Times They're a changin'
Sexual liberty and the Indian Constitution
Thus spake Zarathustra…
Professor's column
Teaching and Ideology of Economics
- Prof. G Omkarnath
Division Bell
Debate column - Kapil Sibal's school education reforms
The Learning Process
So you think Mr. Sibal
Fell on Black Days
Follow up on the financial crisis
The Crisis - I
Coming back to life
Economist column
Joan Robinson (1903 - 1983)
Articles
Agent/ Agency in Social Sciences
Can the private sector reduce poverty?
Celebrating serious fun!
Defending the counterfactual: A Historical Perspective
Econophysics
India’s non-compliance to decent work norms
Neoclassical Theory and Economic Policy
Structure of Growth: A short note
Swine Flu - the panicdemic
The crisis that isn't
Towards a free classroom
Potpourri
While my guitar gently weeps
Music column
The Beatles
Still crazy after all these years…
Campus talk
Environmental Action Group
Turn the page
Book review
Istanbul, memories and the city— Representations of the Identity crisis within
Through the looking glass
Movies column
Violence and contemporary cinema
Life in Cartoon Motion
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Defending the counterfactual: A Historical Perspective
- Srijan Sandip Mandal (MA History, II Year)
E. H. Carr, in What is History? – a book familiar to most students of history , wrote, ‘One can always play a parlour-game with the might-have-beens of history. But they have nothing . . . to do with history’. Of course, he was and is not alone in this trenchant critique of the counterfactual in history. Others such as A. J. P. Taylor, D. H. Fisher, and E. P. Thompson have also written virulently against the same, though the critical and popular appeal of Carr’s aforementioned work has given his critique a halo not accorded to the others, at least not in this case.
It is, therefore, ironic to discover Carr smuggling counterfactuals, albeit unconsciously, into his ‘factual’ narrative with his insistence that the Bolshevik Revolution was hijacked by Stalin, the implication being, to quote R. N. Lebow, “that socialism would have developed differently without him”. However, it is also indicative of the symbiotic relationship that the counterfactual and the ‘factual’ share as the latter derives its probability from the improbability of the former, especially, in cause-and-effect chains – an important theme in Carr’s understanding of history.
Many historians, including Carr, have cited the absence of ‘facts’ in the counterfactual as one of the principal reasons, if not the only one, for the wholesale rejection of its use in history, though, as Lebow has pointed out, ‘philosophers have long recognized that “facts” are social constructions . . . reflections of the concepts we use to describe social reality, not of reality itself.’ If that be accepted, it would seem that the hierarchical binary of the factual and the counterfactual which presumes the primacy of the former and the derivation of the latter is revealed as fallacious, thus requiring a displacement of this opposition and throwing in turmoil the assumption that ‘factual’ history is, somehow, superior to its counterfactual Other.
The discipline of history, by virtue of its nature, is blessed or cursed, depending on the historian, with the boon or bane of hindsight that allows some such as Carr to construct a chain of causes which explain the already-known effect, and yet prevents others from exploring the possibilities that did not materialise, handicapped as they are with the pervasive influence of the present, which obscures their view of the past. It is only the use of counterfactuals that can shatter the ‘retrospective determinism’ of Carr and others, and establish the past, too, as no less contingent than the future.
It would, thus, seem in the light of the above discussion that counterfactuals are indispensable to the study of history. To quote Hugh Trevor-Roper:
‘It is only if we place ourselves before the alternatives of the past, as of the present, only if we live for a moment, as the men of the time lived, in its still fluid context and among its still unresolved problems, if we see these problems coming upon us, as well as look back on them after they have gone away, that we can draw useful lessons from history.’
E. H. Carr, in What is History? – a book familiar to most students of history , wrote, ‘One can always play a parlour-game with the might-have-beens of history. But they have nothing . . . to do with history’. Of course, he was and is not alone in this trenchant critique of the counterfactual in history. Others such as A. J. P. Taylor, D. H. Fisher, and E. P. Thompson have also written virulently against the same, though the critical and popular appeal of Carr’s aforementioned work has given his critique a halo not accorded to the others, at least not in this case.
It is, therefore, ironic to discover Carr smuggling counterfactuals, albeit unconsciously, into his ‘factual’ narrative with his insistence that the Bolshevik Revolution was hijacked by Stalin, the implication being, to quote R. N. Lebow, “that socialism would have developed differently without him”. However, it is also indicative of the symbiotic relationship that the counterfactual and the ‘factual’ share as the latter derives its probability from the improbability of the former, especially, in cause-and-effect chains – an important theme in Carr’s understanding of history.
Many historians, including Carr, have cited the absence of ‘facts’ in the counterfactual as one of the principal reasons, if not the only one, for the wholesale rejection of its use in history, though, as Lebow has pointed out, ‘philosophers have long recognized that “facts” are social constructions . . . reflections of the concepts we use to describe social reality, not of reality itself.’ If that be accepted, it would seem that the hierarchical binary of the factual and the counterfactual which presumes the primacy of the former and the derivation of the latter is revealed as fallacious, thus requiring a displacement of this opposition and throwing in turmoil the assumption that ‘factual’ history is, somehow, superior to its counterfactual Other.
The discipline of history, by virtue of its nature, is blessed or cursed, depending on the historian, with the boon or bane of hindsight that allows some such as Carr to construct a chain of causes which explain the already-known effect, and yet prevents others from exploring the possibilities that did not materialise, handicapped as they are with the pervasive influence of the present, which obscures their view of the past. It is only the use of counterfactuals that can shatter the ‘retrospective determinism’ of Carr and others, and establish the past, too, as no less contingent than the future.
It would, thus, seem in the light of the above discussion that counterfactuals are indispensable to the study of history. To quote Hugh Trevor-Roper:
‘It is only if we place ourselves before the alternatives of the past, as of the present, only if we live for a moment, as the men of the time lived, in its still fluid context and among its still unresolved problems, if we see these problems coming upon us, as well as look back on them after they have gone away, that we can draw useful lessons from history.’
Joan Robinson (1903 – 1983)
- Ankush Saha and Arpan Ganguly (MA Economics, II Year)
"The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists." - (Economics and Public Purpose, 1973)
Joan Violet Robinson was born in 1903, in Surrey, England, to a controversial family as her father, Sir Frederick Barton Maurice, had attained insurmountable disrepute due to his accusations of Prime Minister Lloyd George's approaches during WWII. She graduated in Economics from Girton College, Cambridge in 1925 and married fellow economist Austin Robinson. Later she joined the University of Cambridge as a lecturer in Economics in 1937. Mother of two, Joan Robinson's multifaceted contribution towards economic thought is arguably the most prolific and unparalleled one of the 20th century. She choose a career in economics in order to enquire as to why poverty and unemployment existed in the economy.
A supporter of Neoclassical theory in her early days (being a student of Pigou), she refined the theory with her contributions to the area of imperfect competition. She explored the multi-dimensional nature of competition providing a breakdown from the existing traditional (Marshallian) world of perfect competition. The Chamberlin-Robinson model of monopolistic competition brought into focus the complexities of market forms in the real world as opposed to the ideal. Her fundamental insights on industry (in terms of production decisions for a multi-commodity firm), limits to competition, price policy for an entrepreneur, and monopoly/monopsony, furthered the scholarly discourse on imperfect markets.
The Keynesian revolution marked her active indulgence in the Keynesian theory of output and employment in the 1930s. She enriched the Keynesian tradition by attempting to apply the Keynesian concepts of involuntary unemployment and the paradox of thrift to a long run analysis.
An intellectual interest in Marxism (being inspired by Kalecki and by engaging in constant debates with Kaldor and Kahn) led her to believe that applying Marx's schemas of reproduction was the most logical approach to decipher the issues within and beyond The General Theory. Her model was an amalgamation of Keynesian, Kaleckian, Marxian and Classical ideas. She also attempted to bridge the 'Equilibrium method' and the 'Historical method' that existed in the Classical and Marxian analysis.
