A caste system that fixes occupation is inherently inefficient

Evidence

6 Ambedkar is borrowing this term from John Dewey (1859–1952), the prominent American pragmatist philosopher, radical democrat and educational theorist who taught Ambedkar at Columbia University and influenced him deeply. Dewey, author of about forty books, helped create some of the most prominent political and educational organisations of his time: the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the League for Industrial Democracy, the New York Teachers Union, the American Association of University Professors, and the New School for Social Research. “Social efficiency” was a term that began its career in 1884 when it was introduced by British sociologist Benjamin Kidd (known for his work Social Evolution, 1884) who used it in a social Darwinist sense, but Dewey and others sought to rescue the term from a narrow, utilitarian approach and imbue it with humanitarian value. In the field of education, the term acquired currency in the 1920s. Arun P. Mukherjee (2009), who offers a fine analysis of Ambedkar’s refashioning of Deweyan thought into a tool for his own investigations of Indian society, argues that for Dewey and Ambedkar social efficiency lies in the individual being able to choose and develop his/her competencies to the fullest and thus mindfully contribute to the functioning of society. For a system that predetermines a person’s occupation on the basis of caste or class affiliations cannot but result in inefficiency. — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 1033

Categorization

• XREF: The Dewey-Ambedkar intellectual link connects to the broader genealogy of democracy and social efficiency theory in pragmatist thought.