ECONOMIC NOTES

On The Global Economic Crisis

THE global economic crisis is usually seen as the sequel to the collapse of the housing bubble in the United States. This understanding however is inadequate. The formation of that bubble and its collapse are episodes which are themselves embedded within a deeper structural crisis that afflicts contemporary capitalism, one related to the phenomenon of “globalisation”.

On the BJP’s Election Manifesto

THERE is nothing surprising about a party that believes itself to be riding the crest of an electoral wave by appearing to be all things to all persons, delaying the release of its election manifesto almost until the elections have actually started. Since a manifesto is supposed to state what a party specifically stands for, the fear is that any such explicit statement would break the spell.

The Food Economy

AN impression is sought to be created by government spokesmen that Indian agriculture, especially the foodgrain sector, has left behind the stagnation that afflicted it in the immediate aftermath of the “economic reforms”. It has now “turned around”, and those who are still highlighting the deleterious effect of the neo-liberal regime upon food security are simply raking up a past that no longer exists.
NO TURN
AROUND

NEO-LIBERALISM’S ASSAULT ON EDUCATION

One of the most deleterious consequences of neo-liberalism is in the sphere of education, but it is less studied than its more direct economic effects. I shall confine myself here to the sphere of higher education. Some detailed studies have recently come out on the effects of the neo-liberal dispensation on higher education in the United States; and these are of interest to us since whatever is happening in the U.S. is also happening in India at present. Neo-liberalism’s consequences are indeed quite universal.

Smith, Marx and Alienation

THERE has always been a tendency among non-Marxists to ignore the specificity of Marx’s perceptions in the realm of political economy, and to reduce them instead to similar but antecedent ideas that might be found in Adam Smith or David Ricardo. Economist Paul Samuelson expressed this tendency in the most blatant, if deliberately provocative, manner when he referred to Marx as a “minor post-Ricardian”.

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