NUMEROUS agencies from the Labour Bureau of Shimla to the Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy to Oxfam have been drawing attention to the grim unemployment situation in India at present. The government however not only continues to be in a denial mode, but has actually suppressed all official statistics that go against its claims. But like the proverbial thief hiding behind curtains whose shoes nonetheless are visible from outside, the government’s hiding behind suppressed statistics is of no avail; its own figures given in other places, like the thief’s shoes, reveal the truth.

IN election season, when political parties are seen to be making promises that would involve a commitment to governments making expenditures later, a question is often posed whether the country can afford such a ‘burden’. Those who pick this specific criticism among the several possible reasons that could be advanced against what is being offered, of course, are not in favour of any significant stepping up of public expenditures and effectively assume that the resources that the government can command are not amenable to increase.

MAINSTREAM bourgeois economics which is what occupies a hegemonic position in the academic world today is often criticized for being “unreal”, for proceeding on the basis of assumptions that obviously do not correspond to reality. This criticism however, though valid, does not capture its real intent, which is to serve as a means of camouflaging imperialism. The theoretical content of mainstream bourgeois economics is to advance a set of propositions about the functioning of capitalism which deny any need for, and hence any role of, imperialism in capitalist development.