In this Sumitra Chishti memorial lecture, the speaker analyses how the process of trade and financial liberalisation under a capitalist economy, which links the pace of technological and structural change to that of the advanced capitalist world, must necessarily lead to increase in unemployment, a constant wage rate at subsistence and increase in absolute poverty for a larger section of the work force. This trend is further strengthened by the demand pattern of the classes whose income shares increase in this scenario. A socialist economy, in comparison, can opt for an alternative trajectory of development through control over the pace of technological change, brought about through trade and capital controls.
 
September 19, 2006.