The Hindrance to a New Deal Today Prabhat Patnaik
What had been only a suggestion by several prescient members of the capitalist establishment till now, has become official policy, at least in Britain where Prime Minister Boris Johnson has announced that his government will undertake public investment to stimulate the economy, as FD Roosevelt had done under the New Deal in the 1930s in the US. In fact, Johnson specifically referred to Roosevelt’s New Deal, and expressed his intention of increasing taxes on the rich if necessary. Amusingly, he prefaced his speech by the remark “I am not a Communist”. It does Johnson credit to have recognised that neoliberal…
India’s Abysmal Healthcare System Prabhat Patnaik
DD Kosambi uses a telling example to illustrate the crisis of Indian feudalism: at the third Battle of Panipat in 1761, the troops on oneside had not had enough to eat, while the troops on the other side just managed to assuage hunger by looting villages in the neighbourhood; neither side in short had arranged provisions for its troops. Likewise the crisis of Indian capitalism is tellingly illustrated by a simple fact: in the midst of this dreadful pandemic, the medical staff in several hospitals in the nation’s capital has not even been paid its regular salary for sometime. But…
The Absurdity of Hiking Oil Prices Prabhat Patnaik
Between, say December 25, 2019, and June 23, 2020, world crude (brent) oil prices have fallen by nearly 37 per cent. They had fallen by over 60 per cent between end-December and mid-April, but there has been some price-recovery since then; even so, the decline in world prices till June 23 has been quite dramatic. In India however, over this very period, petrol and diesel prices have been going up sharply and are now higher than ever before; in fact diesel prices have increased even more sharply than petrol prices and the difference between the two has largely disappeared. This…
A Stock Market Boom amidst a Real Economy Crisis Prabhat Patnaik
Something very odd is happening in the United States. The coronavirus toll keeps rising with no end in sight. The economy has virtually collapsed with more than 40 million people filing for unemployment. Thousands are out on the streets protesting against the rampant racism that marks that society. Relations with China have reached a nadir. Altogether, as philosopher Cornel West put it, the U.S. is showing every sign of being a “failed social experiment”. And yet there is a veritable boom in the U.S. stock market. The stock market index Nasdaq has increased by more than 40 per cent since…
Imperialism and India’s Food Economy Prabhat Patnaik
The tropical region can grow a variety of crops which either cannot be grown at all, or for much of the year, in the cold temperate regions of the world where metropolitan capitalism is located. These include beverages, fibres, vegetables and fruit, and a variety of cereals and oil-crops. The tropical land mass however is fixed in size and already used up; increases in land productivity which could raise the effective supply of this land-mass requires State investment (as Marx had observed with great acuity), which the “fiscal rectitude” demanded by metropolitan capitalism whether under the Gold Standard (when budgets…
The Problem of External Debt Prabhat Patnaik
There is a massive problem of external debt building up for the third world, of which the recent Argentine debt crisis was only one manifestation. At the root of the problem is the collapse of primary commodity prices in the world market which began in April 2011. In March and April 2020 this fall of course has been precipitous, but even if we leave aside these two months which fall within the pandemic period we find that between April 2011 and December 2019 there has been a 38 per cent fall in the All Commodity Price Index prepared by the…
An Unacceptable Violation of Rights Prabhat Patnaik
The issue has nothing to do with one’s being Left, Right or Centre. In fact looking at it in these terms is itself a distraction; it is a simple matter of legality. Whenever the State takes away anyone’s property, then, by the laws of our land, that person is entitled to compensation. Likewise whenever State action deprives anyone of an income that he or she was otherwise earning, then, by the same logic, that person should be legally entitled to compensation from the State. When Narendra Modi announced a nation-wide lockdown on March 24 because of the coronavirus crisis, that…
The World at Crossroads Prabhat Patnaik
The Financial Times of London is one of the most “respectable” bourgeois newspapers in the world. Even this newspaper has now come to recognise something which the Left has been saying for quite some time. In an editorial on April 3, 2020, it wrote: “Radical reforms in reversing the prevailing policy direction of the last four decades will need to be put on the table. Governments will have to accept a more active role in the economy. They must see public services as investment rather than as liabilities and look for ways to make the labour market less insecure. Redistribution…
The Mendacity of the “Rescue Package” Prabhat Patnaik
The inhumanity of the Modi government towards the people is matched only by its mendacity. And in both respects the Modi government is far ahead of most other governments in the world. Which other government would have passed off a slew of concessions to foreign and domestic monopolists as a “rescue package” for the people of the country? Which other government would have totted up loan plans for banks, and non-bank financial companies, as succour to the crisis-hit poor? Which other government would have projected abject prostration before globalised finance (and its credit-rating agencies) as a move towards self-reliance? Let…
The War on Labour Prabhat Patnaik
Even as millions of migrant workers are wearily trudging back to their villages with no money, no food and no shelter, or are locked up en route in shoddy quarantine camps, a war has been unleashed on the rights of workers under the cover of the lockdown. The BJP, true to form, is the political formation leading this class war through its state governments. The Uttar Pradesh government has through an ordinance suspended all labour laws (except just four) for a period of three years. The Madhya Pradesh government has made labour laws inapplicable to new units for a period…