DONALD Trump’s leaving the G-7 summit without budging an iota on protectionism is indicative of the disunity among the leading capitalist countries on the strategy to overcome the capitalist crisis. Trump has decided that the US would go its own way, by enlarging the fiscal deficit, not just for giving tax concessions to the corporates, which would have little demand-stimulating effect anyway, but also for increasing government expenditure which would have this effect, and at the same time by protecting the domestic market.These two strands of Trump’s strategy have to go together.

THE Modi government is celebrating four years in office with great fanfare. The fact that these four years have unleashed an unparallelled process of social and political retrogression in the country is well-known and need not detain us here. Our purpose here is to examine what these years have meant for the living standards of the bulk of the Indian people.Here however one immediately comes across a hurdle.

IN the wake of the take-over of Flipkart by Walmart, one is once again hearing an argument which one has often come across before, namely that having a large multinational in this sphere, which can do global sourcing for its products, will make goods cheaper for buyers and therefore be in the “consumers’ interests”.

CENTRAL to liberalism is a distinction between two spheres, the sphere of the market (or more generally of the economy) where individuals and firms interact to exchange their wares; and the sphere of public discourse where individuals interact as citizens of a polity to debate and determine the actions of the State. The importance that liberals attach to this second sphere was underscored by Walter Bagehot, the nineteenth century British essayist of liberal persuasion, who had lauded democracy as “government by discussion”.

THE fact that the socio-economic effects of technological change depend upon the property relations within which such change occurs is obvious but often not appreciated.Consider a simple example. Suppose on a certain area, 100 labourers were engaged for harvesting the crop at a total cost of Rs 5000; but the capitalist-landlord decides to use a harvester combine instead. Then the labourers’ income goes down by Rs 5000. The capitalist-landlord’s wage-cost goes down by Rs 5000, which accrues therefore as an addition to his profits.