodars (cedars)
and chestnuts grew in such numbers that their branches shut out all
sunlight. Tree against tree, bough against bough, and roots
struggling with roots fought for light and life. Below them in arboreal
darkness many deer grazed on abundant tall grass and saplings,
only to be devoured in their turn by tigers, leopards and panthers.
Everywhere life grew in abundance, all the more intensifying the
struggle for existence among birds, beasts and plants. Such is the
self-contradictory nature of existence. Even insects were not free of
it.
When we emerged from the forest darkness and beheld the open
spaces, the hot tropical sunlight suddenly shot its diamond points of
fire into our helpless eyes. The golden tremble of dragonflies filled
the air; butterflies, sparrows, robins, grouse, parrots, papias (Indian
thrush), jays, and peacocks clamoured and courted from tree to tree
and peak to higher peak.
Now in the open space between tea gardens on one side of the road
and pine forests on our right, we strove and staggered up inclines
almost straight as knives. There the air was so rarefied that we could
hardly breathe. Sounds and echoes travelled very far: even a
whisper could not escape being overheard from a distance of yards,
and men and beasts alike became silent. Save for the clatter of their
hoofs the ponies as well as the men moved with a sense of
reverence for the solitude and stillness that shut down upon us. Here
the indigo-blue hollow of the sky remained untainted by clouds, and
untroubled by any movement save the sighing flight of cranes going
northwards, or the deep-toned plunge of an eagle into declivities
nearby. Everything was cold, keen, and quickening. Orchids burst
out almost overnight and opened their purple eyes upon us;
marigolds brimmed with morning dew, and in the lakes below, blue
and white lotuses opened their petals to the bees.
Now we were near Singalele. The Lamasery raised its head and
beckoned us from the hillside. Its wing-shaped roof and ancient walls
floated like a banner against the horizon. I was encouraged to
quicken my pace and another hour's time found me climbing the
steep pathway of the monastery.
What a relief it was to be there among men who lived above the
battle of our everyday life! It being noon, I went down with Ghond
through a forest of balsam to the spring in which we bathed
ourselves and gave Gay-Neck a thorough wash. After he had had
his dinner in his cage, Ghond and I went to the dining room where
the Lamas were waiting for us. The room looked like a colonnade of
ebony whose capitals were decorated with dragons of gold. The teak
wood beams, grown quite dark through many centuries, were carved
into broad clear lotus designs, delicate as jasmine but strong as
metal. On the floor of red sandstone, orange-robed monks were
seated in silent prayer, which was their grace before each meal.
Ghond and I waited at the entrance of the dining room until the
prayer was concluded with the chanting in unison, like the Gregorian
chant:

Budham mē sáránām
Dhārmám mē sáránām
Ōm Manī pádmē Ōm.

"In wisdom that is the Buddha is our refuge

In religion is our refuge
In the jewel of Truth (shining in the lotus of life) is our refuge."

Now I went forward and saluted the Abbot, whose grave face
wreathed with smiles as he blessed me. After I had saluted the rest
of the Lamas, Ghond and I took our seats at the table made up of a
series of small wooden stools; which came up to our chests as we
squatted on the floor. It was nice to sit on the cool floor after a very
hot day's journey. Our meal was of lentil soup, fried potatoes and
curried egg-plants. Since Ghond and I were vegetarians we did not
eat the eggs that were served at the table. Our drink consisted of hot
green tea.
After dinner, the Abbot invited Ghond and me to take our siesta in his
company, and we climbed with him up to the topmost cliff, which was
like an eagle's eyrie, over which grew a clump of firs, where we
found a hard bare cell, without a stick of furniture anywhere, which I
had never seen before. After we had seated ourselves there, the
holy man said, "Here in the monastery we have prayed to Infinite
Compassion twice every day for the healing of the nations of earth.
Yet the war goes on, infecting even birds and beasts with fear and
hate. Diseases of the emotions spread faster than the ills of the
body. Mankind is going to be so loaded with fear, hate, suspicion and
malice that it will take a whole generation before a new set of people
can be reared completely free from them."
Infinite sadness furrowed the Lama's hitherto unwrinkled brow, and
the corners of his mouth drooped from sheer fatigue. Though he
lived above the battle in his eagle's eyrie, he felt the burden of men's
sins more grievously than those who had plunged the world into war.
