There's been a flicker of coverage on the Myanmar military junta's crackdown on the demonstrators. It's been mostly the shaking of heads and making clicking noises at the situation.
Why should Indians care?
By far the biggest culprit in this (apart from the junta of course) is China. Followed by India. Both China and India have invested heavily in keeping the junta armed and dangerous. As pointed out by Amnesty International, China is a leading arms supplier to govts. with human rights violations, including Myanmar and Sudan. India has also invested heavily in arms to the junta. Amnesty International has also accused India of selling Advanced Light Helicopters (ALH) to the junta, which would constitute violations of the EU sanctions on Myanmar, though India denies it. When you give arms to a repressive govt., it's not "non-interference" by any means.
It's widely recognized round the world that arms sales correspond to increasing repression and human rights violations. These arms are used to murder, torture, destroy and pillage. It's not pretty.
Indians have to decide whether to treat the Burmese people as dispensable in India's quest for gas resources in the region.
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Friday, September 28, 2007
A good joke
"A famous comment by a Mexican foreign minister when Kennedy tried to convince him to join in the terrorist war against Cuba and the economic embargo strangulation, in fact on the grounds that Cuba was a threat to the security of the hemisphere ... and the Mexican ambassador said he had to decline, the prime minister had to decline because if he tried to tell people in Mexico that Cuba was a security threat, 40 million Mexicans would die laughing, which is approximately the right answer."
Noam Chomsky, interview with Democracy Now!, on Reagan's legacy.
Noam Chomsky, interview with Democracy Now!, on Reagan's legacy.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Israel-Palestine conflict
This is a very controversial issue and I was thinking for a long time on how, if at all, I should comment on it.
Perhaps one of the best ways of going about this is to get to the realm of facts. There's so much disinformation and ideological probelms in this conflict that it's helpful to know what actually happenned.
I'd recommend this as a primer and essentially my view on the topic. This is a discussion between Shlomo Ben-Ami, former Foreign Minister of Israel and chief negotiator at the Camp David accords of 2000, and Norman Finkelstein, a leading and courageous expert on this topic.
A few excerpts:
On events 1920-1947
Ben-Ami: "The reality on the ground was that of an Arab community in a state of terror facing a ruthless Israeli army whose path to victory was paved not only by its exploits against the regular Arab armies, but also by the intimidation and at times atrocities and massacres it perpetrated against the civilian Arab community. A panic-stricken Arab community was uprooted under the impact of massacres that would be carved into the Arabs' monument of grief and hatred.”
On the resolution
Ben-Ami: We need to draw a line between an Israeli state, a sovereign Palestinian state, and solve the best way we can the problem, by giving the necessary compensation to the refugees, by bringing back the refugees to the Palestinian state, no way to the state of Israel, not because it is immoral, but because it is not feasible, it is not possible.
On Oslo (1991)
Ben-Ami: the P.L.O. will be Israel's subcontractor and collaborator in the Occupied Territories,...” "...in order to suppress the genuinely democratic tendencies of the Palestinians."
On Hamas and PLO
Ben-Ami: ...in my view there is almost sort of poetic justice with this victory of Hamas. After all, what is the reason for this nostalgia for Arafat and for the P.L.O.?...
...1990s was the first time that Hamas spoke about a temporary settlement with Israel. In 2003, they declared unilaterally a truce...
...Now, everybody says they need first to recognize the state of Israel and end terrorism. Believe me, I would like them to do so today, but they are not going to do that. They are eventually going to do that in the future, but only as part of a quid pro quo, just as the P.L.O. did it.
On 1967 borders
Finkelstein: Borders. The principle is clear. I don't want to get into it now, because I was very glad to see that Dr. Ben-Ami quoted it three times in his book. It is inadmissible to acquire territory by war. Under international law, Israel had to withdraw from all of the West Bank and all of Gaza. As the World Court put it in July 2004, those are, quote, "occupied Palestinian territories."
On Camp David (2000)
Finkelstein: ...On every single issue, all the concessions came from the Palestinians. The problem is, everyone, including Dr. Ben-Ami in his book — he begins with what Israel wants and how much of its wants it's willing to give up. But that's not the relevant framework. The only relevant framework is under international law what you are entitled to, and when you use that framework it's a very, very different picture.
