The Indispensability of Marxism

WE have been hearing of late remarks like “We do not believe in ‘Isms’” and “Divisions between the Left and the Right are things of the past”. Since these remarks emanate from quarters that supposedly strike a chord with the contemporary youth, they deserve to be taken seriously. Besides, they constitute part of an intellectual tradition that has been recently in vogue, which holds that all “grand narratives”, of which Marxism is a classic example, are passé.

On Wealth and Income Inequalities

IN the late nineteen sixties and the early nineteen seventies, an argument used to be put forward by theorists of Social Democracy that went as follows. In any society, wealth inequality is always greater than income inequality; but if this income inequality is curtailed, then that ipso facto has the effect of curtailing wealth inequality as well, and that too quite substantially.

Employment during the Boom

THERE exists a whole tribe of economists, by no means a small one, which debunks every attempt at income redistribution in the country as “populism”, and which insists that the growth of the Gross Domestic Product must be given absolute priority. This tribe applauds Narendra Modi’s “development” agenda, which entails enticing corporates, both domestic and foreign, to invest in one’s own domain by offering them generous incentives.

India Yields to Pressure at Bali

THE Indian media for which the WTO meeting at Bali was of no more than passing interest made out on December 7 that India had achieved a great victory at that meeting. Even The Hindu’s headline read: “India’s Stand Prevails at Bali”. The media were merely echoing the view of the Indian government whose commerce minister even took pride in the fact that it was the Indian draft that was put up for endorsement to the member countries. The truth regrettably is exactly the opposite.

Pope Francis on Capitalism

ON Tuesday, November 25, the Vatican brought out an 84-page document written by Pope Francis which was a severe indictment of the current unjust economic system that prevails in the world. It said (all quotations and the basic information are taken from Lynn Parramore’s article published in Truthout of December 2):

The WTO and Agricultural Subsidy

THE United States and Europe subsidise their agriculture massively. In the US for instance, government expenditure by way of subsidies to the agricultural sector is on average nearly half of the GDP originating from its agriculture. The figures for Europe are broadly similar. In India by contrast, government expenditure by way of subsidies to agriculture is estimated to have been less than 10 percent of the GDP originating from agriculture in the past, and is now just likely to exceed this figure.

The Elusive Recovery

THE world capitalist crisis which began in 2008 not only persists but is worsening. The second half of the current year was supposed to be the period when growth in the major advanced countries would gather momentum. The IMF had predicted in spring that activity would “gradually accelerate”. But the latest figures show that instead of a recovery we have an actual deceleration in growth. In the Eurozone, quarter-to-quarter growth which had been 0.3 percent in the second quarter of this year fell to 0.1 percent in the third quarter.

The War of Words between the US and Germany

ADVANCED capitalist country governments, no matter what their differences, generally put up a common front. They do not attack one another in public. It was surprising therefore when recently the United States attacked German economic policy in an official document and the German government replied in kind. It showed the kind of desperation to which advanced capitalist countries are getting pushed these days by the persistence of the global economic crisis.

The Executive under Neo-Liberalism

THE pursuit of neo-liberal policies necessarily means bending to the caprices of international finance capital, so that it does not take offence and leave the country’s shores. This in turn necessarily means an attenuation of democracy, for democracy means that policies should be made in accordance with the wishes of the people and not those of international finance capital.

On Communal Violence in Muzaffar Nagar

D P Singh

RECENTLY the district of Muzaffar Nagar in the western part of Uttar Pradesh was engulfed by communal violence and some 44 persons had lost their lives by the time of going to press. The fire had spread to the rural areas of the district and to some nearby districts. Thousands of people had left their ancestral villages, while Muzaffar Nagar city and Shamli town had had to be handed over to the army. Some one thousand people had been arrested but the violence seemed to be continuing unabated.

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