During the 1960's along with Piero Sraffa, she participated in the Neo-Ricardian “Classical Revival” against the Neoclassicals- also known as the 'Cambridge Capital Controversy'. Her critique of the Marshallian approach was on methodological grounds thereby attacking the 'Marginalist' approach of the Neoclassicals. She targeted the marginal productivity theory by attacking John Bates Clark's claim that wages and profit rates were determined by the relative scarcities of labour and capital. She argued in favour of capital being a heterogenous entity thereby contesting that various issues pertaining to the determination of prices of various capital goods had not been accounted for by the Neoclassicals. Moreover, she claimed that although firms in the competitive market were price takers, prices were determined within the entire economic system and hence could not be considered as a given for calculating the wages and profit rates (an idea also evident in Sraffa's work 'The Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities'). She went on to successfully debunk the concept of capital being a scarce input to production, thereby providing an insurmountable critique of the aggregate production function in Neoclassical theory.
Joan Robinson was also highly critical of the notion that a scientific approach to economic theory could be attained by incorporating mathematics into the discipline. She believed that such an approach would generate vagueness in the discipline as mathematical operations were performed on entities that are difficult to be defined (Robinson in Classical and Neoclassical theories of General Equilibrium, Walsh and Gram, 1980).
Her approach towards the discipline was to look 'behind the formal structures of theories to see what sorts of society- their history, “rules of the game,” sociological make-ups -were implied' (Harcourt.G.C, Joan Robinson and her circle).
In the later years of her life, she felt a growing discontent for the manner in which economic theory had progressed. Her frequent travels to India (wherein she engaged in a long standing academic relationship with Amit Bhadhuri), China and other LDCs convinced her that the prevailing economic theory was incapable of addressing the problems of unemployment, poverty etc. As several economists have contested, it is still too early to figure out what place among the economists of the 20th century will the history of economic ideas assign to such a remarkable woman as Joan Robinson (The Economics of Joan Robinson by Marcuzzo, Pasinetti and Roncaglia, 1996). Unfortunately her magnanimous contribution towards economic theory, which was widely expected to deliver the first Nobel Prize in economics to her, failed to do so, reflecting the strong ideological biases in the discipline.
Neoclassical Theory and Economic Policy
- Arpan Ganguly (M.A.Economics, II year)
The consideration of the fact that nearly 100 nations across the world have experienced crisis in the last thirty years, makes one ponder about the viability of the impact that the mainstream economic theory has had over governmental decision making. As several nations have seen a shift towards Neoclassical economic policy post 1980s, a reason advocated by Joseph Stiglitz towards increased economic instability across nations, is that the changes in the global economic environment perpetrated by capital market liberalizations have resulted in increasing the risks way beyond the coping ability of most developing nations.
The primary motive behind economic policy should be to increase the quality of life or the standard of living of the individuals. Full employment and decent work for all are concerns requiring immediate attention as unemployment does not simply have economic repercussions but also grave social and emotional implications. Neoclassical economic theory treats labour like any other commodity. As long as labour is treated merely as an input in the process of production, welfare of the workers cannot be ensured (An aspect non-existent in Neoclassical welfare economics) A theory which considers no involuntary unemployment to exist at any point of time in the economy and according to which unemployment is a symptom of an increase in the demand for leisure raises serious doubts pertaining to its concerns for improving the welfare of the workers. Infact, one can ask the question whether improving the lives of individuals is even a concern for the Neoliberals, as can be seen from their constant critique of the Public Pension Schemes, job security measures and bailing out of sick firms, and their constant lobbying towards the creation of independent central banks and privatization of agriculture, old age pensions etc.
The Neoclassical argument of markets being efficient enough to restore equilibrium in the economy seems to be more of a platonic picture. For indeed if markets were really that efficient, a soaring unemployment rate of around 9.7% in the U.S, would not have been a state of affairs asking for urgent attention. With the onset of the Neoliberal regime, not only has the labour market received insignificant focus, but also there seems to be a reversal in the benefits that the trade unions and the workers have been able to achieve for themselves over years of protests and collective bargaining.
The recognition of the fact that market failures are impertinent to any market based economy ensues that the role of the Government becomes pivotal in shaping the fortunes of the deprived or the unprivileged classes. Labour market reforms, in most nations, have not been able to produce drastic results, thereby posing a serious question mark pertaining to the primary focus behind governmental policy. Thus, Governments across the world should aim for more focused and radical macroeconomic policies in order to attain full employment, improved working conditions and job security, thereby protecting workers from the unanticipated fluctuations in the global economy.
So you think Mr.Sibal
- By Arpan Ganguly (MA Economics, II Year) and Anu Salelkar (MA Sociology, II Year)
Championed as a prolific and exemplified reform, Sibal's school educational plan aims at integrating the tumultuous disparity in the structure of the school educational system that prevails in the country at present. Amidst the surmountable acclaim that the reform has received from various quarters, the need of addressing the disparity at the grassroots level seems to have been ignored, yet again. The plan seems to possess the same structural constraints that several other reforms in the recent past have been a victim of.
Considering the vast cultural and social diversity that permeates within different sections of the society, addressing these differences through a single reform seems unnervingly preposterous. What needs to be recognised is that the educational priorities in one State might be diametrically opposite to those that exists in other States.The question that needs to be deliberated in this context is whether Sibal's approach towards addressing this disparity does consider the array of logical and technical hurdles that belie the efficient working of any such reform.
The reforms seem to address this disparity by making Class X exams optional and by introducing a grading system as a substitute for the existing marking pattern followed by all educational institutions across the nation.The implementation of such a grading system fails to address the incoherent classroom atmosphere perpetrated by student-teacher biases and unrealistic parental expectations, which constitutes towards the additional burden faced by students. Moreover, the existing bias towards certain disciplines (like engineering and medical) coupled with increased competition leading to a process of internalisation on behalf of the students, constitutes in curbing their individual choices. The proposed education plan seems to partially address this heterogeneity as students would have to adjust from a grading system at matriculation to a percentage based module in the higher secondary level. The reform reflects a constricted view pertaining to its approach towards changing the educational structure in the country as its a fallacy on behalf of the policy makers to assume homogeneity among students from diverse social backgrounds.
Incidents such as a girl in West Bengal (as reported in The Statesman a few years ago) being beaten up by her parents on passing the Xth board exams as she would no longer get the mid-day meal, is a concern way beyond the purview of any such reform. A platform conducive for the development of a student's cognitive ability, constructive criticism of the existing syllabi etc cannot be provided for by a reform which considers the implementation of a grading system to successfully address the existing systemic constraints of the Indian educational system.
You can see the salient features of all the proposed reforms here. (Editors)
You can see the salient features of all the proposed reforms here. (Editors)
The Learning Process
- By Ankush Saha (MA Economics, II Year)
“The goal of education is not mastery of subject matter, but of one's person .”
- Greek concept of 'Paideia' as explained by David Orr.
The School Education reforms, as proposed by Mr. Kapil Sibal, Honorable HRD minister of India, reflects the holistic approach to what 'education' should actually provide for than what it stands for in India at present. The education system as it exists today has ample opportunities for a teenager to be on a scale of comparison based on extensive evaluation of their power to assimilate and reproduce textual knowledge. But does it develop one's cognitive ability? Does it allow appropriate space for creative processing of the acquired knowledge beyond the textual context? Does it challenge an individual to juxtapose one's point of view (based on instinct or experience or sheer ingenuity) against what exists? These questions form a relevant aspect of the learning process for an adolescent but more often than not, India's education system fails to touch upon them.The focus of education stays restricted to building memory power, employable skill development and acquiring apt communication skills so as to survive in the competitive market.
