ECONOMIC NOTES

Imperialism’s Striving for Expansion

THE “inevitable striving of finance capital”, Lenin had written in Imperialism, (is) “to enlarge its spheres of influence and even its actual territory”. He was writing of course in a world marked by inter-imperialist rivalry, where this striving took the form of a competitive struggle between rival finance capitals that speedily completed the partitioning of the world, leaving no “empty spaces”; only a repartitioning of the world was thenceforth possible, through wars among rival financial oligarchies.

The Stagnation of the World Economy

THE fact that the world economy has slowed down since the financial crisis of 2008 is beyond dispute. In fact even conservative American economists have started using the term “secular stagnation” to describe the current situation (though they have their own peculiar definition for it). The purpose of the present note is to give some growth-rate figures to establish this particular point.Calculations of GDP, which are notoriously unreliable for particular countries, are even more so for the world as a whole.

The Transient “Miracles”

A GOOD deal of analysis of the recent political upheaval in Bangladesh has focussed on the high-handedness and authoritarianism of Sheikh Hasina’s government; it has either missed altogether, or generally underplayed, the change that has occurred in the economic situation in that country. A country that was being hailed as an economic “miracle” just a few months ago is now mired in an economic crisis that has suddenly worsened the living conditions of vast numbers of people.

The Pitfalls of Growth Under Unrestricted Trade

THE French economist J B Say had believed that there could never be a problem of aggregate demand in any economy, that whatever was produced was ipso facto demanded. There could of course be too many safety-pins and too few blades, but other than such micro mismatches, there could never be too little demand for the aggregate output as a whole. This assertion which is called “Say’s Law” in economics is obviously an absurdity, because if it were true then there could never be an over-production crisis.

Budget 2024-25: A Frightening Obduracy

THERE is massive unemployment in the country that especially afflicts the youth; there is a huge and persistent inflation in food prices; there is acute and unprecedented rural distress; there is a crisis in the petty production sector; and income and wealth inequality has reached levels where the whole world is talking about it. One would have thought that a budget presented in the midst of all this would have shown some urgency, some boldness for tackling these issues. But no, not the 2024-25 budget presented by the NDA government to parliament on July 23.

Adam Smith on Bengal and North America

IN his opus The Wealth of Nations published in 1776 Adam Smith drew a distinction between the progressive state, the stationary state and the declining state. The progressive state was one where capital accumulation would be occurring at a rate faster than the growth of population, because of which wages would be high and population growing; in a declining state by contrast the opposite happened, while in a stationary state the capital stock and the population, and hence the labour force, was constant and so were the wages, but at a level lower than in the progressive state.

Halting the March of Fascism in Europe

THE coming to power of governments led by fascists is either a reality or a threat today over large parts of the world. In Europe at present there are several countries where fascists are leading governments; France was on the verge of being added to this list, in which case it would have been the second major European power, after Italy, to have a fascist government.

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