But he resumed smiling, "Let us discuss Gay-Neck and Ghond who
are with us. If you wish your pigeon to wing the serenity of the sky
again, you must meditate on infinite courage, as Ghond has been
doing for himself these many days."
"How, my Lord?" I asked eagerly. The Abbot's yellow face suffused
with colour; no doubt he was embarrassed by the directness of my
question and I felt ashamed. Directness, like hurry, is very sordid.
As if he knew my feeling, the Lama in order to put me at my ease
said: "Every dawn and sunset, seat Gay-Neck on your shoulder and
say to yourself: 'Infinite courage is in all life. Each being that lives
and breathes is a reservoir of infinite courage. May I be pure enough
to pour infinite courage into those whom I touch!' If you do that for a
while, one day your heart, mind and soul will become pure through
and through. That instant the power of your soul, now without fear,
without hate, without suspicion will enter the pigeon and make him
free. He who purifies himself to the greatest extent can put into the
world the greatest spiritual force. Do what I advise you twice a day.
All of our Lamas will help you. Let us see what comes of it!"
The Lama, after a moment's silence, continued: "You have been told
by Ghond, who knows animals better than any other man, that our
fear frightens others so that they attack us. Your pigeon is so
frightened that he thinks the whole sky is going to attack him. No leaf
tumbles without frightening him. Not a shadow falls without driving
panic into his soul. Yet what is causing him suffering is himself.
"At this very time the village below us—yes, you can see it over there
to the North-west—is suffering from the same trouble as Gay-Neck.
As it is the season for the animals to come north, all the frightened
inhabitants are going about with old matchlocks in order to kill wild
beasts, and behold, the beasts attack them now, though they never
did so before! Bisons come and eat up their crops, and leopards
steal their goats. Today news was brought here that a wild buffalo
has killed a man last night. Though I tell them to purge their minds of
fear through prayer and meditation, they will not do it."
"Why, O blessed Teacher," asked Ghond, "do you not permit me to
go and rid them of these beasts?"
"Not yet," replied the Lama. "Though you are healed of fear in your
waking moments, yet your dreams harbour the curse of fright. Let us
pray and meditate a few days longer and your soul will be purged of
all such dross. Then after you are healed, if the villagers below are
still hurt by the beasts, you may go and help them."
CHAPTER IX
 THE WISDOM OF THE LAMA
fter about the tenth day of strict and most
sincere meditation in the manner he had
prescribed, the Lama sent for Gay-Neck and
myself. So with the pigeon between my hands, I
climbed up to his cell. The Lama's face, generally
yellow, today looked brown and very powerful. A
strange poise and power shone in his almond-
shaped eyes. He took Gay-Neck in his hands, and said:

"May the north wind bring healing unto you,

May the south wind bring healing unto you,
May the winds of east and west pour healing into you.
Fear flees from you,
Hate flees from you,
And suspicion flees from you.
Courage like a rushing tide gallops through you;
Peace possesses your entire being,
And serenity and strength have become your two wings.
In your eyes shines courage;
Power and prowess dwell in your heart!
You are healed,
You are healed,
You are healed!
Peace, peace, peace."

We sat there meditating on those thoughts till the sun set, smiting
the Himalayan peaks into multicoloured flames. The valleys, the
hollows and the woods about us put on a mantle of purple glory.
Slowly Gay-Neck hopped down from the Lama's hands, walked out
to the entrance of the cell and looked at the sunset. He opened his
left wing, and waited. Then softly and ever so slowly he opened his
right wing, feather by feather, muscle by muscle, until at last it
spread out like a sail. Instead of doing anything theatrical such as
instantly flying off, he carefully shut his two wings as if they were two
precious but fragile fans. He too knew how to salute the sunset. With
the dignity of a priest he walked downstairs but hardly had he gone
out of sight than I heard—I fancied I heard—the flapping of his
wings. I was about to get up hastily and see what had really
happened, but the holy man put his hand on my shoulder and
restrained me while an inscrutable smile played on his lips.
The next morning I told Ghond what had happened. He replied tartly,
"Gay-Neck opened his wings to salute the setting sun, you say.
There is nothing surprising in that. Animals are religious though man
in his ignorance thinks they are not. I have seen monkeys, eagles,
pigeons, leopards and even mongoose adore the dawn and sunset."
"Can you show them to me?"
Ghond answered, "Yes. But not now; let us go and give Gay-Neck
his breakfast."