Indian school students has a rigorously set system to survive in, primarily dealing with the ability of an individual to outperform one another in terms of marks obtained in annual exams – which effectively excels at creating mechanistic beings capable of survival. The two main propositions of the reforms: Making 10th Board exams optional and replacing marks by grades for IX and X standard, aims to shift emphasis from a quantitative to qualitative aspect of the learning process, which is an essential directive towards strengthening India's future human capital. The relentless efforts put in by a school student to attain a perfect score can be rather diverted towards unfolding and understanding one's productive potential through a more constructive learning process – a process which involves accumulation, analysis and employment of the available knowledge in the world for moulding oneself into a thinking, confident and productive individual. This in turn requires a unified, well structured and supportive curriculum where the third proposed reform for unification of the school education system under one Board comes into play (India has 23 State Boards and 3 National Boards at present).
Being a developing country, India has its drawbacks in terms of provision for infrastructural and financial support for the huge population. Also, as a nation, the priorities of reducing unemployment, poverty and illiteracy stands supreme. But at a critical juncture of staying at pace with the developed Nations, India cannot but substitute the qualitative aspect of education with mere skill development. A combination of learned skills and individual potential is a necessary for a progressive future.
However, given a country as diverse and large as India, the practical glitches awaiting the implementation of proposed reforms are innumerable. Hence, the change in the system may require adequate expertise on behalf of the policy makers but the idea of a holistic education system underlying the proposed reforms needs to be addressed eventually. And Mr. Kapil Sibal has just provided us with a start for the same.
You can see the salient features of all the proposed reforms here. (Editors)
You can see the salient features of all the proposed reforms here. (Editors)
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Violence and contemporary cinema
- Anoop Raj K (M.A. Economics, II Year)
'Sight and Sound' (from British Film Institute) magazine's April 2009 editorial (by Nick James) attacked many contemporary masters of cinema - Quentin Tarantino, Lars von Trier, Gasper Noe - for intense, realistic and at times exaggerated, invariably disturbing depiction of violence in their recent films. The violence depicted on screen included scalping heads, genital mutilation, graphic scenes of abortion, and 'matter-to-fact depiction of sodomy, rape and murder'. Cannes Film Festival is one event that captures the flow of world cinema, and the editorial piece was a comment on Cannes '09 as well- where the latest films of these directors competed for Palm d'Or, the greatest honour at Cannes.
Why do these directors put the audience through this ordeal? Violence on screen- is it merely a shock tactic effectively employed or is it meant to convey something else? Another piece written by J. Hoberman, on a lesser known director's film — Brillante Mendoza's 'Kinatay' (which won the Best Director prize was filled with horror and gore) suggested that the director might want to put the audience in the victim's shoes: to convey how brutal violence could actually be. Michael Haneke, one of Europe's major filmmakers, made a film recently named 'Funny Games', and the audience were made to endure a film on two psychotic youngsters torturing and murdering a French middle class family.
Interestingly, a lot of studies on contemporary cinema argue that many of these films capture the psyche of individuals and societies under the threat of war, terrorism, or even racial tension, even though these films do not make any such direct claims or references. An article on Hollywood during the 'George Bush years' (came on BFI's website) suggests that Gotham city in 'Dark Knight' should be taken as a city under the reign of terror, thereby representing an American metropolis after 9/11.
A reading of such viewpoints suggests that violence on screen could be a response to the actual violence happening in the real world- be it war, terrorism or organized crime, and kind of depicts the horrors that might be unimaginable to many, but exists in reality.
To add here, most movements in cinema emerged as a response to political and cultural events - noir cinema during WWII, Neo-realism in Europe after the war, Nouvelle Vague in France and New Hollywood in US in the 1960's. This new trend in cinema might as well be the beginning of such a response.
Istanbul, memories and the city— Representations of the Identity crisis within
- Vipin A.K (MA Sociology, II Year)
Istanbul, Memories and the City by Orhan Pamuk is a biography which parallels the story of the city with the story of the author’s life. A lot of Pamuk’s accounts of the city are embedded deep within the author’s own psychologisms, and the reverse is also seen where the psyche of the author itself is embedded deep within the constructions and representations of the city. This interplay of city-author duality plays a central theme within the book till the very end. In fact, at times, the author’s accounts of the city are so intertwined with the author’s life that the two come to be seen as one (or so Pamuk would like us to believe). The memoir looks at the author’s life and the various incidents in his life that come to play themselves out against the backdrop of a drastically changing Istanbul. In fact, a lot of Pamuk’s interface with the city deals with the representations of the city rather than its contemporaneity. The author’s explanations for such an exploration of his identity within the city (and the city’s identity within him) is explained by the identity crisis that both face periodically, and simultaneously the melancholy (which he calls hüzün) which ties the whole social fabric as well as the city together.In retrospect, Istanbul is a mightily interesting read. Through the mixing of the personal with the public he creates a fabric, a story that both entertains, disheartens and questions. His sordid explanations of his parents' fights, his antagonistic yet extremely endearing relationship towards his brother, his confusing relationship with his grandmother and his behavior towards his extended family, teachers and peers offer the readers a delightful trip into an alternate world, yet the delight is short-lived with frequent and jarring encounters with reality. The personal autobiography juxtaposed onto the portrait of the city provides for an interesting yet complex project that looks to expose many deep-seated insecurities and simultaneously showcase many of the beautiful elements of both. It is possibly the first work I have read that has shown me how much of a place, of a city, is internal to a person and to an identity, and how much of a person is internal to the city. It is possibly the most interesting bildunsgroman I may have come across – a coming of age of both the city and of Pamuk.
Environmental Action Group
During the season of elections, amidst all the political rivalry and drama, we complain of the utter futility of the process. After all at the end of the day, none of the groups that will come into power will really address serious problems faced on campus. So we play our little role in the election process, cast our precious vote and step back. That’s where our 'democratic duty' as a student and as part of this institution ends. We go back to our chai and bondas, giving up all responsibility towards the university. and we continue our criticism of those in power. Unfortunately what we do not realize is that we are limiting ourselves and our value as students. By turning the word 'political' into a dirty word we have become powerless. Not to mention the sheer diversity on campus makes it close to impossible to mobilize all students by appealing to a single political stand. But there is one thing that affects us all equally and that is the environment.
It is very difficult to not care about the environment on a campus like ours. Increasing amounts of garbage on campus have become an eyesore for many. Moreover we share this campus with a great diversity of wild life: deers, wild boars, peacocks and buffaloes. The large amounts of plastic thrown around campus may not affect us as much as they may affect these innocent bystanders. Plastic waste is not the only issue. Glass, chemical waste and domestic refuse pollute our campus. To make matters worse, there is no actual waste management system on campus. All this waste is generally dumped around campus, or worse, burned. Since these issues were never taken up by any political party, some of us decided to come together to do something about this. This group later came to be known as the Environmental Action Group. Formed by students from across disciplines, the EAG hopes to get students together for a cleaner campus through cleaning drives, petitions to the administration and awareness programmes. Till date, the EAG has conducted two cleaning drives, on the 30th of July and on the 15th of August. We have also looked into alternative methods of waste management, and petitioned the Vice-Chancellor and the administration, who have promised to take our suggestion into consideration. However, things are not easy. Being an non affiliated group, has its challenges. Neither do we have any political power, nor we get many volunteers because its a non-profit, non-glamorous and a politically independent organization. And then there's the fact that no real change can take place, unless the people change. Then again, its a start.
The Beatles
- Bikramjit Chandra (M.Sc. Physics, II Year), Arpan Ganguly and Ankush Saha (M.A. Economics, II year)
"Living is easy with eyes closed.
Misunderstanding is all you see."
- Strawberry Fields Forever (Magical mystery tour, 1967)
Perhaps the most popular and influential band of all time, The Beatles not only revolutionized the way music was perceived by the studios and the masses but were also among the primary co-creators of the late 60s/early 70s cultural revolution, the aftershocks of which we still feel today.
The Beatles quartet were composed of Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr: commonly referred to then, and now forever, as the "Fab Four". The Liverpool bunch were first signed on by EMI-Parlophone, after being famously rejected by Decca Records with the words, "guitar bands are passé". This "Guitar Band" went on to become one of the heaviest selling artists of all time and helped usher in the great 1970s "Era of the Guitar".
