Tag: rich

India and the politics of ‘corruption’

sanjay perera

by Anjan Chakrabarti & Anup Dhar Politics begins where the masses are, not where there are thousands, but where there are millions, that is where serious politics begins. — Lenin Think of all the people in Tagore’s Red Oleander, residing perhaps in post-independent India –– who did not have names and were identified as mere numbers, 21F, 79D, 84M, etc. — forming their own party with the assistance of Nandini, the female rebel protagonist (Ranjan — the other rebel protagonist had already been killed by the King) and challenging the King, the Gosain (clergy), the Adhyapak (professor) and a host … Continue reading India and the politics of ‘corruption’

Class and need: Social surplus and Marxian theorization of development

sanjay perera

by Anjan Chakrabarti We know that there have been two paths of development, paths that are not always considered complementary to one another. The first and still the dominant path would contemplate economic growth as the basic indicator of capturing the increase in standard of living (either measured as GDP per capita or GDP per worker) which represents development of a nation or region; thus poor and rich countries are differentiated in terms of, say, the level of GDP per capita and resultantly, the path to development of poor countries lie in expanding the latter as fast as possible. High … Continue reading Class and need: Social surplus and Marxian theorization of development

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Taking notes 29: Abundance and Apocalypse

sanjay perera

by Steven Miller Somewhere in the ‘90s, world production crossed the historic line into Economic Abundance. Humans now produce, through the global economy, so much wealth every year that it is no longer necessary for anyone to be impoverished. The UN has long held that the world produces enough food to end hunger forever; the problem is how it is distributed. This is essentially based on ability to pay. The reality of Economic Abundance is carefully censored and hidden, because it immediately raises the fact that people today have the capacity and the tools to — if they wished — … Continue reading Taking notes 29: Abundance and Apocalypse