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The Indian economy since Independence
The post-colonial state in India had two primary tasks before it: one was to overcome the hegemony of metropolitan capital, so that a development strategy in relative autonomy from imperialism could be pursued; the second was to attack landlordism both to free the agrarian population from its clutches, and to increase agricultural output for rapid industrialisation based on a growing home market.
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Scandinavia and imperialism
There are many misconceptions about Scandinavian capitalism. A very common one is the belief that since the Scandinavian countries developed vigorous capitalist economies, without ever having acquired any colonies of their own, they constitute a clear refutation of the claim that capitalist development necessarily requires imperialism.
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“Heads I Win, Tails You Lose”
To look at neo-fascism withoutits economic moorings, to ignore the fact that the neo-fascist government is actually based on a neo-liberal-neo-fascist alliance, and, in general, to look at politics as a self-contained sphere unconnected to the economy, is a liberal trait that the Left must not imitate.
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The Indian economy is heading for a stationary state
ADAM Smith and David Ricardo had been haunted by the idea of capitalism ending up in a “stationary state”, by which they meant a stable state of zero growth.
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Neo-liberalism and anti-inflationary policy
Central banks all over the capitalist world are raising, or are about to raise, interest rates as a means of countering the currently rampant inflation, which is certain to push a world economy that is barely recovering from the effect of the pandemic, back towards stagnation and greater unemployment.
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Reflections on the Sri Lankan economic crisis
The American establishment and the new cold-warriors of that country put the blame on the Sri Lankan government’s developing close economic relations with China (and we shall no doubt hear much more of it in the coming days); others blame the sheer “irresponsibility” of the government which is accused of “sleeping” when Sri Lanka’s external debt was building up.
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Tendency towards the emergence of an “international” middle class
The chancellor of the exchequer of Britain, whose official residence is only next door to the British prime minister’s, is Rishi Sunak, a person of Indian origin. Britain’s home secretary is Priti Patel, also of Indian origin.
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The inhumanity of capitalism
For over two years now, the world has been facing a pandemic the like of which has not been seen for a century, and which has already taken 15 million lives according to the WHO, without being anywhere near an end.
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Food and decolonisation
RUSSIA and Ukraine together account for 30 per cent of the world’s wheat exports. Many African countries, in particular, are heavily dependent on them for their food supplies, which are now getting disrupted because of the war; and this disruption would continue since the war is also affecting the acreage being sown under foodgrains there.
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Reflections on the Sri Lankan economic crisis
The American establishment and the new cold-warriors of that country put the blame on the Sri Lankan government’s developing close economic relations with China (and we shall no doubt hear much more of it in the coming days); others blame the sheer “irresponsibility” of the government which is accused of “sleeping” when Sri Lanka’s external debt was building up.
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The irony of sanctions against Russia
The juggling which U.S. imperialism has to do to maintain its hegemony becomes more bizarre by the day. First, it kept needling Russia (“provoking the bear”) “on behalf of the western alliance” by expanding NATO to its very borders, knowing full well that Ukraine’s joining NATO would be totally unacceptable to Russia.
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Globalisation and the relocation of capital and labour
The twin phenomena associated with contemporary globalisation, of migration of capital from the metropolis to parts of the third world, and of migration of labour from the erstwhile second world to the metropolis, have the effect of weakening the working class movement everywhere.
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Sanctions within a regime of neo-liberalism
Before joining the neo-liberal order, India used to have “rupee payment arrangements” with the Soviet Union and Eastern European socialist countries under which the main international reserve currency, the U.S. dollar, was used neither for settling transactions nor even as the unit of account in terms of which the trade-related transactions were denominated.
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The IMF connection with the Ukraine crisis
THE security concerns of Russia arising from Ukraine’s intentions of joining NATO have been widely discussed in the media. But the IMF’s link with Ukraine which is a parallel issue has scarcely received much attention.
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Imperialism as an abiding phenomenon
The essence of the relationship of imperialism lies in the control over the world’s resources, including land-use, by the metropolitan powers.
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An unimaginable contrast
Much has been written about the immense increase in economic inequality that has occurred of late and various startling figures have been provided by bodies like Oxfam, which has just come out with a report titled ‘Inequality Kills.’
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Why capitalist governments worry more about inflation than unemployment?
Capitalist governments invariably seek to control inflation by enlarging unemployment.
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Social sciences and the colonised mind
A CRUCIAL component of the imperialist system is the colonisation of third world minds that helps to sustain it. This colonisation is pervasive, but here we shall discuss only academic colonisation and that too relating to the social sciences.
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Financial Markets under capitalism
One of the most important arguments advanced by John Maynard Keynes, the renowned economist, was that the operation of financial markets under capitalism is deeply flawed.
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Yet another contradiction of capitalism
In the United States there are still four million persons who remain unemployed compared to before the pandemic; and yet the Biden administration’s attempt to stimulate the economy has already run into a crisis with the re-emergence of inflation not just in that country but elsewhere in the capitalist world as well.