Prabhat Patnaik’s Blog

For the French elections which Emmanuel Macron has called in the wake of the impressive showing by the Far-Right in the European parliamentary polls, four parties on the Left, the Communists, the Socialists, the Greens, and France Unbowed (of Jean-Luc Melenchon), have come together to form a New Popular Front to take on the fascist challenge of Marine Le Pen. This development is of historic significance: the New Popular Front is reminiscent of the Popular Front of the 1930s in France that had been formed against the backdrop of the rise of fascism in Europe, especially of the Nazi take-over…

Poverty is taken to be a homogeneous phenomenon irrespective of the mode of production that is under consideration. Even reputed economists believe in this homogeneous conception of poverty. In fact, however, poverty under capitalism is entirely different from poverty in pre-capitalist times. Even if for statistical purposes poverty is defined as lack of access to a set of use-values that are essential for living irrespective of the mode of production, the fact remains that this lack is enmeshed under capitalism within a set of social relationships that are sui generis and different from earlier. Poverty under capitalism thus takes a…

The fundamental issue raised by Hollywood writers when they had gone on a strike against being replaced by artificial intelligence, somehow receded to the background after the resolution of that particular conflict; but it remains a fundamental issue. Much has been written about the various problems associated with the introduction of AI; but the one that concerns us here relates to the massive unemployment it would generate. This problem, it must be noted, relates exclusively to the application of AI under capitalist conditions; but, capitalism being the reality over much of the world, the threat of AI to the working…

There has been a significant diffusion of production occurring in the world economy. Many call this phenomenon a shift from a US-led world economy to a “multipolar world economy”, but no matter what one thinks of this description, the fact of diffusion is indubitable. In 1994 for instance the G-7 countries (US, UK, Germany, France, Japan, Italy and Canada) produced 45.3 per cent of world output while the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, together with new members Iran, the UAE, Egypt and Ethiopia) produced 18.9 per cent; by 2022 however the ratios had become 29.3 and…

A Distinction is drawn in economics between demand-constrained systems and resource-constrained systems (which for simplicity and symmetry we shall call supply-constrained systems). In the former, an increase in output can occur if there is a rise in aggregate demand without causing any scarcity-induced inflation; in the latter, output is constrained either by capacity being fully used up, or by the scarcity of some critical input or of foodgrains or of the labour force, so that a rise in aggregate demand, instead of raising output, simply causes scarcity-induced inflation. Capitalism normally, that is, except in war times, is a demand-constrained system,…

The current protests in US university campuses demanding “divestment” from firms linked to Israel’s military machine, are reminiscent of the protests that had swept these campuses in the late sixties and early seventies demanding an end to the Vietnam war. There is however a major difference: the US had then been directly involved in the war, while today it is not. This had meant a draft then in the US while today there is none, which makes the current student protests completely free of even a shadow of self-interest. By the same token, direct US involvement in that war and…

Each strand of political praxis is informed by a political philosophy which analyses the world around us, especially, in modern times, its economic characteristics. On the basis of this analysis, the particular political philosophy sets out the objectives which have to be struggled for, and the political praxis informed by it carries out this struggle. The objective may be difficult to achieve, more difficult in certain contexts than in others, and this difficulty may act as a hurdle for political praxis; but this does not constitute a crisis for that political philosophy. The sheer difficulty of achieving an objective does…

John Stuart Mill was among the foremost liberal thinkers of modern times who wrote extensively on economics and philosophy. Though under the influence of his wife Harriet Taylor Mill, he came closer towards socialism late in his life, it was a kind of cooperative socialism that attracted him; he continues to be regarded primarily as a pre-eminent liberal thinker. Economists of Mill’s time were haunted by the fear of the imminence of a stationary state, that is, a state of simple reproduction or zero growth-rate, in which there would be no further capital accumulation. Mill however viewed a stationary state…

The other day the Chief Executive Officer of Niti Ayog made a fantastic claim, that the poverty ratio in India had fallen below 5 percent according to the 2022-23 consumption expenditure survey data. His claim was based on the fact that the per capita consumption expenditures of only 5 percent of the population in 2022-23 fell below the poverty-lines for that year for rural and urban India, arrived at by updating, on the basis of consumer price indices, the poverty-lines suggested for 2011-12 by a committee headed by Suresh Tendulkar. Now, the Tendulkar committee had not based its 2011-12 poverty…

There is a paradox at the core of the efflorescence of science that has occurred over the last millennium. In essence this efflorescence has the potential to increase human freedom immensely. It increases the capacity of man within the man-nature dialectic; scientific practice aims to go beyond the “given” not just in a once-for-all sense but as a perpetual movement through incessant self-questioning, so that this practice is potentially a collective act of liberation. But this promise of freedom remains significantly unfulfilled; and while its potential has not been realized, this efflorescence of science has been utilized to a great…