Ben-Ami: ...Camp David was not the missed opportunity for the Palestinians, and if I were a Palestinian I would have rejected Camp David, as well...
On Clinton Parameters (late 2000) and Taba (2001)
Finkelstein: It[Taba] ended officially when Barak withdrew his negotiators. It wasn't the Palestinians who walked out of Taba. It ended with the Israelis walking out of Taba, a matter of historical record, not even controversial.
Ben-Ami: ...Now, with regard to Taba, you see, we were a government committing suicide, practically... Our legitimacy as a government to negotiate such central issues as Jerusalem, as Temple Mount, the temple, etc., was being questioned...“Shlomo Ben-Ami is ready to sell out the country for the sake of a Nobel Prize.”
On "not-so-new new anti-Semitism.”
Finkelstein: There is no evidence of a new anti-Semitism. If you go through all the literature, as I have, the evidence is actually in Europe...the evidence is, if you look at like the Pew Charitable Trust surveys, anti-Semitism has actually declined since the last time they did the surveys. They did it in 1991 and 2002. They said the evidence is that it's declined.
Ben-Ami: I don't believe also that the number of incidents, as such, is the reflection of whether or not anti-Semitism is growing...[I] can see more xenophobia against North Africans, against foreigners throughout Europe. And in a way, in a way...The problem today is, in my view, much more that of [discrimination against] the Arab, the Muslim immigrants from North Africa, from the Middle East and other parts
On human rights
Finkelstein: ...the fact of the matter is, being faithful to historical record, the record of Labour ["left-wing"] has been much worse on human rights violations than the record of Likud ["right-wing"]... it doesn't speak too much in Israel's favor that it's the only country in the world that legalized torture. It was also the only country in the world that legalized hostage taking...Israel was the only country in the world that's legalized house demolitions as a form of punishment.
On the future
Ben-Ami: ...let us not fool ourselves. Many of the problems that the West is facing today with the Arab world will persist. The Palestinian issue has been used frequently by many Arab rulers as a pretext for not doing things that need to be done in their own societies...
...I define myself as an ardent Zionist that thinks that the best for the Jews in Israel is that we abandon the territories and we dismantle settlements and we try to reach a reasonable settlement with our Palestinian partners. It's not because I am concerned with the Palestinians. I want to be very clear about it. My interpretation, my approach is not moralistic...
Perhaps one of the best ways of going about this is to get to the realm of facts. There's so much disinformation and ideological probelms in this conflict that it's helpful to know what actually happenned.
I'd recommend this as a primer and essentially my view on the topic. This is a discussion between Shlomo Ben-Ami, former Foreign Minister of Israel and chief negotiator at the Camp David accords of 2000, and Norman Finkelstein, a leading and courageous expert on this topic.
A few excerpts:
On events 1920-1947
Ben-Ami: "The reality on the ground was that of an Arab community in a state of terror facing a ruthless Israeli army whose path to victory was paved not only by its exploits against the regular Arab armies, but also by the intimidation and at times atrocities and massacres it perpetrated against the civilian Arab community. A panic-stricken Arab community was uprooted under the impact of massacres that would be carved into the Arabs' monument of grief and hatred.”
On the resolution
Ben-Ami: We need to draw a line between an Israeli state, a sovereign Palestinian state, and solve the best way we can the problem, by giving the necessary compensation to the refugees, by bringing back the refugees to the Palestinian state, no way to the state of Israel, not because it is immoral, but because it is not feasible, it is not possible.
On Oslo (1991)
Ben-Ami: the P.L.O. will be Israel's subcontractor and collaborator in the Occupied Territories,...” "...in order to suppress the genuinely democratic tendencies of the Palestinians."
On Hamas and PLO
Ben-Ami: ...in my view there is almost sort of poetic justice with this victory of Hamas. After all, what is the reason for this nostalgia for Arafat and for the P.L.O.?...
...1990s was the first time that Hamas spoke about a temporary settlement with Israel. In 2003, they declared unilaterally a truce...
...Now, everybody says they need first to recognize the state of Israel and end terrorism. Believe me, I would like them to do so today, but they are not going to do that. They are eventually going to do that in the future, but only as part of a quid pro quo, just as the P.L.O. did it.
