ECONOMIC NOTES

The Stalled Decolonisation

MUCH of the ex-colonial world, having set up dirigiste regimes to wrest control over its natural resources from metropolitan capital and to build up industries behind protectionist walls, was sought to be re-assimilated into imperialist hegemony through the neo-liberal economic order; but in one segment of this world decolonisation itself was never completed. The former French colonies of West Africa belong to this segment.

Shooting the Messenger: Adverse Health Trends Revealed in the NFHS (5) 2019-2021

THE nutritional status of the Indian population has been going down slowly but surely during the last three decades, the period of neo-liberal economic reforms. The five-yearly National Sample Survey reports on nutritional intake in India have been registering decline in per capita calorie intake as well as protein intake (but rise in fat intake, concentrated with the top spending groups). The nutritional decline started earliest in rural India, with urban areas joining in the decline later.

The Problem with “Universal Basic Income”

Enable GingerCannot connect to Ginger Check your internet connectionor reload the browserDisable in this text fieldRephraseRephrase current sentenceEdit in Ginger×MANY economists have been advocating a universal basic income for India, an idea that was mooted even in the official Economic Survey for 2016-17. Of course the practical proposals towards this end have varied, some suggesting a common universal transfer to all persons below a certain income, and others suggesting a graded transfer depending on how badly off an individual happens to be.

The Poverty of UN Poverty Estimates

Enable GingerCannot connect to Ginger Check your internet connectionor reload the browserDisable in this text fieldRephraseRephrase current sentenceEdit in Ginger×ON April 3 this year, the minister of state for planning, Rao Inderjeet Singh, said in the Rajya Sabha that the government had no data after 2011-12 for estimating poverty, and therefore had no idea how many people had been lifted out of poverty since then.

When Can There Be a Fall in the Rate of Profit?

SEVERAL major economists have put forward theories predicting a falling tendency of the rate of profit under capitalism; Marx had seen in this fact an awareness on their part of the essential transitoriness of the capitalist system. But while some of these theories have logical validity, others do not. Among the latter is Adam Smith’s theory.Adam Smith had attributed the falling tendency of the rate of profit to the fact of “excessive” capital accumulation.

Third World External Debt in the Light of Simple Economics

Enable GingerCannot connect to Ginger Check your internet connectionor reload the browserDisable in this text fieldRephraseRephrase current sentenceEdit in Ginger×INDIA and other third world countries can morally justify their being a part of G-20 alongside the imperialist powers, only if they raise common and pressing problems of the third world as a whole at G-20 meetings. Perhaps the most pressing of such problems today is the problem of external debt, which the current crisis of neo-liberal capitalism has brought to the forefront.

Is What We Have “Crony Capitalism”?

Enable GingerCannot connect to Ginger Check your internet connectionor reload the browserDisable in this text fieldRephraseRephrase current sentenceEdit in Ginger×               FASCISTIC elements exist in every modern society, but usually as fringe, marginal or minor elements. They move centre-stage only when they get the support of monopoly capital which provides them with ample money and media coverage; and this happens when there is a capitalist crisis that substantially increases unemployment and puts a question mark on the hegemony enjoyed by monopoly capital until then.

The FCI’s Bizarre Logic

Enable GingerCannot connect to Ginger Check your internet connectionor reload the browserDisable in this text fieldRephraseRephrase current sentenceEdit in Ginger×THE Karnataka government’s plan to launch its “Anna Bhagya” scheme on July 1 under which it was planning to provide 10 kg of free rice per month to each family below the poverty-line has run into problems because of the Food Corporation of India’s unwillingness to sell any rice to that state.

The Implications of Dollar Hegemony

Enable GingerCannot connect to Ginger Check your internet connectionor reload the browserDisable in this text fieldRephraseRephrase current sentenceEdit in Ginger×HOW exactly is the dollar’s status as reserve currency related to imperialism? This question has two parts: how this status of the dollar is related to US imperialism, and how it is related to the overall imperialist arrangement.

Pitfalls of Export-Led Growth

AFTER Sri Lanka and Pakistan, Bangladesh has become the third country in our neighbourhood to become afflicted by a serious economic crisis. It has asked for a $4.5 billion loan from the IMF, apart from $1 billion from the World Bank and $2.5-3 billion from multilateral agencies and donor nations.

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