Minimum Wage and the Poverty Line

The criteria for determining the minimum wage have evolved in India over a long period of time. The basic guidelines set at the Indian Labour Conference have been subsequently improved upon by the Supreme Court in the early 1990s. As of now, the principles for setting the minimum wage after all these modifications stand as follows.The basic family unit for which the calculation is made is supposed to consist of four persons, a husband, wife and two children. These two children together constitute one consuming unit, so that one can say that the family has three consuming units altogether.

The Surge in Inflation

Inflation in India, as measured by the Consumer Price Index has been accelerating in the current financial year.

The Subversion of Concepts

Consider two statements: “Petty production is being squeezed out by the encroachment of capital”, and “Petty production is being squeezed out by the encroachment of multinational corporations”. Many would consider the two statements to be more or less identical, the second being only a more specific form of expressing the first.

The Logic of Neo-Liberal Capitalism

CAPITALISM is a “spontaneous” system in the sense that its dynamic is characterised by the unfolding of certain immanent tendencies, such as the commoditisation of every object, the destruction of pre-capitalist production, and the process of centralisation of capital. The question arises: what is the role of the State in this spontaneous dynamic of capitalism? In general the State in a capitalist society aids this dynamic, removing hurdles to, and accelerating the operation of, its immanent tendencies.

Managing the Corporate-Communal Alliance

THE corporate-communal alliance that came to power after the 2014 elections needs careful management by its promoters, because within each of the partners of the alliance there are elements that are not altogether comfortable with the other.Within the Hindutva fold there are some trade unions, and outfits like the Swadeshi Jagaran Manch which experience a degree of disquiet over the fact that their parivar is promoting a corporate agenda. Likewise within the corporate fold, there are some honchos who find communalism difficult to swallow.

Economic Integration and Free Mobility of Labour

THERE is a view that the discontent among the English workers that caused the Brexit vote was not because of European economic integration as such, but because of the policy of free internal migration that has accompanied this integration; that if Europe had not enacted free migration within the EU, then its economic integration would have been more successful.

Globalisation and the World’s Working People

GLOBALISATION was advertised as being beneficial for all, as constituting a bold step towards universal economic betterment. This was clearly wrong; and it was not just Left economists, but even “mainstream” economists like Paul Samuelson who had said so at the very outset.

Brexit: A Revolt against the Hegemony of Globalised Finance

ALMOST all commentators on the British electorate’s vote to leave the European Union, whether from the Right or the Left, have missed the main point of it, namely that it is a massive revolt against the hegemony of globalised finance.

Rajan’s Exit

AN absurd debate has been going on for some time in India.

The Goods and Services Tax

FOR pushing through the Goods and Services Tax (GST), the NDA government is resorting to an enormous amount of untruth. The most blatant of these is the utterly bogus claim that the GST would increase India’s GDP growth rate by 2 percent per year. If the GST had such a miraculous effect, then the world capitalist crisis would have vanished long ago, since the US, which does not have a GST, would simply have moved to a GST regime, adding to its GDP growth rate and that of the world economy as a whole.

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Peoples Democracy

ECONOMIC NOTES