Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 73
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 74
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Warning (512): Unable to emit headers. Headers sent in file=/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php line=853 [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 48]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 148]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 181]
Notice (8): Undefined variable: urlPrefix [APP/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp, line 8]latest-news-updates/neo-liberalism-and-anti-inflationary-policy-prabhat-patnaik.html"/> LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Neo-Liberalism and Anti-Inflationary Policy -Prabhat Patnaik | Im4change.org
Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

Neo-Liberalism and Anti-Inflationary Policy -Prabhat Patnaik

-NetworkIdeas.org

Central banks all over the capitalist world are raising, or are about to raise, interest rates as a means of countering the currently rampant inflation, which is certain to push a world economy that is barely recovering from the effect of the pandemic, back towards stagnation and greater unemployment.

Of course the Federal Reserve Board of the US which sets the standard in this respect for all other central banks, claims otherwise. It argues that the rise in interest rate it is decreeing will have little impact, or at the most a transitory impact, on the real economy; the recovery will be largely unimpaired. But this is based on reasoning which is fundamentally flawed and goes as follows.

The current inflation in the US, Fed chairman Jerome Powell argues, is because of a money wage push, which in turn arises because people are expecting inflation to occur; the rise in interest rate, by making people expect an abatement of inflation, will end this money-wage push, and hence actually bring down inflation. Since all adjustments will thus remain confined to the sphere of expected prices, and hence by that route to the sphere of actual prices, the real economy of output and employment will hardly face any recession. This entire argument however is wrong because of one simple fact: the workers’ money wages have lagged behind inflation, because of which they have suffered real wage declines. Hence to argue that inflation in the US is because of a money-wage push, is a gross error.

Likewise the other common explanation given for inflation is that the Russo-Ukraine war has created scarcities of various commodities, especially of oil and food-grains in the world market. This explanation too however is unconvincing: while the war may cause such scarcity, there has as yet been no such scarcity. In fact there is little evidence of any decline in supplies of such commodities in the world market due to the war; hence to attribute the inflation to such war-induced scarcity is erroneous, certainly in the context of the US.

Please click here to read more.