When we reached his cage we found its door open—and no pigeon
within. I was not surprised, for I had left the cage unlocked every
night that we had been at the Lamasery. But where had he gone?
We could not find him in the main building; so we went to the library.
There in a deserted outer cell we found some of his feathers, and
nearby Ghond detected a weasel's footsteps. That made us suspect
trouble. But if the weasel had attacked and killed him, there would be
blood on the floor. Then, whither had he fled? What had he done?
Where was he now? We wandered for an hour. Just as we had
decided to give up the search we heard him cooing, and there he
was on the roof of the library, talking to his old friends the Swifts,
who were clinging to their nest under the eaves. We could make out
their answer to his cooing. Mr. Swift said: "Cheep, cheep, cheep!" I
cried to Gay-Neck in joy, and I gave him his call to breakfast: Aya—á
—ay. He curved his neck and listened. Then as I called again he saw
me, and instantly flapped his wings loudly, then flew down and sat on
my wrist, cool as a cucumber. During the earliest dawn he must have
heard the priests' footsteps going up to their morning meditation, and
gotten out of his cage, then gone astray to the outer cell where no
doubt a young and inexpert weasel had attacked him. A veteran like
Gay-Neck could easily outwit the weasel by presenting him with a
few feathers only. While the young hopeful was looking for the
pigeon inside a lot of torn feathers, his would-be victim flew up into
the sky. There he found his old friend, Swift, flying to salute the rising
sun. And after they had performed their morning worship together,
they had come down for a friendly chat on the roof of the monastery
library.
That day very terrible news reached the Lamasery. A wild buffalo
had attacked the village that the Lama had spoken of the day before.
He had come there during the previous evening and killed two
people who were going home from a meeting of the village elders
that was held around the communal threshing floor. The villagers
had sent up a deputation to the Abbot to say a prayer for the
destruction of the beast and begging him to exorcise the soul out of
the brute. The holy man said that he would use means that would kill
the murderous buffalo in twenty-four hours. "Go home in peace, O
beloved ones of Infinite Compassion. Your prayers will be answered.
Do not venture out of doors after nightfall. Stay home and meditate
on peace and courage." Ghond, who was present, asked: "How long
has this fellow been pestering your village?" The entire deputation
affirmed that he had been coming every night for a week. He had
eaten up almost half of their spring crop. Again begging for strong
and effective incantation and exorcism to kill the buffalo, they went
down to their village.
After the deputation had left, the Lama said to Ghond, who was
standing by: "O, chosen one of victory, now that you are healed, go
forth to slay the murderer."
"But, my Lord!"
"Fear no more, Ghond. Your meditations have healed you. Now test
in the woods what you have acquired here by this means. In solitude
men gain power and poise which they must test in the multitude. Ere
the sun sets twice from now, you shall return victorious. As an
earnest of my perfect faith in your success, I request you to take this
boy and his pigeon with you. Surely I would not ask you to take a
boy of sixteen with you if I doubted your powers or the outcome of
your mission. Go, bring the murderer to justice."
That afternoon we set out for the jungle. I was overjoyed at the
prospect of spending at least one night in there again. What a
pleasure it was to go with Ghond and the pigeon, both whole and
well once more, in quest of a wild buffalo. Is there any boy on earth
who would not welcome such an opportunity?
So, thoroughly equipped with rope-ladders, a lassoo and knives, with
Gay-Neck on my shoulder, we set out. The British Government
forbids the use of fire-arms to the common people of India, and so
we carried no rifles.
About three in the afternoon we reached the village north-west of the
Lamasery. There, we took up the trail of the buffalo. We followed it
through dense woods and wide clearings. Here and there we
crossed a brook, or had to climb over mammoth fallen trees. It was
extraordinary how clear the buffalo's footprints were, and how heavy!
Ghond remarked: "He must have been frightened to death, for look
how heavily he has trodden here. Animals in their normal unafraid
state leave very little trace behind, but when frightened, they act as if
the terror of being killed weighed their bodies down. This fellow's
hoofs have made prodigious and clear marks wherever he went.
How frightened he must have been!"
At last we reached an impassable river. Its current, according to
Ghond, was sharp enough to break our legs had we stepped into it.
