Prabhat Patnaik’s Blog

The imperialist countries led by the US have been imposing unilateral sanctions that do not have any backing from the United Nations against countries that dare to defy their diktat. According to one estimate almost one third of the countries of the world have been subject to such sanctions at one time or another. Such sanctions include the freezing of those assets of the sanctioned countries that are held in western financial institutions, as has been the case with Iran, Cuba, and North Korea among others earlier, and with Russia most recently. Even though such freezing of assets is blatantly…

Liberal opinion is invariably opposed to “nationalism”. It treats “nationalism” as a homogeneous term that necessarily entails a non-friendly, non-accommodative and rivalrous attitude towards other countries. This view however is completely erroneous; anti-colonial third world nationalism is entirely different from the nationalism that developed in Europe in the seventeenth century following the Westphalian Peace Treaties. This difference appears in the most unmistakeable form in the difference between the nationalism of a Hitler, which is descended from European nationalism, and that of a Ho Chi Minh, which exemplifies anti-colonial nationalism. There are at least three basic differences between European nationalism as…

The Indian newspapers have been full of stories about the fall of the rupee vis-à-vis the US dollar in the last few days. Just over a month ago, on November 27, the value of the dollar was Rs 84.559; by December 29, it had risen to Rs 85.5. And this fall of the rupee has occurred despite a running down of foreign exchange reserves by the Reserve Bank of India to stabilise the rupee: the reserves which had amounted to $657.89 billion on November 22, had come down to $644.39 by December 20, and yet the fall of the rupee…

Donald Trump is threatening to use tariffs as a weapon against other countries. He has already made three threatening statements: first, he threatened the BRICS countries that if they dared to move away from the dollar, then they would have to face 100 per cent tariff in the US market. Second, he has threatened the European Union that unless the EU bought more American oil and gas as a means of reducing its trade surplus vis-à-vis the US (the surplus on goods trade was $208.7 billion in 2023), it would face high tariffs in the US market. Third, he has…

The aim of all fascistic governments is to disempower the people; and the Modi government is no exception. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) which promised one member in every rural household a maximum of 100 days of employment per year was a demand-driven scheme. In a limited sense therefore it gave people a right to employment, not to everyone and not for as many days as a person wanted; but a right nonetheless. It ran counter to the logic of neoliberalism, but became possible because of pressure from the Left at a time when the government…

Liberal opinion holds that the international monetary and financial system is a device for promoting the interests of all participating countries by providing a convenient payments arrangement within which trade can be carried on. The reality however is altogether different: the international system is founded upon the hegemony of western imperialism, and in turn sustains this hegemony. Since the US dollar is the lynchpin of this international system, one can say that the hegemony of the dollar in the international economy is both sustained by and in turn sustains, the hegemony of western imperialism; and this hegemony even comes in…

Karl Marx had once said that all criticism must begin with the criticism of religion. Paraphrasing Marx one can say in the current economic context that all criticism must begin with the criticism of the GDP. This conceptually and statistically dubious measure cannot cognize the phenomenon of exploitation. For instance, it looks at the income of the Mughal emperor and his aristocracy as a return for services rendered by them and adds it to the total production of the country in a blatant act of double counting; and yet it is used by defenders of neoliberalism to paint a rosy…

Hearing a petition on November 22 to remove the term “socialism” from the Preamble of the Indian Constitution, the Chief Justice of India made two significant observations: first,  the term “socialism” in the Preamble of the Constitution is used not in any doctrinaire sense but refers rather to a welfare state that ensures equality of opportunity for all citizens; and second, “socialism” in this sense is part of the basic structure of the Constitution; it is not just an add-on to the Preamble but rather something that permeates the very essence of what we want the Indian republic to be.…

Professor Amiya Kumar Bagchi, mentor and constant presence with IDEAs since its inception, passed away on the 28th of November 2024. His incisive and profound scholarly contributions built on the ideas developed in classical political economy, especially Marx, and in the work of Keynes and the Keynesians, viewing them through a lens incorporating analyses of the logic and consequences of colonialism and neocolonialism. His work emphasised the need to recognise that the colonies and the post-decolonisation neocolonial order were and are essential prerequisites for sustained capitalist accumulation on a global scale. His towering intellectual presence will be missed globally, especially…

It is common for governments these days to provide fiscal transfers to capitalists, whether through reduced corporate tax rates, or by providing direct cash subsidies, to encourage greater investment by them and thereby stimulate the economy. During Donald Trump’s first presidency there had been a cut in corporate tax rate with this objective in mind. In India the Modi government, as is well-known, has given massive tax concessions with the same objective. Even a minimum knowledge of economics however would show that such transfers to capitalists are counter-productive in a neoliberal regime. This is because such a regime is characterised…