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Voice of Freedom. J. R. D. Tata, who started in the steel company at 18, is the strongest Indian voice raised against efforts to destroy free enterprise. His reports to stockholders warn Indians against being fooled about state control of economic life. Only a handful of men. says he, can be motivated by pure service. The rest must be driven by fear or actuated by hope of gain, as in the United States, which he publicly defends as the ideal of a welfare state that has not sacrificed efficiency or freedom. But Tata is impatient of Americans, feels they do not understand his country's "mixed economy," says: "I wish that sometimes in America points of view were expressed not always in terms of jet black or snow white, that someone did not have to be either Communist or antiCommunist, or wholly a socialist or wholly a capitalist."
The Tatas always mixed social-mindedness with their capitalism. Over the years they led in raising industrial wages, improving the health and housing of employees. Eighty per cent of the wealth of Tata Sons was systematically given away to charitable trusts. When leftists say capitalism is passe, Tata replies: so is socialism. "Considering the remarkable progress made in capitalistic countries, particularly since the war, such a view can only refer to the 19th and early 20th century type of capitalism, which is, indeed, just as out of date as the 19th and early 20th century type of socialism."