The word socialist was added to the Preamble of the Indian Constitution by which amendment?
- A.Forty-second Amendment, 1976
- B.Forty-fourth Amendment, 1978
- C.First Amendment, 1951
- D.Seventy-third Amendment, 1992
Correct answer
Explanation
The correct answer is A, the Forty-second Amendment of 1976. It inserted the words socialist, secular and integrity into the Preamble, so the description of India became a sovereign socialist secular democratic republic. The economic goal was already present in the Directive Principles, especially Articles 38 and 39, which ask the state to reduce inequality and to prevent the concentration of wealth and the means of production. Option B, the Forty-fourth Amendment of 1978, undid several other changes of the Forty-second Amendment and made the right to property an ordinary legal right. Option C, the First Amendment of 1951, added the Ninth Schedule and allowed land reform laws to stand. Option D, the Seventy-third Amendment of 1992, gave constitutional status to panchayati raj institutions. Note that the Preamble now reads sovereign socialist secular democratic republic, and the Supreme Court has held in the Kesavananda Bharati case that the Preamble is part of the Constitution.
Read the full article: Types of Economies: Capitalist, Socialist and Mixed
Practice Questions
View allIn a capitalist economy, what mainly decides which goods will be produced?
- A.A five year plan prepared by the state
- B.The price mechanism and the profit motive
- C.The decisions of a central bank
- D.Orders of the planning authority
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In a capitalist or market economy the means of production are privately owned and nobody issues orders about production.
Read the full explanation →The book An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, which gave the idea of the invisible hand, was written by:
- A.Karl Marx
- B.Adam Smith
- C.J. M. Keynes
- D.David Ricardo
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The Scottish economist published the Wealth of Nations in 1776 and is called the father of economics; he argued that if each person pursues his own interest in a free market, an invisible hand guides the outcome to the good of society, which became the classic defence of capitalism and…
Read the full explanation →An economy in which the public sector and the private sector exist side by side is called:
- A.Capitalist economy
- B.Socialist economy
- C.Mixed economy
- D.Command economy
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In such an economy the state owns and runs the industries that need very large capital or serve strategic and social purposes, regulates the rest by law, and leaves ordinary production to private enterprise, while keeping responsibility for welfare and employment.
Read the full explanation →Das Kapital, one of the foundation texts of socialist economics, was written by:
- A.Friedrich Engels
- B.Karl Marx
- C.Robert Owen
- D.V. I. Lenin
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Marx published the first volume of Das Kapital in 1867; it analysed capital, surplus value and the exploitation of labour and became the basic text of what is called scientific socialism.
Read the full explanation →Which of the following is not one of the central problems of an economy?
- A.What to produce
- B.How to produce
- C.For whom to produce
- D.Who will rule the country
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Because resources are scarce and wants are unlimited, every economy must answer three questions, and these are called its central problems: what goods and in what quantity to produce, how to produce them, that is by which technique and combination of labour and capital, and for whom to produce, that…
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