The Vietnam War, which by 1968-69 had affected the lives of perhaps every household in America, had an extremely penetrating impact on the music of the Beatles. Using music as a medium, they expressed their discontent towards the dominant establishment, thereby hinting at the complexities involved in the structure of the utilitarian society. The band contributed in instigating the revolutionary spirit among the masses by actively participating and initiating revolutionary movements, such as "Baggism" started by John Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono. Through this movement, they tried to bring an end to racism, class discrimination and other social evils by covering themselves from head to toe with a brown bag, thereby symbolising the spirit of equality within the masses.
Much of the structure of today's musical promotion and recording is a consequence of the way The Beatles presented their music. Richard Lester, the director of the Beatles movies A Hard Day's Night and Help! was credited by MTV to be the father of the modern music video. They were among the first bands to popularise self-composition and to introduce the structure of the modern rock album. The Beatles, apart from being the pioneers in making artistic album covers, also created and popularised many studio effects like flanging, multi-tracking etc. Their use of string accompaniments ("Eleanor Rigby"), Indian instruments ("Norwegian Wood", "Within You, Without You") and unfamiliar instruments and non-musical sounds ("Yellow Submarine") in their songs were copied and developed more extensively by later artists. In fact the complexity of their music and their fabulous record sales instigated recording companies to restructure and develop music recording and production.
The Beatles influenced fashion throughout their heyday and also after. Their initial "moptop" haircuts and collarless Edwardian suits were the rage among the youth. Later on they popularised collarless shirts, floral prints and sandals during the psychedelic era shifting on to t-shirts and denims. John Lennon's signature wire-rimmed shaded glasses were so popular that the style is now generally named after him. They also became the biggest cultural icons during their time inspiring millions of people across the globe. The band eventually broke up in 1970 after 10 years of an illustrious career.
The unprecedented revolutionary success sparked off by The Beatles received a sharp blow with the assassination of John Lennon by Mark Chapman in 1980. However, this did not put an end to the fire enkindled among the youth by the Beatles.
For more information, visit the official site. (Editors)
For more information, visit the official site. (Editors)
Celebrating serious fun!
- Bikramjit Chandra (M.Sc. Physics, II Year)
Since 1991, the Ig Nobel Awards, organised by the Annals Of Improbable Research, has celebrated serious scholastic achievements on humourous subjects and discoveries “that cannot, or should not, be reproduced”. Held annually by Harvard University, the awards are given for ten different fields presented by a group of genuine Nobel Laureates to their highly bemused winners. The winning discoveries and achievements vary widely from investigations into the validity of the five-second rule (Public Health 2004) to sworn attestations of the non-addictive nature of tobacco (Medicine 1997) to the adoption of the legal principle that plants have dignity (Peace 2008). Though most of the awards are for humourous or astonishing articles and works, they are also a form of subtle criticism as seen from the awards in Science Education given to the Kansas and the Colorado state boards of education for removing Darwin's theory of evolution from the curriculum.
Some of the most interesting Ig Nobel Awards were awarded to:
Chemistry 2007: Mayu Yamamoto for developing a way to extract vanilla fragrance and flavoring from cow dung.
Physics 2005: John Mainstone and the late Thomas Parnell for patiently conducting an experiment that began in the year 1927 to prove that black tar was a liquid by observing that it had been dripping through a funnel.....at a rate of approximately one drop every nine years.
Economics 2004: The Vatican, for outsourcing prayers to India.
Engineering 2003: The late John Paul Stapp, the late Edward A. Murphy, Jr., and George Nichols, for jointly giving birth in 1949 to Murphy's Law: "If anything can go wrong, it will".
Peace 2003: Lal Bihari for a triple accomplishment: First, for being alive even though he was been declared legally dead; Second, for waging a lively campaign against the bureaucracy and greedy relatives to be declared alive; and Third, for creating the Association of Dead People.
Astrophysics 2001: Dr. Jack and Rexella Van Impe of Jack Van Impe Ministries for their discovery that black holes fulfill all the technical requirements to be the location of Hell.
Technology 2001: Awarded jointly to John Keogh for patenting the wheel in the year 2001, and to the Australian Patent Office for granting him Innovation Patent #2001100012.
Literature 1999: The British Standards Institution for its six-page specification of the proper way to make a cup of tea.
Peace 1998: Prime Minister Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee of India and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan, for their peaceful atomic bomb tests.
Peace 1997: Harold Hillman for his illuminating and highly useful report: "The Possible Pain Experienced During Execution by Different Methods."
Mathematics 1994: The Southern Baptist Church of Alabama, for their county-by-county estimate of how many Alabama citizens will go to Hell if they don't repent.
To know more about the Ig Nobel Awards, click here. (Editors)
To know more about the Ig Nobel Awards, click here. (Editors)
India’s non-compliance to decent work norms
- Deepali Advani (M.A. Economics, I Year)
A concept introduced by the ILO, ‘Decent Work’ is seen as an important strategy to fight poverty and is a means for achieving equitable, inclusive and sustainable development. Decent work stands for a state-created safety net for the sick, elderly and expecting women, for the trade union representation, for proper and safe work circumstances, for a non-discriminatory work environment and for an income that allows the working individual to lead a good life.
Aside from non-ratification of four of the eight core ILO conventions, India has also not ratified certain Decent Work conventions on minimum and regular payment of wages, overtime compensation, paid leave, maternity protection, occupational health and safety, social security, minimum age, trade union activity and collective bargaining.
Despite non-ratification, legislations have been introduced such as - Payment of Wages Act (1936), Employees' State Insurance Act (1948), Maternity Benefit Act (1961), Payment of Gratuity Act (1972) and various schemes such as The Employees’ Pension Scheme. However sufficient this may seem, the legislation does not apply to the unorganised sector which amounts to 92% of the Indian labour force. This results in large-scale decent work deficits.
In the present scenario, the government is dithering on several legislations that could further the cause of Decent Work. Some of these are comprehensive amendments to the Factories Act (1948), the Factories Amendment Bill, Industrial Disputes Amendment Bill, Participation of Workers in Management Bill, and an amendment to the Minimum Wages Act. The legislation would introduce flexibility in working hours, permit women to work in night shifts with safeguards in place, include workers on boards of management of companies, and set a uniform minimum wage. A very important bill is the Unorganised Sector Worker’s Bill, which would provide health insurance, life and accident insurance, maternity benefits and an old age pension to workers.
There is also a call for relaxation of labour laws by producers who claim that it results in an increase in the cost of a labour unit. Even in SEZs, there was a call for relaxation of labour norms for hiring and firing and employment of women and restricting union activity, as a means to attract investors.
An Assocham study showed that between 1998 and 2003, when the economy grew at 5.3% on an average, organised sector employment declined by 4.14%. The OECD survey found that between 1997 and 2004, organised sector jobs shrank by 1%, while unorganised, low quality jobs grew up 8%.
There is an urgent need to balance the worker’s demands for a secure labour environment and the producer’s demand to be economically efficient, while simultaneously building up a base for decent jobs in India.
Econophysics
- Siddhartha Ghose (IMA Economics, IV Year)
Started by physicists working in the field of statistical mechanics in the mid 1990s, econophysics is an interdisciplinary field applying theories and methods developed by physicists in solving stochastic problems in economics. The euphemism here is to ascertain asset price fluctuations and the neoclassical idea of economic general equilibrium.
Though econophysics might sound new to many, its origin paints a picture of an age old intercourse between the two disciplines that it takes under its wing. At a cursory glance, any plot of commodity prices belies the idea of market equilibrium – the value wildly fluctuates. Neoclassical theory however regards these fluctuations as background ‘noise’ caused by unpredictable shocks which are external to the economic system. Such fluctuations were explained borrowing the concept of random walks from statistical physics as early as 1900. This in fact was pursued further by Einstein to explain Brownian motion. The final seal on this is the work of Adam Smith which often compared the circulation of commodities with the circulation of the planets and that of Francis Edgeworth and Alfred Marshall that drew upon the idea that the economy achieves an equilibrium state, like that described for gases by Maxwell and Boltzman.
