THERE is an exodus of finance from the third world at present, far exceeding in scale what had occurred in 2008 after the financial crisis. Even more important than the actual outflow is the desire on the part of finance to pull out of the third world, including even the so-called “emerging markets”, and move to US dollars or dollar-denominated assets. This is resulting in a depreciation of a host of third world currencies vis-à-vis the dollar, of which the Indian rupee is an obvious example.This is paradoxical at first sight.

THE current pandemic has brought to the fore, and with exceptional clarity, the fundamental contradiction underlying contemporary globalisation, namely, the contradiction between the interests of finance and thoseof the people. Indeed this contradiction, which characterizes the era of globalisation as a whole, has now come to a head.It is becoming clearly visible in country after country. Take the case of India.

IT is said that in a crisis everybody becomes a socialist; free markets take a back seat, to the benefit of the working people. During the Second World War for instance, when universal rationing was introduced in Britain, the average worker became better nourished than before. Likewise, private companies get commandeered to produce goods for the war effort, thus introducing de facto planning.Something of the sort is happening today under the impact of the pandemic.

THE crisis at Yes Bank is only the concentrated expression of a deeper malaise afflicting the Indian banking system as a whole, namely its vastly increased financial fragility. The chief economic advisor is no doubt right when he assures depositors, through the media, that the Indian banking system is quite stable; but this still does not negate the fact that it has become more fragile.

CLASS struggle occurs in the realm of concepts too. The World Bank for instance systematically counters Left concepts by employing a novel tactic: it uses the very same concepts as are used by the Left, but gives them a wholly different meaning; as a result they either come to mean something entirely different from what the Left had originally meant by them, or, at the very least, they become fuzzy and hence useless to the Left. In either case the power of the Left concept is neutralised.For example, the term “structural” used to be an integral part of the Left lexicon.