Strangely enough, the buffalo too had not dared to cross it. So we
followed his precedent, looking for more hoof-prints on the bank. In
twenty more minutes we found that they swerved off the stream bank
and disappeared into a thick jungle which looked black as a pit
although it was hardly five in the afternoon. This place could not
have been more than half an hour's run from the village, for a wild
buffalo of any age.
Ghond said: "Do you hear the song of the water?" After listening for
several minutes I heard the sound of water kissing the sedges and
other grass not far off with gurgling groaning sounds. We were about
twenty feet from a lake into which the river ran. "The murderous
buffalo is hiding—probably asleep somewhere between here and the
lagoon," cried Ghond. "Let us make our home on one of the twin
trees yonder. It is getting dark and I am sure he will be here soon.
We should not be found on the floor of the jungle when he turns up.
There is hardly a space of four feet between the trees!"
His last words struck me as curious. So I examined the space
between the trees. They were tall and massive, and between them
lay a piece of earth just broad enough to afford room for both of us
walking abreast of each other.
"Now I shall lay down my fear-soaked tunic half-way between these
Twins." Then Ghond proceeded to take from under his tunic a bundle
of old clothes which he had been wearing until today. He placed
them on the ground, then climbed one of the trees. After Ghond had
gone up, he swung down a rope ladder for me. I climbed up on it
with Gay-Neck fluttering and beating his wings on my shoulders in
order to keep his balance. Both of us safely reached the branch on
which Ghond was sitting, and since the evening was coming on
apace, we sat still for a while.
The first thing I noticed as the dusk fell was bird-life. Herons,
hornbills, grouse, pheasant, song-sparrows and emerald flocks of
parrots seemed to infest the forest. The drone of the bee, the cut-
cut-cut of the woodpecker and the shrill cry of the eagle far overhead
blended with the tearing crying noises of the mountain torrent and
the staccato laughter of the already waking hyenas.
The tree on which we made our home for the night was very tall. We
went further up in order to make sure that no leopard, or serpent,
was above us. After a close inspection we chose a couple of
branches between which we hung our rope ladder in the shape of a
strong hammock. Just as we had made ourselves secure on our
perch, Ghond pointed to the sky. I looked up at once. There floated
on wings of ruby a very large eagle. Though darkness was rising like
a flood from the floor of the jungle, in the spaces above the sky burnt
"like a pigeon's throat" and through it circled again and again that
solitary eagle who was no doubt, according to Ghond, performing his
worship of the setting sun. His presence had already had a stilling
effect on the birds and insects of the forest. Though he was far
above them, yet like a congregation of mute worshippers, they kept
silent while he, their King, flew backward and forward, and vaulted
before their God, the Father of Light, with the ecstasy of a
hierophant. Slowly the ruby fire ebbed from his wings. Now they
became purple sails fringed with sparks of gold. As if his adoration
was at last concluded, he rose higher and as an act of self-
immolation before his deity, flew towards the flaming peaks burning
with fire, and vanished in their splendour like a moth.
Below, a buffalo's bellowing unlocked the insect voices one by one,
tearing into shreds and tatters the stillness of the evening. An owl
hooted near by, making Gay-Neck snuggle closely to my heart under
my tunic. Suddenly the Himalayan Doël, a night bird, very much like
a nightingale, flung abroad its magic song. Like a silver flute blown
by a God, trill upon trill, cadenza upon cadenza, spilled its torrential
peace which rushed like rain down the boughs of the trees, dripping
over their rude barks to the floor of the jungle, then through their very
roots into the heart of the earth.
The enchantment of an early summer night in the Himalayas will
remain for ever indescribable. In fact it was so sweet and lonely that
I felt very sleepy. Ghond put an extra rope around me that held me
secure to the trunk of the tree. Then I put my head on his shoulder in
order to sleep comfortably. But before I did so, he told me of his plan.
"Those cast-off garments of mine are what I wore while my heart
was possessed of fear. They have a strange odour. If that brother-in-
law (idiot) of a buffalo gets their scent, he will come hither. He who is
frightened responds to the odour of fear. If he comes to investigate
my cast-off dress, we shall do what we can to him. I hope we can
lassoo and take him home tame as a heifer...." I did not hear the rest
of his words for I had fallen asleep.
I do not know how long I slept, but suddenly I was roused by a terrific
bellowing. When I opened my eyes Ghond, who was already awake,
undid the rope around me and pointed below. In the faint light of the
dawn at first I saw nothing, but I heard distinctly the groaning and
grunting of an angry beast. In the tropics the day breaks rapidly. I
looked down most intently. Now in the growing light of day I saw....