On 1967 borders
Finkelstein: Borders. The principle is clear. I don't want to get into it now, because I was very glad to see that Dr. Ben-Ami quoted it three times in his book. It is inadmissible to acquire territory by war. Under international law, Israel had to withdraw from all of the West Bank and all of Gaza. As the World Court put it in July 2004, those are, quote, "occupied Palestinian territories."
On Camp David (2000)
Finkelstein: ...On every single issue, all the concessions came from the Palestinians. The problem is, everyone, including Dr. Ben-Ami in his book — he begins with what Israel wants and how much of its wants it's willing to give up. But that's not the relevant framework. The only relevant framework is under international law what you are entitled to, and when you use that framework it's a very, very different picture.
Ben-Ami: ...Camp David was not the missed opportunity for the Palestinians, and if I were a Palestinian I would have rejected Camp David, as well...
On Clinton Parameters (late 2000) and Taba (2001)
Finkelstein: It[Taba] ended officially when Barak withdrew his negotiators. It wasn't the Palestinians who walked out of Taba. It ended with the Israelis walking out of Taba, a matter of historical record, not even controversial.
Ben-Ami: ...Now, with regard to Taba, you see, we were a government committing suicide, practically... Our legitimacy as a government to negotiate such central issues as Jerusalem, as Temple Mount, the temple, etc., was being questioned...“Shlomo Ben-Ami is ready to sell out the country for the sake of a Nobel Prize.”
On "not-so-new new anti-Semitism.”
Finkelstein: There is no evidence of a new anti-Semitism. If you go through all the literature, as I have, the evidence is actually in Europe...the evidence is, if you look at like the Pew Charitable Trust surveys, anti-Semitism has actually declined since the last time they did the surveys. They did it in 1991 and 2002. They said the evidence is that it's declined.
Ben-Ami: I don't believe also that the number of incidents, as such, is the reflection of whether or not anti-Semitism is growing...[I] can see more xenophobia against North Africans, against foreigners throughout Europe. And in a way, in a way...The problem today is, in my view, much more that of [discrimination against] the Arab, the Muslim immigrants from North Africa, from the Middle East and other parts
On human rights
Finkelstein: ...the fact of the matter is, being faithful to historical record, the record of Labour ["left-wing"] has been much worse on human rights violations than the record of Likud ["right-wing"]... it doesn't speak too much in Israel's favor that it's the only country in the world that legalized torture. It was also the only country in the world that legalized hostage taking...Israel was the only country in the world that's legalized house demolitions as a form of punishment.
On the future
Ben-Ami: ...let us not fool ourselves. Many of the problems that the West is facing today with the Arab world will persist. The Palestinian issue has been used frequently by many Arab rulers as a pretext for not doing things that need to be done in their own societies...
...I define myself as an ardent Zionist that thinks that the best for the Jews in Israel is that we abandon the territories and we dismantle settlements and we try to reach a reasonable settlement with our Palestinian partners. It's not because I am concerned with the Palestinians. I want to be very clear about it. My interpretation, my approach is not moralistic...
Anarchism & Socialism
The following is a description taken from George Orwell's book, Homage to Catalonia. It's a firsthand account of one of the few really successful libertarian socialist revolutions in history - The Spanish Civil War.
It was the first time that I had ever been in a town where the working class was in the saddle. Practically every building of any size had been seized by the workers and was draped with red flags or with the red and black flag of the Anarchists; every wall was scrawled with the hammer and sickle and with the initials of the revolutionary parties; almost every church had been gutted and its images burnt. Churches here and there were being systematically demolished by gangs of workmen. Every shop and cafe had an inscription saying that it had been collectivized; even the bootblacks had been collectivized and their boxes painted red and black. Waiters and shop-walkers looked you in the face and treated you as an equal. Servile and even ceremonial forms of speech had temporarily disappeared. Nobody said 'Senior' or 'Don' or even 'Usted'; everyone called everyone else 'Comrade' and 'Thou', and said 'Salud!' instead of 'Buenos dias'. Tipping was forbidden by law; almost my first experience was receiving a lecture from a hotel manager for trying to tip a lift-boy. There were no private motor-cars, they had all been commandeered, and all the trams and taxis and much of the other transport were painted red and black. The revolutionary posters were everywhere, flaming from the walls in clean reds and blues that made the few remaining advertisements look like daubs of mud. Down the Ramblas, the wide central artery of the town where crowds of people streamed constantly to and fro, the loudspeakers were bellowing revolutionary songs all day and far into the night. And it was the aspect of the crowds that was the queerest thing of all. In outward appearance it was a town in which the wealthy classes had practically ceased to exist. Except for a small number of women and foreigners there were no 'well-dressed' people at all. Practically everyone wore rough working-class clothes, or blue overalls, or some variant of the militia uniform. All this was queer and moving.
