IN the United States there are still four million persons who remain unemployed compared to before the pandemic; and yet the Biden administration’s attempt to stimulate the economy has already run into a crisis with the re-emergence of inflation not just in that country but elsewhere in the capitalist world as well. The Federal Reserve Board (the equivalent of the US central bank) is planning soon to raise interest rates (that are currently close to zero), and even the fiscal expansion will be difficult to sustain in the face of inflation.

THE very day, December 11, when the Indian finance ministry spuriously claimed a robust recovery in the post-pandemic Indian economy, newspapers carried news of an acceleration in the US inflation rate. The inflation rate in November 2021 over November of the preceding year had been 6.8 per cent in the US, which was higher than the corresponding rate in any month over the previous 40 years; in particular, petrol prices had increased in November 2021 by 58 per cent, which was the highest for any month since 1980.

THE MGNREGS was introduced by the UPA-I government despite opposition from the neo-liberal lobby within it, owing inter alia to the active intervention of the Left which was supporting that government from outside. It was restrictive from the beginning: it promised a maximum of only 100 days of employment in a year, and that too for just one member of a rural household. But within those restrictions it conferred an economic right: employment could not be refused and if it was not provided within a certain period then the person seeking employment had to be paid a compensation.

THE Modi government has been raising taxes on petro-products as its main instrument of resource mobilisation for government spending.

 THERE are a number of misconceptions about Indian agriculture which, if not removed forthwith, can have potentially adverse effects on the ongoing kisan agitation against the three farm laws. The first of these is the belief that corporate encroachment on peasant agriculture is a matter concerning only the corporate encroachers and the peasants. This is wrong: corporate encroachment on peasant agriculture is a matter that affects the economy as a whole; it concerns everybody. This is not a rhetorical statement; it is literally true.