The Accumulation Process in the Period of Globalisation
PERSPECTIVE current orthodox economics refers to a The Accumulation Process state of affairs where all prices, including money wages, are rising pari passu, so in the Period of Globalisation that there is no worsening of the condition of the working masses per se and the only sufferers are those with cash balances, Prabhat Patnaik most of whom are likely to be rich. But inflation as we know it in real life, The inflation in food prices of the n preparing this lecture, which is part especially in a country like ours, where early 1970s that arose out of excess of a series being organised in memory the bulk of the workers do not have wages demand for cereals disappeared Iof D D Kosambi in his centenary year, I indexed to prices, is one that hurts the have been tempted strongly to choose a working masses. Keynes (1930) had called in later years not because of any topic that would have been of interest to this latter kind of inflation “profit infla- significant supply augmentation, him. Accordingly I shall devote this lecture tion”, and had recognised it as a phenom- but because it was substituted by to what everyone is concerned about these enon of great importance under capital- 1 an income deflation on the days, namely, the world food crisis. ism. In situations where supply could not be rapidly augmented, it overcame excess working people, including the 1 demand by raising prices relative to peasantry, over large tracts of the Paul Krugman of the Massachusetts Insti- money wages, and thereby bringing world.
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