He goes on to say:
There was much in it that I did not understand, in some ways I did not even like it, but I recognized it immediately as a state of affairs worth fighting for
It was the first time that I had ever been in a town where the working class was in the saddle. Practically every building of any size had been seized by the workers and was draped with red flags or with the red and black flag of the Anarchists; every wall was scrawled with the hammer and sickle and with the initials of the revolutionary parties; almost every church had been gutted and its images burnt. Churches here and there were being systematically demolished by gangs of workmen. Every shop and cafe had an inscription saying that it had been collectivized; even the bootblacks had been collectivized and their boxes painted red and black. Waiters and shop-walkers looked you in the face and treated you as an equal. Servile and even ceremonial forms of speech had temporarily disappeared. Nobody said 'Senior' or 'Don' or even 'Usted'; everyone called everyone else 'Comrade' and 'Thou', and said 'Salud!' instead of 'Buenos dias'. Tipping was forbidden by law; almost my first experience was receiving a lecture from a hotel manager for trying to tip a lift-boy. There were no private motor-cars, they had all been commandeered, and all the trams and taxis and much of the other transport were painted red and black. The revolutionary posters were everywhere, flaming from the walls in clean reds and blues that made the few remaining advertisements look like daubs of mud. Down the Ramblas, the wide central artery of the town where crowds of people streamed constantly to and fro, the loudspeakers were bellowing revolutionary songs all day and far into the night. And it was the aspect of the crowds that was the queerest thing of all. In outward appearance it was a town in which the wealthy classes had practically ceased to exist. Except for a small number of women and foreigners there were no 'well-dressed' people at all. Practically everyone wore rough working-class clothes, or blue overalls, or some variant of the militia uniform. All this was queer and moving.
He goes on to say:
There was much in it that I did not understand, in some ways I did not even like it, but I recognized it immediately as a state of affairs worth fighting for
Monday, September 24, 2007
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Govt. officials said
A few weeks back, I was listening to a speech by Robert Fisk where he was talking about a report on the Middle East in the L.A. Times. The theme of the report was "govt. officials said". I was reading HT business pages today with a column which very well illustrates the point.
Titled, "Agri will remain unaffected by water supply to industries", the column can be summarized in one phrase: "govt. officials said".
Here's what we find by going through the column:
"Orissa government on Saturday claimed..."
"...claim was based on the report of a four-member technical committee"
"Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik told..."
"He asked officials to ensure..."
"Official sources said..."
"The committee, the government claimed..."
I did have occasion to read something about Vedanta Aluminium Limited in Orissa, here. I've no idea whether it's true or not, but at least it doesn't fall into the category of "govt. officials said".
Apparently, the people are too insignificant for the HT to talk to.
Titled, "Agri will remain unaffected by water supply to industries", the column can be summarized in one phrase: "govt. officials said".
Here's what we find by going through the column:
"Orissa government on Saturday claimed..."
"...claim was based on the report of a four-member technical committee"
"Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik told..."
"He asked officials to ensure..."
"Official sources said..."
"The committee, the government claimed..."
I did have occasion to read something about Vedanta Aluminium Limited in Orissa, here. I've no idea whether it's true or not, but at least it doesn't fall into the category of "govt. officials said".
Apparently, the people are too insignificant for the HT to talk to.
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Economics and human nature: selfishness and solidarity
My point here is that human nature is a complex thing. There is a selfish streak, but there are also other considerations, like truth, justice, solidarity. Human values/morals are not axiom systems.
It follows that many of the concepts in economics are ideological rather than "scientific". That's not necessarily a bad thing. Our understanding always progresses by simplifying and making assumptions. But it's always prudent to consider alternative systems, with different assumptions, especially as they relate to human nature.
To illustrate, let's take the case of Pareto efficiency. That's a specific type of economic efficiency. Basically it says that if everyone is no worse off, but someone is better off, then it's a Pareto improvement. And if no further improvements can be made, it's Pareto optimal.