There could be no two opinions about what I saw. Yes, there was a
hillock of shining jet rubbing its dark side against the tree on which
we sat. It was about ten feet long, I surmised, though half of its bulk
was covered by the leaves and boughs of the trees. The beast
looked like a black opal coming out of a green furnace, such was the
glitter of the newly grown foliage under the morning sun. I thought,
the buffalo that in nature looks healthy and silken, in a Zoo is a
mangy creature with matted mane and dirty skin. Can those who see
bisons in captivity ever conceive how beautiful they can be? What a
pity that most young people instead of seeing one animal in nature—
which is worth a hundred in any Zoo—must derive their knowledge
of God's creatures from their appearance in prisons. If we cannot
perceive any right proportion of man's moral nature by looking at
prisoners in a jail, how do we manage to think that we know all about
an animal by gazing at him penned in a cage?
However, to return to that murderous buffalo at the foot of our tree.
Gay-Neck was freed from under my tunic and left to roam on the
tree, which Ghond and I descended by a number of branches like
the rungs of a ladder, till we reached a branch that was about two
feet above the buffalo. He did not see us. Ghond swiftly tied around
the tree trunk one end of the long lassoo. I noticed that the buffalo
was playing underneath by putting his horns now and then through a
tattered garment, what was left of Ghond's clothes. No doubt the
odour of man in them had attracted him. Though his horns were
clean, there were marks of fresh blood on his head. Apparently he
had gone to the village and killed another person during the night.
That roused Ghond. He whispered into my ear: "We shall get him
alive. You slip this lassoo over his horns from above." In a trice
Ghond had leaped off the branch near the rear of the buffalo. That
startled the beast. But he could not turn round, for close to his right
was a tree which I mentioned before, and to his left was the tree on
which I stood. He had to go back or forward between the twins in
order to get out from them, but before this happened I had flung the
lassoo over his head. The touch of the rope acted like electricity
upon him. He hastened backwards, in order to slip off the lassoo, so
fast that Ghond, had he not already gone around the next tree,
would have been trampled and cut to death by the sharp hoofs of the
beast. But now to my utter consternation, I noticed that instead of
gripping his two horns at the very root, I had succeeded in lassooing
only one of them. That instant I shrieked to Ghond in terror: "Beware!
only one of his horns is caught. The rope may slip off that one any
time. Run! Run up a tree."
But that intrepid hunter ignored my advice. Instead he stood facing
the enemy a short distance away from him. Then I saw the brute
lower his head and plunge forward. I shut my eyes in terror.
When I opened them again, I saw that the bull was tugging at the
rope that held him by the horn and kept him from butting into the tree
behind which Ghond stood. His monstrous bellowing filled the jungle
with a fearful racket. Echoes of it coursed one after another like
frightened shrieking children.
Since the bull had not yet succeeded in reaching him, Ghond drew
his razor-sharp dagger, about a foot and a half long and two inches
broad. He slowly slipped behind another tree to the right, then
vanished out of sight. The bull just ran straight at the spot where he
had seen Ghond last. Fortunately the rope was still clinging tightly to
his horn.
Here Ghond changed his tactics. He ran away in the opposite
direction, zig-zagging in between different trees. This he did to go
where his odour could not reach the bull blown down to him by the
wind. But though he was bewildered, yet the bull turned and
followed. He again saw the bundle of Ghond's clothes on the ground
under our tree. That maddened him. He sniffed, and then worried it
with his horns.
By now Ghond was down wind. Though I could not see him, I
surmised that he could tell by the odour where the bull was in case
the trees hid him from view. The beast bellowed again, as he put his
horns through Ghond's clothes, which raised a terrific tumult in the
trees all around. From nowhere came flocks of monkeys running
from branch to branch. Squirrels ran like rats from trees to the
jungle-floor, then back again. Swarms of birds, such as jays, herons
and parrots were flying about and shrieking in unison with crows,
owls and kites. Suddenly the bull charged again. I saw that Ghond
was standing there calmly facing him. If ever I saw a man calm as
calmness itself, it was Ghond. The bull's hind legs throbbed and
swept on like swords. Then something happened. He reared in the
air; no doubt it was the pull of the lassoo rope of which one end was
tied to our tree. He rose several feet above the ground, then fell.