The restrictive ideas of economic general equilibrium and rational-utility-maximizing individuals accounts for the virtue of econophysics. Contrary to mainstream economics which assumes market ‘noise’ to be a Gaussian process and exogenous, most econophysics models are non-equilibrium ones where attempts are made to endogenize such fluctuations which are regarded as being larger than that predicted by a Gaussian distribution.
While most economists and physicists are oblivious to the existence of econophysics, an analogy may well be drawn between statistical physics which describes the behavior of bulk matter based on the play of forces between atoms and molecules, and economics which harps upon the interactions between economic agents. Thus there are similar problems between drawing thermodynamic laws from inter-atomic forces and deriving microeconomic principles from the behavior of individual agents. Admittedly, the latter is more complex, but this has been connivingly bypassed by incorporating grossly simplistic mainstream assumptions.
In spite of being such a promising tool to iron out many of the anomalies of mainstream economics, econophysics is pursued by only a handful of people all over the world. This primarily stems from the fact that while economics tolerates unorthodoxy, it also isolates it from the core theory taught and practiced by academics. Most mainstream journals are closed to the topic and physicists’ contribution to financial and industrial economics is seen as passé.
Slow progress and lack of sustained success in this field has left many physics-friendly heterodox economists disillusioned. But given the fact that an increasing number of Wall Street speculators are doctorates in physics, it would be anything but surprising to see this field get more and more attention from all sections of the academic and industrial community.
Can the private sector reduce poverty?
- Ujjwal Gaur (M.A. Economics, I Year)
The incidence of poverty in India is no hidden fact, and the huge amount of inequality does concern all of us. Philanthropy, charity and government doles are not a long term sustainable solution to this problem. Below Poverty Line (BPL) people have long been viewed by the policy makers as a burden on the state, and hence are always considered as a liability. One possible approach to reduce this problem is to treat the BPL people as assets. This can be done if the market views this huge population of 456 million (World Bank Report, 2005) as a potential consumer base.
C.K. Prahalad identifies this consumer base in his book ‘Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid’ and uses the term ‘Bottom of the Pyramid’ to refer to this consumer base. This portion in the pyramid has the largest population base with the lowest purchasing power in the economy. When market recognizes the vast potential that lies in Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP) consumers, it would extend its services to them, which would make both consumers as well as the firms better off. But in order to have faith in this approach, we must not consider the market as an essentially exploitative institution. The whole point of this approach is to make the BOP market an integral part of the private sector, and not an extension of the existing Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).
If we think of poverty as defined by Amartya Sen in his ‘capabilities’ approach, then we can acknowledge that being income poor is not the sole problem in being poor. One’s social status and self-esteem are also important capabilities. Poverty-
alleviation through market provides the poor consumers recognition, respect, fair treatment and the freedom of choice. This enhancement of their capabilities does help in reducing poverty to some extent, if we believe in the above definition of poverty.
Though the purchasing power of the BOP consumers is very less, but the size of this market should be alluring for the market to seek opportunities. In the past, market innovations in this regard have worked quite well. The best example could be the ‘shampoo sachets’ which were launched keeping in view the limited purchasing power of BOP consumers. As a result, now the penetration of ‘shampoo’ across India is 90%. So, it is evident that the firms are willing to innovate various products for the BOP consumers if they find adequate incentives.
BOP consumers would also have adequate incentive to participate in the market as consumers because they generally have to pay 5 to 25 times more than ‘mainstream’ consumers for the same services. Also, BOP consumers benefit the most if some new products are launched in the market which suits their needs.
Though this theory is based entirely on the empirical work of C.K. Prahalad, we must note that by this approach, only one aspect of poverty is being taken care of. Apart from the non-holistic nature of this approach, there is not much that policy makers can do to ensure participation by the firms and BOP consumers. Also, we must not forget that there might be some sectors where the private sector would not like to enter at all.
The Crisis—I
- Sumedha Bajar (M.A. Economics, II Year)
The recession that started in United States of America in December 2007 has been dubbed as the worst slump in seven decades. What began as a financial crisis entered the real economy via the real estate sector and is making its presence felt in almost all the sectors of economy. The number of unemployed in the US has risen by 7.4 million and the unemployment rate itself has grown by 4.8 percentage points since the advent of the recession . Employment in the construction industry has contracted by 1.4 million, but starting early 2009, a larger share of monthly job losses shifted from residential to non-residential and heavy construction components.
US unemployment rate in August 2009 is now the highest since June 1983. The rate of unemployment after dipping to 9.4% in July rose again by 0.3 percentage points to 9.7% in August. Out of the 216,000 job cuts in August, 63,000 were in the manufacturing sector which brought the total factory jobs lost, after the recession began, to 2 million. Barring a few sectors like education and health services that continued to add jobs, the situation remains grim for the rest of the economy. Even government employment has been continuously declining over this period, bringing the total jobs shed in the economy after the slowdown started to 6.9 million.
The rise in unemployment rate in August has been partially accounted for by the return of around 73,000 jobless workers who had given up looking for jobs. And it is worth noting that the number of such discouraged workers in August, 2009 was 758,000 which is double the amount it was in August, 2008, hence, the actual number of unemployed is higher than the officially unemployed figures.
The $787 billion stimulus package that was rolled out by the US government to rescue the economy has been able to create and sustain 150,000 jobs in its first 100 days. But the persistently high unemployment rates since the start of the recession is wearing down the consumer confidence which is further causing a decline in the domestic demand. Basic macroeconomic theory states that weak consumer spending impedes recovery. Further, the growing joblessness situation in US and other advanced nations is already leading towards ‘creeping protectionism’ and this is only going to hamper the efforts to further the Doha Development Round.
The crisis that isn’t
- Archana Kulkarni (M.A. Economics,I Year)
The parched earth and cloudless skies reveal the all too familiar story of agriculture in India – that of gross neglect by the powers that be, whether of government or of nature. Despite achieving self-sufficiency in food grain production and famines becoming a distant memory, droughts continue to evoke fears of food scarcity and starvation. With the monsoon proving deficient yet again, speculation is rife regarding the adequacy of food grain stocks in the country. 246 districts from several of the less developed states in the country have been declared drought-affected. The government has made efforts to keep the rumormongers at bay financially, materially and through repeated assurances that the reserves of food grains will see the nation safely through a difficult period. However, the words ‘food crises’ continue to strike fear deep in the hearts of those who live a hand- to-mouth existence.
Is the fear of an impending food crisis justified? The answer to the question is quite simply ‘no’. The government has adequate reserves, amounting to a quarter of the total quantity of cereals produced in the country, riding on bumper production of rice and wheat in the preceding two years. The Public Distribution System will ensure that the poor are not hard hit by deficient food production. The ‘food crisis’ as it were is non-existent; but the truth cannot quite be captured in the simple ‘no’ stated above.
Food scarcity is an unlikely prospect at best. The drought has raised concern largely because it coincides with the beginning of a slow recovery from the global economic crisis and food prices have been rising for some time now. Although inflation has declined to reasonable levels, the prices of essential food items like pulses, vegetables and sugar continue to remain high. The latter could be attributed to the heavy weightage of food items in the inflation indices but this is little consolation for the common man. The drought and poor kharif crop mean that farmers’ incomes will take a severe beating and this may lead to farmer distress, spiraling into indebtedness. Agricultural labourers will bear the brunt of the deficient monsoon, deprived of employment and income. These labourers could take recourse to employment in the unorganized sector; however, the consideration of this alternative would indicate their desperation and the exhaustion of all other survival strategies.