Markets are intimately connected with Pareto optimal solutions.
Now, that's a highly ideological notion. There's nothing holy about it. And in fact, these caveats can be found throughout the development of neoclassical economics.
To take a simple but far from obvious case. Consider a owner and a slave. The slave labours and the owner looks over him, maybe directing him to do this and that. They make a profit. And then the owner takes 90% and gives the slave 10%. That's a Pareto optimal solution. Is it acceptable?
To make this interesting, let's consider analogous scenarios.
a) Replace the slave with a beast of burden. Now what?
b) Replace the slave with a wage slave, namely a worker. Now what?
It's clear that the other cases (as well as the original one) are far from clear. It very largely depends upon our view. Should animals be treated like human beings? If not, how different?
It's clear that "culture" or "justice" or things like "solidarity" play a very important role. These things, though hard to quantify, are deeply rooted in human behaviour.
The task of social movements, past and present, is to change this view. Intellectual discussions are important, but won't solve the root problem. The way of changing the view is through education and awareness, at least.
For instance, let's look at slavery. Slave owners were giving many plausible arguments. Do you take better care of your car when you own it, or rent it? Therefore, we should own the slaves. Not rent them, like labour bonded to capital.
This argument was abolished only when the people decided that people ought not to be owned. That's a value judgement. It's extremely hard. It was not done by arguing about the merits of private property.
It follows that many of the concepts in economics are ideological rather than "scientific". That's not necessarily a bad thing. Our understanding always progresses by simplifying and making assumptions. But it's always prudent to consider alternative systems, with different assumptions, especially as they relate to human nature.
To illustrate, let's take the case of Pareto efficiency. That's a specific type of economic efficiency. Basically it says that if everyone is no worse off, but someone is better off, then it's a Pareto improvement. And if no further improvements can be made, it's Pareto optimal.
Markets are intimately connected with Pareto optimal solutions.
Now, that's a highly ideological notion. There's nothing holy about it. And in fact, these caveats can be found throughout the development of neoclassical economics.
To take a simple but far from obvious case. Consider a owner and a slave. The slave labours and the owner looks over him, maybe directing him to do this and that. They make a profit. And then the owner takes 90% and gives the slave 10%. That's a Pareto optimal solution. Is it acceptable?
To make this interesting, let's consider analogous scenarios.
a) Replace the slave with a beast of burden. Now what?
b) Replace the slave with a wage slave, namely a worker. Now what?
It's clear that the other cases (as well as the original one) are far from clear. It very largely depends upon our view. Should animals be treated like human beings? If not, how different?
It's clear that "culture" or "justice" or things like "solidarity" play a very important role. These things, though hard to quantify, are deeply rooted in human behaviour.
The task of social movements, past and present, is to change this view. Intellectual discussions are important, but won't solve the root problem. The way of changing the view is through education and awareness, at least.
For instance, let's look at slavery. Slave owners were giving many plausible arguments. Do you take better care of your car when you own it, or rent it? Therefore, we should own the slaves. Not rent them, like labour bonded to capital.
This argument was abolished only when the people decided that people ought not to be owned. That's a value judgement. It's extremely hard. It was not done by arguing about the merits of private property.
Friday, September 14, 2007
It's not just the calories, stupid
Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar's article in the Economic Times makes a good point, but not, I argue, in the manner which he intended.
The article critiques the work by Utsa Patnaik (see this work for the upgraded version of her work), as methodologically wrong. I note here a number of weak points in his argument.
a) The article only takes into account the issue ratio of people below the "poverty line". However, Utsa Patnaik's article makes the case for the poverty figures by giving many interrelated and important statistics, including debt figures, decreasing rural credit, decreasing rural development spending, falling output and many others. Those are not addressed, a typical case of dismissing other people's critique as unidimensional.
b) The example which he gave (of Burger King etc.) is totally misleading. Those don't correspond to anywhere near the average dietary figures for Americans, or even the recommended ones. Also, again, he uni-dimensionalizes obesity. Obesity is not just caused by over-eating. I suggest Aiyar try out that diet sometime.
c) The main point of Patnaik's work is not that 1800 calories or 2400 calories is the "correct" poverty line, but that the line has been "clandestinely" decreased over the years. With that, the poverty figures don't make any sense. That hasn't been addressed.
d) There are hypotheses for explaining the fall in calorie requirements. How accurate are they? No discussion.
e) The article actually uses circular reasoning. There's rising income and falling poverty, so calories have fallen, therefore there's falling poverty.
f) Relying one just work which seems contrary to someone else's doesn't make for good argument. A variety of different issues/measures/theories have to be considered.