That instant, like a dry twig, snapped by a child, his horn cracked
and flew up in the air. The breaking created an irresistible
momentum that flung him sideways on the ground. He almost rolled
over, his legs kicking the air violently. Instantly Ghond leaped forward
like a spark from the flint. Seeing him, the buffalo balanced himself
and sat on his haunches snorting. He almost succeeded in rising to
his feet, but Ghond struck near his shoulder with the dagger. Its
deadly edge dug deep and Ghond pressed on it with his entire
weight. A bellow like a volcanic eruption shook the jungle, and with it
a fountain of liquid ruby spurted up. Unable to bear the sight any
longer, I again shut my eyes.
In a few minutes when I came down from my perch, I found that the
buffalo had died of a hæmorrhage. It lay in a deep pool of blood. And
nearby sat Ghond on the ground, wiping himself from the stain of his
encounter. I knew that he wished to be left alone. So I went to the old
tree and called to Gay-Neck. He made no response. I went all the
way up to the topmost branch of the tree. But in vain—he was not
there.
When I came down, Ghond had cleansed himself. He pointed at the
sky. We beheld nature's scavengers. Kites below, and far above
them vultures flew. They had already learnt that someone had died
and they must clean up the jungle.
Ghond said: "We will find the pigeon in the monastery. He flew with
the rest of the birds doubtless. Let us depart hence soon." But before
starting homeward, I went to measure the dead buffalo to whom flies
had been swarming from every direction. He was ten feet and a half
in length; and his forelegs measured over three feet.
Our trudge back towards the monastery was made in silence which
was only broken when about noonday we had reached the stricken
village and informed its headman that their enemy was dead. He
was relieved to hear of it, though he was very sad because during
the previous evening the buffalo had killed his aged mother, who was
going to the village temple to her worship before sunset.
We were very hungry and walked fast, and soon we reached the
monastery. At once I made inquiries about my pigeon. Gay-Neck
was not there! It was terrible. But the old holy man said as we
chatted in his cell, "He is safe as are you, Ghond." After a pause of
several minutes he asked: "What is troubling your peace of mind?"
The old hunter thought out quietly what he was going to say.
"Nothing, my Lord, save this. I hate to kill anything. I wanted to catch
that bull alive and alas! I had to destroy him. When that horn of his
broke, and there was nothing between him and me, I had to put my
knife through a vital vein. I am so sorry I could not get him alive in
order to sell him to a zoo."
"O, you soul of commercialism!" I exclaimed. "I am not sorry that the
bull died. Better death than to be caged for the rest of his life in a
zoo. Real death is preferable to living death."
"If you had only slipped the lassoo over both horns!" Ghond retorted.
The holy one ejaculated: "Both of you should be concerned about
Gay-Neck, not about what is already dead."
Ghond said: "True. Let us search for him on the morrow."
But the holy one replied, "No. Return to Dentam, my son. Your family
is anxious about you. I hear their thoughts."
The next day we left for Dentam on a pair of ponies. By forced march
and changing ponies twice a day at different posts, we reached
Dentam in three days' time. As we were going up towards our house,
we encountered a very excited servant of my family. He said that
Gay-Neck had returned three days ago. But since we had not come
back with him my parents had begun to worry, and they had sent out
parties searching after us, alive or dead.
He and I almost ran up to the house. In another ten minutes my
mother's arms were around me, and Gay-Neck, with his feet on my
head, was fluttering his wings in order to balance himself.
I cannot begin to describe how overjoyed I was to hear that Gay-
Neck had flown at last. He had winged all the way from the
Lamasery to our home in Dentam. He had not faltered nor failed! "O,
thou soul of flight, thou pearl amongst pigeons," I exclaimed to
myself as Ghond and I accelerated our steps.
Thus ended our pilgrimage to Singalele. It healed both Gay-Neck
and Ghond of the disease of fear and hate that they had caught in
the battlefields. No labor would be in vain if it could heal a single soul
of these worst ills of life.
Instead of spinning out a sermon at the end of this story, let me say
this:
"Whatever we think and feel will colour what we say or do. He who
fears, even unconsciously, or has his least little dream tainted with
hate, will inevitably, sooner or later, translate these two qualities into
his action. Therefore, my brothers, live courage, breathe courage
and give courage. Think and feel love so that you will be able to pour
out of yourselves peace and serenity as naturally as a flower gives
forth fragrance.

"Peace be unto all!"