Consumers comprise the third party affected by the drought, mainly on account of rising prices. This impacts low income groups who spend a majority of their earnings on food. The PDS, it is important to note, is not a universal system but a targeted one. Families with threshold income levels are not covered under the PDS despite the fact that high food prices could push such families beyond the threshold into poverty. The answer to the question - ‘Is the fear that of an impending food crisis justified?’ would then be contingent upon one’s position in the economy and the resources one commands.
The main crisis at present is not so much one of food but of agriculture. The deficiency of the monsoon has been larger than previously and being the second drought in less than a decade makes it a grave portent. The effects of climate change are palpable. The unreliable monsoons, alarming declines in groundwater levels and levels in sub-surface aquifers, and glacial meltdown have doomsayers predicting water shortages by 2050. Unsustainable patterns of water usage in the country are compounded by the subsidized provision of water and electricity, which only contribute to such usage. The fast disappearing forest cover can only accentuate our growing predicament. Agriculture, subject to the vagaries of the monsoon, must become the symbol of the process of climate change.
Besides climate change, several fact-ors may cause a food crisis in the long run. These include growing demand for food from growing and more prosperous populations, lifestyle-induced dietary changes towards greater consumption of meat (translating into food grains being used for rearing animals). In the recent past the diversion of corn and land for the production of bio-fuels such as ethanol, leading to rising food prices and shortage of food, became a matter of heated debate. In the competition between energy and food prices picking a winner is no rocket science. Given these factors, the food crisis seems inevitable unless measures are taken to stem the tide of forces antagonistic to food production. India must look to invest in agriculture, encourage alternative cropping patterns, crop diversification, sustainable water utilization and management and improve weather monitoring systems. These measures could go a long way in ensuring food security and eliminating the specter of drought or famine. Food security must be viewed from the perspective of ensuring adequate levels of nourishment given India’s abysmal record in this sphere, rivaling that of sub-Saharan Africa. The food crisis must be taken as a challenge to direct our energies towards the transformation of agriculture, not in the interest of electoral results, or even food security, but in the interest of agriculture itself.
The parched earth and cloudless skies reveal the all too familiar story of agriculture in India – that of gross neglect by the powers that be, whether of government or of nature. Despite achieving self-sufficiency in food grain production and famines becoming a distant memory, droughts continue to evoke fears of food scarcity and starvation. With the monsoon proving deficient yet again, speculation is rife regarding the adequacy of food grain stocks in the country. 246 districts from several of the less developed states in the country have been declared drought-affected. The government has made efforts to keep the rumormongers at bay financially, materially and through repeated assurances that the reserves of food grains will see the nation safely through a difficult period. However, the words ‘food crises’ continue to strike fear deep in the hearts of those who live a hand- to-mouth existence.
Is the fear of an impending food crisis justified? The answer to the question is quite simply ‘no’. The government has adequate reserves, amounting to a quarter of the total quantity of cereals produced in the country, riding on bumper production of rice and wheat in the preceding two years. The Public Distribution System will ensure that the poor are not hard hit by deficient food production. The ‘food crisis’ as it were is non-existent; but the truth cannot quite be captured in the simple ‘no’ stated above.
Food scarcity is an unlikely prospect at best. The drought has raised concern largely because it coincides with the beginning of a slow recovery from the global economic crisis and food prices have been rising for some time now. Although inflation has declined to reasonable levels, the prices of essential food items like pulses, vegetables and sugar continue to remain high. The latter could be attributed to the heavy weightage of food items in the inflation indices but this is little consolation for the common man. The drought and poor kharif crop mean that farmers’ incomes will take a severe beating and this may lead to farmer distress, spiraling into indebtedness. Agricultural labourers will bear the brunt of the deficient monsoon, deprived of employment and income. These labourers could take recourse to employment in the unorganized sector; however, the consideration of this alternative would indicate their desperation and the exhaustion of all other survival strategies.
Consumers comprise the third party affected by the drought, mainly on account of rising prices. This impacts low income groups who spend a majority of their earnings on food. The PDS, it is important to note, is not a universal system but a targeted one. Families with threshold income levels are not covered under the PDS despite the fact that high food prices could push such families beyond the threshold into poverty. The answer to the question - ‘Is the fear that of an impending food crisis justified?’ would then be contingent upon one’s position in the economy and the resources one commands.
The main crisis at present is not so much one of food but of agriculture. The deficiency of the monsoon has been larger than previously and being the second drought in less than a decade makes it a grave portent. The effects of climate change are palpable. The unreliable monsoons, alarming declines in groundwater levels and levels in sub-surface aquifers, and glacial meltdown have doomsayers predicting water shortages by 2050. Unsustainable patterns of water usage in the country are compounded by the subsidized provision of water and electricity, which only contribute to such usage. The fast disappearing forest cover can only accentuate our growing predicament. Agriculture, subject to the vagaries of the monsoon, must become the symbol of the process of climate change.
Besides climate change, several fact-ors may cause a food crisis in the long run. These include growing demand for food from growing and more prosperous populations, lifestyle-induced dietary changes towards greater consumption of meat (translating into food grains being used for rearing animals). In the recent past the diversion of corn and land for the production of bio-fuels such as ethanol, leading to rising food prices and shortage of food, became a matter of heated debate. In the competition between energy and food prices picking a winner is no rocket science. Given these factors, the food crisis seems inevitable unless measures are taken to stem the tide of forces antagonistic to food production. India must look to invest in agriculture, encourage alternative cropping patterns, crop diversification, sustainable water utilization and management and improve weather monitoring systems. These measures could go a long way in ensuring food security and eliminating the specter of drought or famine. Food security must be viewed from the perspective of ensuring adequate levels of nourishment given India’s abysmal record in this sphere, rivaling that of sub-Saharan Africa. The food crisis must be taken as a challenge to direct our energies towards the transformation of agriculture, not in the interest of electoral results, or even food security, but in the interest of agriculture itself.
Agent/Agency in Social Sciences
- Rakesh Sengupta (Phd Cognitive Science )
The term agency presupposes multiple agents and a social action in the present context of a sociocultural process. Max Weber[1] defines the social action of an agent to be meaningfully oriented towards the others. This process of orientation is simultaneous and complex and governed by social and cultural structures and the structures themselves are influenced by actions of individual agents. Existing social structures are reinforced and supported through more complex institutions like kinship institutions, economic institution, political institution, etc. All these processes involve certain individual patterns of symbols and conventions to be available and transmissible in a matrix of shared values, beliefs, rituals, myths, and so on, i.e, culture. This notion of culture as collective entity can be thought in terms of Kuhn's notion of scientific paradigm[2] - it is shared by majority of agents who participate in it, it is generally observed but not followed all the time, the form is stable but may be subject to radical revisions, the articulation of it might not always be explicit. This brings us to the three methodologies trying to answer the question about the the possibility of reduction of the collective process in terms of the individual agent's consciousness and actions. Durkheim's methodological holism claims absence of causal connection collective culture to individual's states of consciousness (but the emphasis is on the conditions that the group as a whole is placed in)[3]. Methodological individualism claims otherwise. Methodological “situationalism” on the other hand begins from the situational social interactions[4]. In the spirit of social determinism Bordieu talks about an individual agent's place in the “field” with a stable structure and thus different agents have different positions according to the field. Phenomenological sociologists like Shutz on the other hand tried to give an account of social reality from the point of view of individual agents[5]. This position sometimes leads to extreme subjectivism by claiming the culture to be solely in an agent's head. The inter-agent processes have received a very illuminating account from Vygotsky who proposed interwoven biological and sociocultural processes manifested in speech and in internalization, to be responsible for development of thinking and behavior. Although the relationship between the individual and the society is complex, mostly the society shapes the individual (see the above-mentioned “field”), and forms the objective reality of the agent. For individual cognition the meta-structure of the “field” is sociocultural system of signs/symbols which acts both as an instrument of knowledge as well as of domination (to maintain the particular field)[6].
An epilogue: Due to constraint of scope and size, mention of different facets of phenomenological account of the agent, or game-theoretic notions of multi-agent systems could not be discussed. I apologize for a rather diluted account of some really complex notions and ask for reader's understanding in the present context.
References:
[1] WEBER , M. (1957),The theory of social and economic organization, Glencoe, IL: The Free Press.
[2] KUHN , T. (1962). The structure of scientic revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
[3] DURKHEIM , W. (1962 [1895]). The rules of the sociological method. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.
[4] BOURDIEU , P. & WACQUANT, L. (1992). An invitation to reflexive sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
[5] SCHUTZ, A. (1967). The phenomenology of the social world. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
[6] FETZER , J. (1985). Sociobiology and epistemology. Dordrecht, Nethelands: Reidel Publishing.
Structure of Growth: A short note
- Alex M Thomas (M Phil Economics)
Today, economists seem to be more concerned about the rates of growth rather than the structure of growth itself, which is a cause for concern. This note expresses this concern in brief.
Achieving rates of growth of 6% or 9% can take place through multiple routes. The GDP growth rate is a summation of the sectoral growth rates of agriculture, industry and services. Consequently, a high GDP growth rate could be the result of high growth in services coupled with very low growth in agriculture. Should this kind of growth be encouraged? After all, around 60% of Indians are employed in agriculture!
Growth in GDP can take place because of increased profits (owing to increased sales) in the luxury goods sector. In capitalist as well as in mixed economies, there is an immanent tendency towards investment in sectors producing luxury items. Moreover, in India, owing to the huge population, luxury products will continue to have a large market in absolute terms. In contrast, the livelihood of majority of the people in this country is dependent on wage goods (in other words, necessaries). And it is food, the output of the agricultural sector that forms the most important constituent of wage goods.
GDP growth can also take place owing to an increase in profits or wages or both. Sustainable growth takes place only when both profits and wages are rising. However, as it is well established in the literature, there is a conflict between the social classes to whom these earning accrue – the capitalists and the labourers. Hence, arises the need for intervention in the institutions/mechanisms that facilitate these earnings- property rights, labour laws, inflation indexed wages, productivity earnings, infrastructural facilities, credit facilities, etc.
Lastly, the employment in India can be broadly divided into organised and unorganised employment. According to the NSS survey 1999-2000, around 92% of the Indian workforce (around 370 million workers) is employed in the unorganised sector. Therefore, any macroeconomic model/analysis of India which does not take into consideration the informal sector explicitly is highly incomplete (or even erroneous).
To conclude, GDP growth can show hi-gh rates due to a variety of reasons. It is pertinent that economists analyse the structure of growth alongside the high rates, in order to channelise this growth in accordance with the social commitments like reduction of poverty, providing a better standard of living, etc.
Teaching and ideology of Economics
- Prof G. Omkarnath (Associate Professor, Dept of Economics)
For a subject that is sometimes called the 'Queen of Social Sciences' and one that can boast of a Nobel Memorial Prize (since 1968), economics is surprisingly young. It is three and a half centuries old. Separate university faculties in the subject are even younger; until barely a century ago political economy was typically a part of law and philosophy faculties. In trying to trace the broad trends in the teaching of economics two features of the subject need to be noted. First, economic issues have a direct bearing on our daily material life and therefore dominate our immediate consciousness. Food prices and job losses, unlike the Ram Setu issue or the Tibet question, cannot wait another day. They are instantly part of the public discourse and call forth more or less urgent public action. Over a wide range of economic issues economic policy must in some way respond and quickly. Second, as a study of wealth economics offers a fertile ground for rival ideologies: which social class contributes more to the flow of wealth and therefore has greater claim on it? In a world divided between rich and poor nations, whose interests should dominate commercial policies?
In the pre-war decades the academic spotlight was undoubtedly on Cambridge, England. Alfred Marshall, founder of the Cambridge School, held total sway over the teaching of economics (his term) in the Anglo-Saxon world. His Principles of Economics effectively recreated the demand-supply approach to economic theory, inaugurated by Walras, Jevons and Menger, in the class room. His devices of ‘partial equilibrium’ and ‘period analysis’ held out the promise of economics being an applied science. Marshall’s project however went beyond this. He sought to establish the continuity of demand-supply economics with the classical political economy of Adam Smith and Ricardo. Through analogy, rhetoric and generous use of qualificatory footnotes he presented the new approach as a progressive refinement of old theories. This rendered the new approach ‘neoclassical.‘
It is well-established that neoclassical theory is essentially a reaction to Classical and Marxian theories of profits rooted in the labour theory of value. Neoclassical theory had to posit a symmetric theory of distribution based on convex technology and relative scarcity of ‘factors’. Even so, neoclassical theory had to reckon with the special problems related to conceptualization of capital. That this posed insuperable problems for ensuring a stable demand function for ‘capital’ was the upshot of the debates in capital theory of the 1960’s led by Piero Sraffa and Joan Robinson. In the meantime Marshall’s theory ran into trouble twice over. In the late 1920’s Sraffa exposed Marshall’s inconsistency in trying to integrate increasing returns and competition within a partial equilibrium framework, in particular his idea of the ‘representative firm’. Then in the 1930’s Keynes’ General Theory destroyed the conclusion of full employment based on the supposed effective operation of what Marshall called the ‘Principle of Substitution.’ Nothing but ideology can explain the fact that neoclassical orthodoxy emerged unscathed from these attacks.
In the post-war period the spotlight on economics shifted from England to the United States. Paul Samuelson’s enormously influential textbook, Economics, allowed respectable space for Keynes. Neoclassical theory now assumed the avatar of ‘microeconomics’ and started having an uneasy coexistence with Keynes’ ‘macroeconomics.’ They make strange bedfellows, especially in the same textbook, because the former has full employment as its conclusion, whereas the latter begins with the enquiry about what determines the level of employment. American economists set out to mathematically deepen the Walrasian variant of neoclassical economics known as General Equilibrium theory. However, mathematical rigour did not stand up to economic logic. The project was hamstrung because general proofs of stability of equilibrium could not be established for the economy with production. A compromise had to be made on the concept of equilibrium itself. Adoption of concepts of ‘temporary equilibrium’ and ‘inter-temporal equilibrium’ threw away the long-established method of the long run positions. The theory was rendered completely and hopelessly static. After the 1970’s General Equilibrium theory has been quietly removed from the core curriculum of graduate economics, and microeconomics in its avatar of ‘mainstream’ economics received the pride of the place.
As the US and other major economies used the Keynesian demand management to usher in the Golden Age of capitalism in the 60’s and the 70’s, time was opportune to absorb Keynes back into orthodoxy. New variants of macroeconomics – monetarism, rational expectations, microfoundations, supply-side economics and so on – mushroomed in the US universities. As European universities found their best students and faculty migrating to the US, they came under pressure to ‘internationalise’ their curricula. American textbooks began to rule the roost everywhere. The post-war development economics which had significant influence on the programme of industrialization in India and elsewhere now stood discredited. It was to be replaced by a new microeconomics armed with game theory. The rise to prominence of the Pacific Rim countries, Reagonomics and Thatherism gave rise to a new credo of neoliberalism in economic policy as well as in development thinking, apart from teaching of economics. Sraffa’s revival of classical economics on a consistent foundation has meanwhile produced a million critical and constructive papers. This, together with the currently unfolding global economic crisis will hopefully lead to a rethink in economics education everywhere.
Towards a free classroom
- Javed Imthiaz (M.A. Sociology, II Year)
“This is not allowed in my class! Sit straight!” bursts the lecturer, loudly, abruptly to a student seen writing on her arms, during a lecture in a postgraduate classroom in the university.
We have heard this before. Lecturers' resentment at students doing anything that deviates from school-instilled norms of sitting 'properly' in the classroom. But this is often true of cases even where the deviant action does not disrupt the classroom process in any way, and may in fact have aided better concentration, better daydreaming or better sleep. One does wonder why all this fuss about a harmless act of writing on one's own arms.
