The End of Globalization
In an editorial on April 3, The Financial Times of London wrote: “Radical reforms in reversing the prevailing the policy direction of the last four decades will need to be put on the table. Governments will have to accept a…
Finance’s Preference for the Metropolis
The current globalization was always legitimized by the argument that capital today, unlike in colonial times, had become blind to racial and other such distinctions across countries in deciding upon its location; it would now flow wherever opportunities for profitable…
Covid-19 Crisis calls for Universal Delivery of Food and Cash Transfers by the State
The immediate need for universal food and cash delivery is by now obvious and urgent. Across the country, there are reports of people — migrant workers, local workers, peasants, pastoralists, fisherpeople, vendors, ragpickers, and the destitute — facing extreme hardship,…
The Exodus of Finance from the Third World
There is an exodus of finance from the third world at present, far exceeding in scale what had occurred in 2008 after the financial crisis. Even more important than the actual outflow is the desire on the part of finance…
The “Sink” for Indian Capitalism
The distress to which lakhs of migrant workers were suddenly exposed by the Narendra Modi government’s decision to announce a three-week-long lockdown at four hours’ notice with zero planning, has also highlighted a crucial aspect of the Indian economy. This…
Finance versus the People in the Era of the Pandemic
The current pandemic has brought to the fore, and with exceptional clarity, the fundamental contradiction underlying contemporary globalization, namely, the contradiction between the interests of finance and those of the people. Indeed this contradiction, which characterizes the era of globalization…
The Making of a Tragedy
The tragic irony could not have been more complete. The country is under lockdown, but thousands of migrant workers are thronging bus stands or marching on the roads, making a mockery of it; the aim of the lockdown is to…
Pandemic and Socialism
It is said that in a crisis everybody becomes a socialist; free markets take a back seat, to the benefit of the working people. During the second world war for instance, when universal rationing was introduced in Britain, the average…
Some Basic Lessons from the Pandemic
The coronavirus attack has so far been much less deadly than the Spanish flu of a century ago. That had affected 500 million people worldwide, about 27 per cent of the world’s population of the time, and had a death…
Why have Indian Banks become Financially Fragile?
The crisis at Yes Bank is only the concentrated expression of a deeper malaise afflicting the Indian banking system as a whole, namely its vastly increased financial fragility. The Chief Economic Advisor is no doubt right when he assures depositors,…