The Chimera of a Stabilised Capitalism

THE vision of a capitalism that is “stabilised” through a rectification of its “excesses”, and hence pre-empts any social challenge to its existence, has always endured in one form or another among economists. This vision is in sharp contrast to the Marxist perception which holds that the only way that the so-called “excesses” of capitalism can be got rid of, is through a transcendence of capitalism itself.

Modi’s So-Called Diwali “Gift”

NARENDRA Modi’s Independence Day speech was expectedly full of blatant untruths. He talked for instance of the great strides that India had made in the manufacturing sector during the years of BJP rule, while the reality is a drastic fall over the last ten years in the share of the manufacturing sector in GDP from 17.5 per cent to 12.6 per cent, a level that had last been crossed in 1960.

A Less Noticed Implication of Trump Tariffs

DONALD Trump’s tariffs are being discussed in the media in a routine manner without considering their specific context. This context is one where the US government is unwilling to spend the revenues accruing from higher tariffs on buying goods and services – a matter that is explained below. Other countries that may be losing the US market owing to the consequences of Trump tariffs are also unable to compensate for this loss by enlarging their own domestic markets.

Once More on Minerals and Imperialism

THE Industrial Revolution which inaugurated industrial capitalism in the world had occurred in Britain in cotton textiles; but neither Britain nor other North European countries could grow any raw cotton at all. The very coming into being of industrial capitalism in short was dependent upon the metropolis obtaining a steady supply of raw materials from wherever they happened to be produced. This situation has not changed one iota in all these years.

India’s Growing Income Inequality

THE World Bank has recently published a list of Gini coefficients for 61 countries relating in some cases to income distribution and in others to consumption expenditure distribution. In that list India had the fourth lowest Gini coefficient in 2022, on the basis of which the Modi government has gone to town declaring India to be the fourth most egalitarian economy in the world. The ludicrousness of this claim has already been exposed by several researchers; and spending more time over it would appear like flogging a dead horse.

Capitalism’s Rolling Back of Welfare Spending

IMMEDIATELY after the war when capitalism had faced a serious existential crisis, it had adopted a dual strategy to cope with it. First, it whipped up the “red scare” which was absolutely without any justification, in order to terrorise the domestic working class into acquiescing with the system.

Vilifying the Nehru-Mahalanobis Strategy

THE Nehru-Mahalanobis strategy which broadly underlay the entire dirigiste period is now being intensely vilified, not just by the Modi crowd, but even by neoliberal elements within the Congress and outside.

Intellectuals and Neo-Fascism

COMMUNISTS in India often mobilised public donations and public effort to establish schools and colleges in their areas of work.

The Recent Upsurge in Military Expenditure

THERE is an upsurge in military expenditure all over the world which is spearheaded by the upsurge in Europe. Of course there are different estimates of military expenditure, depending on what one includes under this heading. We shall, in what follows, take the estimates of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) for our analysis.

An Enduring Myth About Capitalism

THERE are of course many myths about capitalism spun by economists. One of these myths spun by David Ricardo has endured for over two centuries. Ricardo had originally been an enthusiastic supporter of the introduction of machinery, dismissive of the argument by workers’ organisations of his time that it gave rise to unemployment.

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Peoples Democracy

ECONOMIC NOTES