Political Economy

Jharkhand Assembly Elections 2009: Which Way Now?

In the general elections 2009, BJP had a distinct advantage in Jharkhand. The party won 8 out of total 14 Lok Sabha seats and planned to win a clear majority in the state assembly elections. The assembly results, however, came out to be a rude and shocking retreat for the BJP that too when circumstances absolutely favoured it. And for insiders, this turnaround is neither unexpected nor undesired.

Jharkhand: A Desperate Cry For Change

Nine years have passed since 15th November 2000, when the state of Jharkhand was formed on the promise of freedom and self-governance for the Adivasis

And the Award Goes to 'New Institutional Economics'. Why?!

The Nobel Memorial Prize for Economics in 2009 has been awarded to Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson. Their work separately on economic governance and rationale for property right structures is a more sophisticated rationale for capitalism and by extension its reigning-ideology-now-in-crisis - neoliberalism. The works of Coase, North and Williamson are the three pillars on which the ‘sophistication’ of ‘new institutional economics’ that informed the ‘good governance’ agenda of post-Washington neoliberal consensus was built upon. So it is not surprising that the Nobel memorial prize goes to the more 'sophisticated' theorists at a time when the 'crude' version faces a severe crisis of legitimacy.

A Comment on the Proposed Right to Food Act

A note by Awanish Kumar on the major issues and underlying assumptions inherent in the debate on food security in India and the proposed act, in particular.

The Scams Around 'Nobel' Economics

While attention is focussed on the imperialist rigging of the Nobel 'Peace' Prize, Professor Jayati Ghosh argues in the Guardian that the Nobel prize for Economics may need its own bail out. Facing a similar crisis of legitimacy, the prize needs to prove it is much more than an award for stockmarket speculators.

The full article can be read here

Robert Pollin reviews Prabhat Patnaik's book, "Value of Money"

Prof.Robert Pollin, Economics Professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst reviews Prof. Prabhat Patnaik's latest book, "Value of Money". The review is attached along with this post. 

The Public and the Private

Prabhat Patnaik new

"The entire period of the agrarian crisis has been marked by an enormous wave of peasant suicides rather than peasant struggles. Of course, protest movements are there, but they no longer acquire, or even threaten to acquire, the dimensions that such movements used to acquire in the past. The question that obviously arises is: why this difference?" asks eminent Marxist, Professor Prabhat Patnaik, who then goes on to answer the question

A Return to Marx

A review of Peter Custers' book: Questioning Globalized Militarism: Nuclear and Military Production and Critical Economic Theory, Tulika, New Delhi, 2007

Socialism, Capitalism, and Class Struggle:The Political Economy of Modern China

This essay traces the evolution of the political economy of China from the 1949 revolution up to the triumph of Chinese capitalism in 1992. It first describes and discusses the tremendous achievements in the first quarter century after the revolution, and also the struggles during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.

Reading Marx’s Capital — Class 5, Chapters 7-9

Fourth of David Harvey's lectures on Marx's 'Capital'.The previous episode can be found here.