This, to me is not acceptable. We should have more debate on these issues. Some may not apportion blame to neoliberal reforms, but honest scholars should confront the issues nonetheless.
The article critiques the work by Utsa Patnaik (see this work for the upgraded version of her work), as methodologically wrong. I note here a number of weak points in his argument.
a) The article only takes into account the issue ratio of people below the "poverty line". However, Utsa Patnaik's article makes the case for the poverty figures by giving many interrelated and important statistics, including debt figures, decreasing rural credit, decreasing rural development spending, falling output and many others. Those are not addressed, a typical case of dismissing other people's critique as unidimensional.
b) The example which he gave (of Burger King etc.) is totally misleading. Those don't correspond to anywhere near the average dietary figures for Americans, or even the recommended ones. Also, again, he uni-dimensionalizes obesity. Obesity is not just caused by over-eating. I suggest Aiyar try out that diet sometime.
c) The main point of Patnaik's work is not that 1800 calories or 2400 calories is the "correct" poverty line, but that the line has been "clandestinely" decreased over the years. With that, the poverty figures don't make any sense. That hasn't been addressed.
d) There are hypotheses for explaining the fall in calorie requirements. How accurate are they? No discussion.
e) The article actually uses circular reasoning. There's rising income and falling poverty, so calories have fallen, therefore there's falling poverty.
f) Relying one just work which seems contrary to someone else's doesn't make for good argument. A variety of different issues/measures/theories have to be considered.
This, to me is not acceptable. We should have more debate on these issues. Some may not apportion blame to neoliberal reforms, but honest scholars should confront the issues nonetheless.
Utsa Patnaik and poverty
Here's how I look at Utsa Patnaik's work.
Every pathbreaking piece of scholarship is controversial. That, however is not a sufficient condition for a work to be good.
To me, the issues in the work is the following:
a) What's the state of poverty in India?
b) What's the effect of neoliberal policies on poverty?
These are questions which are multi-faceted and deserve lots of scrutiny. Not just by economists (who are no gods, and have been shown to be wrong before), but also by the general public.
I think the main failure of Indian media is not just the dismissal of the report, but the failure to generate a serious debate about the policies which affect more than 60% of Indians. Indeed, this point is made by Amartya Sen, in his book, Hunger and Public Action. Indian media/democracy has had a very good record in preventing famines (which is relatively simple), but an abysmal record in preventing endemic hunger, to the point where India is below sub-Saharan Africa in many aspects, like general malnourishment. This has nothing to do with "left" or "right".
While I would be the first to disclaim any knowledge of statistics and economics (I do have a good technical education though), I think Utsa Patnaik's work raises many issues which have not been addressed.
The only issue which has been addressed, rather dismissively, by a wholly inadequate article by Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar, seems to be the headcount ratio, or the number of people below a defined "poverty line".
There're also larger issues. Even noted by this article by Angus Deaton and Jean Dreze, surely one of the most respected economists in India, not only has poverty reduction more or less remained the same in the 90s as in the 80s, inequalities rose sharply. Agricultural growth has reduced to half. Also, infant mortality fall is not too good. Female-male ratio actually fell. These are also aspects of poverty. The picture is not so simple. The only way to clarify these issues is to have a vigorous public and academic debate.
Let me make some comments on the academic debate. Utsa Patnaik's work has largely been ignored by the "Great Indian Poverty Debate", largely carried out in 2001-2 in the pages of Economic and Political Weekly. However, I haven't yet seen a well developed critique addressing her main point of measuring poverty using calorie levels. Indeed, Angus Deaton, in his non-technical introduction to poverty study says (I'm quoting at some length):
...it is clear that the food rhetoric is mostly just that. In particular, even when a national poverty line is set using the calorie method, it is usually updated over time in a way that is inconsistent with the maintenance of the nutritional norm. In countries as widely different as the US and India, the official poverty lines have never been updated so as to preserve the original link with food...
which mirrors Patnaik's criticism. Also:
...if one were really to believe in a fixed calorie standard, the poverty line would have to be revised upward. Such revision is something for which there is typically little political support, in India or in the US...
and -
...But because of the political issues involved in redistribution, lines survive even beyond the time when they can be justified, either by considerations of food, or as some average of what people think a poverty line ought to be. Poverty lines are as much political as scientific constructions.
