PRAGOTI

Prof.Prabhat Patnaik lucidly explains the dialectical relationship between 'Socialism' and Welfarism' and argues for the necessity of 'political intervention' of the left in welfare measures for the transformation of people from 'Objects' to 'Subjects'.

J0hn Maynard Keynes, though bourgeois in his outlook, was a remarkably insightful economist, whose book Economic Consequences of the Peace was copiously quoted by Lenin at the Second Congress of the Communist International to argue that conditions had ripened for the world revolution. But even Keynes’ insights could not fully comprehend the paradox that is capitalism.

'' The “bail out” package to the financial system in the United States is estimated to exceed $10 trillion. The strategy at present therefore seems to be to sustain the financial system and wait for the next “bubble” to appear rather than to revive the real economy directly through fiscal stimuli. The consequence of this strategy will be a prolonged period of recession and unemployment with much human suffering; but this only underscores the power of the financial interests in contemporary capitalism, where even a crisis of this magnitude engendered by their functioning leaves this power undiminished.''-argues Prabhat Patnaik.

How does the critique of modernity (as it is found in some of the alternative radical strains in the Enlightenment ranging from seventeenth century dissenters against the newly emerging orthodox elements of modernity to Gandhi in our own country's emerging modernity) square with the ideals of economic and social justice in the broad Leftist tradition owing chiefly to Marx? Pragoti presents a selection of articles from a seminar in Hyderabad in January 2009 on 'Radical Enlightenment and the Socialist Alternative'.