The estimates of Gross Domestic Product for the April-June quarter released by the government on August 31 paint a dismal picture of the Indian economy. Since the GDP in real terms (at 2011-12 prices) shows an increase of 13.5 per…
Economists distinguish between two kinds of inflation: “demand-pull” and “cost-push”. Demand-pull inflation is said to occur when there is excess demand in a situation where supply cannot be augmented, because full capacity output has been reached in one or more…
A Bizarre drama is unfolding in front of our eyes. The Modi government which has been giving away hundreds of thousands of crores of rupees as tax concessions to the monopolists has expressed its opposition ironically to what it calls…
The hegemony of the US dollar was based on the fact that the world’s wealth-holders considered it to be “as good as gold”, even when it was no longer officially convertible to gold at a fixed rate, as it had…
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…
The craftiness of imperialism is boundless. In several countries of the world at present there are neo-fascist governments, propped up by their respective big bourgeoisies (all aligned to globalized capital), and implementing neo-liberal policies with their characteristic ruthlessness; in many…
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. Marx used the term “simple reproduction” to describe such a state,…
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…
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. The US vice-president…
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…
