Economics of Decentralisation would also spare usfrom the evils of excessive mechanisation. “Owing to theextensive use of machinery and division of labour,” declaresKarl Marx, “the work of the proletariats has lost all individual character, and consequently all charm for the work man.” “He becomes an appendage of the machine. . . .”[61]In the modern manufacturing process the worker is transformed into “a cripple and a monster.” On the otherhand, “the independent peasant or handicraftsman develops knowledge, insight and will.”[62] Although Karl Marxrecognised the disadvantages of mechanised large scaleproduction, he hoped that they would be eliminated in aSocialist State. But ‘rationalised’ mechanisation, whetherin a capitalist or socialist society, is sure to exercise itsunhealthy influence on the physical, intellectual and moral well-being of the workers. “The elimination of exploitation by the abolition of private ownership of productionand distribution,” writes Prof. Borsodi, “does not reach the root of the trouble.” “The factories’ ineradicableattributes will still remain to plague mankind.”[63] Gandhiji, therefore, is against modern industrialisation. It is verywrong to think, however, that he is hostile to all types ofmachinery. What he objects to is the “indiscriminate multiplication of machinery.” Observes Gandhiji:
