The government and big capitalists are complicit in the state of the Indian economy, where masses of people have been pushed into an acute livelihood crisis.
Recently, Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman asked Indian capitalists: “...since 2019, I have been hearing that industry doesn’t find [conditions] conducive, so I brought the corporation tax rate down… I would want to know from the Indian industry why they are hesitant [to invest]… I want to hear from India Inc., what’s stopping you when countries and industries abroad think this is the place to be now?”
When I heard Sitharaman’s question, I was reminded of the infamous Say’s law. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Say’s law was the hegemonic economic philosophy. French economist Jean-Baptiste Say (1767-1832) …
R. Ramakumar is an economist and a professor at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences.
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