The gist seems to be that calorie measurements give too high a figure to sustain them politically and nobody knows how to "fix" them.
It seems to me, a calorie level, (let's say if it was low enough), could be useful, provided it was consistent. While Patnaik's figures of 75% poverty are pretty astonishing (using 2400 Cal), they do calculate poverty on the basis of consistent 2200 Cal values, and they do show somewhat similar trends.
Every pathbreaking piece of scholarship is controversial. That, however is not a sufficient condition for a work to be good.
To me, the issues in the work is the following:
a) What's the state of poverty in India?
b) What's the effect of neoliberal policies on poverty?
These are questions which are multi-faceted and deserve lots of scrutiny. Not just by economists (who are no gods, and have been shown to be wrong before), but also by the general public.
I think the main failure of Indian media is not just the dismissal of the report, but the failure to generate a serious debate about the policies which affect more than 60% of Indians. Indeed, this point is made by Amartya Sen, in his book, Hunger and Public Action. Indian media/democracy has had a very good record in preventing famines (which is relatively simple), but an abysmal record in preventing endemic hunger, to the point where India is below sub-Saharan Africa in many aspects, like general malnourishment. This has nothing to do with "left" or "right".
While I would be the first to disclaim any knowledge of statistics and economics (I do have a good technical education though), I think Utsa Patnaik's work raises many issues which have not been addressed.
The only issue which has been addressed, rather dismissively, by a wholly inadequate article by Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar, seems to be the headcount ratio, or the number of people below a defined "poverty line".
There're also larger issues. Even noted by this article by Angus Deaton and Jean Dreze, surely one of the most respected economists in India, not only has poverty reduction more or less remained the same in the 90s as in the 80s, inequalities rose sharply. Agricultural growth has reduced to half. Also, infant mortality fall is not too good. Female-male ratio actually fell. These are also aspects of poverty. The picture is not so simple. The only way to clarify these issues is to have a vigorous public and academic debate.
Let me make some comments on the academic debate. Utsa Patnaik's work has largely been ignored by the "Great Indian Poverty Debate", largely carried out in 2001-2 in the pages of Economic and Political Weekly. However, I haven't yet seen a well developed critique addressing her main point of measuring poverty using calorie levels. Indeed, Angus Deaton, in his non-technical introduction to poverty study says (I'm quoting at some length):
...it is clear that the food rhetoric is mostly just that. In particular, even when a national poverty line is set using the calorie method, it is usually updated over time in a way that is inconsistent with the maintenance of the nutritional norm. In countries as widely different as the US and India, the official poverty lines have never been updated so as to preserve the original link with food...
which mirrors Patnaik's criticism. Also:
...if one were really to believe in a fixed calorie standard, the poverty line would have to be revised upward. Such revision is something for which there is typically little political support, in India or in the US...
and -
...But because of the political issues involved in redistribution, lines survive even beyond the time when they can be justified, either by considerations of food, or as some average of what people think a poverty line ought to be. Poverty lines are as much political as scientific constructions.
The gist seems to be that calorie measurements give too high a figure to sustain them politically and nobody knows how to "fix" them.
It seems to me, a calorie level, (let's say if it was low enough), could be useful, provided it was consistent. While Patnaik's figures of 75% poverty are pretty astonishing (using 2400 Cal), they do calculate poverty on the basis of consistent 2200 Cal values, and they do show somewhat similar trends.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Latest ILO report
The latest ILO report on labour is out.
Interestingly, but not too surprisingly, there was a piece in the HT "Economy" section, which only mentioned the productivity part, but didn't mention the hours worked/day or the "Substantial decent work deficits" section. Guess that's too irrelevant to our economy.
Interestingly, but not too surprisingly, there was a piece in the HT "Economy" section, which only mentioned the productivity part, but didn't mention the hours worked/day or the "Substantial decent work deficits" section. Guess that's too irrelevant to our economy.
Sunday, September 9, 2007
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