A root of the problem may be traced through the possessive “my class” in the lecturer's statement. It is indicative of the way authority has operated ironically, autocratically in the classrooms of what is professed, in those very classrooms, as a free and democratic India. Lecturers in colleges, and much more so, teachers in schools cultivate and are cultivated by a sense of ownership of the classroom. (It is what inspires the 'Attendance-Raj'). And therein lies a secret of what seems to me a failure of actual democratic practice in society.
As Margaret Power notes in her article 'Is Democracy in the Clas-sroom Possible?'*, students have very little actual experience of democracy and this undermines their ability to examine critically the material a lecturer presents on the subject. Her attempts to infuse democracy in classroom practice, is often met with the dilemma of being undemocratic in merely, righteously preaching democracy. This she tries to counter by including student-participation in setting syllabi and consciously undermining her own position of power. In contrast to her initial insecurity and belief that,as lecturer, she had to be right all the time, she has moved to a more liberated state of being able to say, “I am/was wrong, you (the student) are right.”
The insecure need to be right everytime, having to pronounce the 'truth' of every matter puts much pressure on the lecturer-role, that morphs into an authoritarian space of ownership and control. This not only prevents free and open discussions, but also creates interesting cultures of resistance such as the “backbencher” phenomenon. It would be liberating and, I guess, more productive, if lecturers realised that students make the class as much as the lecturer does, and that decision making is to be done democratically. A miscreant can be voted out of class by a majority, not by the teacher's whim. And the girl writing on her arm can pursue her body-art in peace, for she disturbs nobody.
[ * 'Revolutionary/ Critical Pedagogy and Me: Is Democracy in the Classroom Possible?', Radical History Review, Issue 102 (Fall 2008) ]
Swine Flu—the panicdemic
- Meghna Dasgupta (M.A. Economics, I Year)
It was on an aeroplane,when the person sitting two rows back cleared his throat making me strain my neck and look nervously at him, that it struck me. WHO's declaration that we were on the verge of a pandemic had made us completely paranoid.Ever since, we rush to the nearest hospital if we wake up with a slightly scratchy throat.We look warily at our relatives who have just flown in from the U.S and other major swine flu affected areas.We have started shunning shopping malls,wearing surgical masks on the streets and forbidden our children from going to school.But why is everyone panicking so much? Why is the media giving it so much attention?
Closely examining the two questions one can see that the argument is circular. It is because all the news channels,desperate for a story amid the August doldrums, latched on to it and played the gory details of the story over and over again that there was widespread panic.And it was because there was widespread panic that the media got an incentive to continue playing the swine flu story over and over again.The hype fed on the fear and the fear fed on the hype, keeping the cycle running.
But the swine flu panic is not just a media generated syndrome.Science with its apparent competence tends to lull us into false sense of security, making us stupidly but understandably believe that we are in complete control of our surroundings.So it is not suprising that unexpected events completely derail us;as it happened in the case of the swine flu.No one saw it coming.So when it did strike there was complete chaos.Once it started,the epidemic spread with a universality and an unpredictability that had us holding our breaths to see who its next victim would be.As death tolls creeped higher and higher the fear completely debilitated us,stopping us from finding out what the disease was really about.We reacted irrationally to every piece of information that filtered in ,not checking to see once if it was accurate or not.If it was circulated that the swine flu happened from eating pork,we stopped eating pork.If it was heard that surgical masks kept the disease at bay,we bought them by the dozen little knowing that they would only serve to keep us safe from those who were infected and not from the infection itself. We became blind to the fact that in India more people die from diarrhoea and Tuberculosis every single day than the total number who have died due to the disease all over the world. We thronged the hospitals not realising that even if we had a case of common cold we could contract the 'real' disease being in a roomful of sick people.
All this is not to trivialise the disease and admittedly at some levels the fear is justified. Till date there is no full vaccine in place for combating the disease. Moreover the virus causing swine flu is known to mutate to become more virulent and probably less susceptible to anti flu vaccines. However it is imperative that we realise that no constructive solution could possibly come out of running about the streets screaming about swine flu especially in a developing country like India where the health sector is already under strain. Awareness, little precautions (like washing your hands before eating, eating a proper diet etc) and an ounce of calm can go a long way in combating against a disease that as accepted by the health minister, Ghulam Azad too is "here to stay".
Sexual liberty and the Indian Constitution
- Anu Salelkar (M.A. Sociology, II year)
Considered by many to be an archaic law based on religious and conservative notions of sexuality and gender, the July 2009 Judgment of the Delhi High Court declaring the criminalization of consensual homosexual relations between adults under Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code to be violative of the rights guaranteed under the Constitution of India was welcomed by the tears, sweat and joy of those who’ve spent years fighting against it. The law as it stands in the IPC is placed under the Chapter dealing with “offences affecting the human body.”
"377. Unnatural Offence- whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal, shall be punished with imprisonment for life, or with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years, and shall also be liable to fine".
The Public Interest Litigation challenging the validity of this Section was filed by the Naz Foundation, an NGO dedicated to HIV/AIDS outreach, in 2001. This petition slowly gathered support from the National AIDS Control Organization (NACO) and ‘Voices Against 377’ which is a coalition of twelve women’s rights, child rights, human rights and LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered) groups in 2006. The basis of the Petition was that Section 377 infringed upon the Fundamental Rights guaranteed under Articles 14, 15, 19 and 21 of the Constitution of India. Further, a survey of Prosecutions under Section 377 have shown it to primarily be employed in cases of child sexual abuse and hence it was prayed that the scope of the law should be restricted to apply only to non-consensual penile-non vaginal sex and also penile-non vaginal sex with minors. The law as it is portrays discrimination of the state towards non-heterosexual persons and other gender and sexual minorities. The Section serves as a ‘weapon of abuse’ especially as used by the police and creates negative stereotypes and beliefs about sexual minorities. In addition to this, the Section also cripples HIV/AIDS prevention efforts by criminalizing the high risk groups in society, as individuals are reluctant to reveal same sex behavior for fear of the law.
The judgment of Naz Foundation vs. Union of India and Others (2009) appeals to the notions of dignity, privacy and equality. The extensive scope given to Article 21 of the Constitution of India through various Judgments of the Supreme Court ensures that every citizen is given the right to life and protection of their dignity, autonomy and privacy, which would include private, consensual sexual relations. In addition to that, the judgment develops a concept of privacy not limited to the home. The concept of privacy “deals with persons not places” as the sexual orientation of a person is a part of their identity, and they cannot leave their identity at home. According to the judgment, the root of dignity is the autonomy of private will, and a person’s freedom of choice and of action. Article 14 of the Constitution of India guarantees the right to equality to all its citizens. Hence a person or a section of people cannot be discriminated against due to their sexual orientation.
In addition to this, Article 15 of the Constitution forbids discrimination on the basis of certain characteristics, which includes sex. The Court took an interesting view by holding that sex cannot be restricted to its biological definition but includes sexual orientation as well. Also, Section 377 can be seen as infringing upon Articles 19(1) (a), (b), (c) and (d) by curtailing an individual’s ability to make a personal statement, right to freedom of movement and freedom of association. In conclusion the Judgment speaks of a society that can display inclusiveness and understanding.
Although this Judgment is highly progressive, and is definitely a step towards a more accepting legal system, it must be remembered that its precedent value is limited to the jurisdiction of the Delhi High Court, and that in other States this Judgment would only have persuasive value. In theory, even a Supreme Court Judgment in consonance with the Judgment of the Naz Foundation has a possibility of being overruled in the future by a Bench of higher strength (with a higher number of judges). To avoid any future conflict, the need now is for an amendment in the Indian Penal Code decriminalizing consensual same - sex relations, as well as a review of the definition of other sexual offences, including rape. A similar suggestion was given in the 172nd report of the Law Commission of India. And since the Constitution would be completing 60 years next year, it’s high time that archaic laws and colonial relics should be left behind.
To view the complete judgement, click here. (Editors)
To view the complete judgement, click here. (Editors)
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