Achin Chakraborty - Böcker

This volume takes a fresh look at the land question in India. Instead of re-engaging in the rich transition debate in which the transformation of agriculture is seen as a necessary historical step to usher in dynamic capitalist (or socialist) development, this collection critically examines the centrality of land in contemporary development discourse in India. Consequently, the focus is on the role of the state in pushing a process of dispossession of peasants through direct expropriation for developmental purposes such as acquisition of land by (local) states for infrastructure development and to support accumulation strategies of private business through industrialization. Land in India is sought for non-agricultural purposes such as purchasing land to reduce risk and real estate development. Land is also central to tribal communities (adivasis), whose livelihoods depend on it and on a moral economy that is independent of any price-driven markets. Adivasis tend to hold on to such property, not as individual owners for profit, but for collective security and to protect a way of life. Thus land, notwithstanding its role in the accumulation process, has been, and continues to be, a turbulent arena in which classes, castes, and communities are in conflict with each other, with the state, and with capital, jockeying to determine the terms and conditions of land transactions or their prevention, through both market and non-market mechanisms. The volume goes beyond the traditional political economy of the agrarian transition question, and deals with, inter alia, distributional conflicts arising from acquisition of land by the state for capital accumulation on the one hand and its commodification on the other. It provides new analytical insights into the land acquisition processes, their legal-institutional and ethical implications, and the multifaceted regional diversity of acquisition experiences in India.

This volume discusses the current state of knowledge on the conceptual understanding of inequality. The book poses a range of empirical puzzles in the Indian context and examines inequalities across categories of the region of residence, caste, and sex, using a fascinating range of outcome indicators, comprising education, health, earnings, self-employment, and crime.The empirical chapters of this volume use various large-scale secondary data sources to expose the deep-rooted, structural inequalities in the Indian society. It answers some of the pertinent questions around inequality such as why do the backward regions of India continue to remain backward, both in terms of economic and human development indicators? Why do enterprises owned by backward caste individuals have systematically lower business earnings? Are backward castes and women more likely to face crime when their relative status improves? How do the circumstances that children find given at birth influence their learning outcomes? etc.The book will be of interest to teachers, students, and researchers of economics of education, development studies, development economics, and Indian economics. It will also be useful for policymakers, academicians, and anyone curious to learn about inequality.

This volume discusses the current state of knowledge on the conceptual understanding of inequality. The book poses a range of empirical puzzles in the Indian context and examines inequalities across categories of the region of residence, caste, and sex, using a fascinating range of outcome indicators, comprising education, health, earnings, self-employment, and crime.The empirical chapters of this volume use various large-scale secondary data sources to expose the deep-rooted, structural inequalities in the Indian society. It answers some of the pertinent questions around inequality such as why do the backward regions of India continue to remain backward, both in terms of economic and human development indicators? Why do enterprises owned by backward caste individuals have systematically lower business earnings? Are backward castes and women more likely to face crime when their relative status improves? How do the circumstances that children find given at birth influence their learning outcomes? etc.The book will be of interest to teachers, students, and researchers of economics of education, development studies, development economics, and Indian economics. It will also be useful for policymakers, academicians, and anyone curious to learn about inequality.

Limits of Bargaining is an original addition to the political economy analysis of capital-labour relations in the organised industrial sector in the context of economic liberalisation in India. It analyses the dynamics of the capital-labour bargaining process in the context of the changing nature of the state and market as a result of adoption of policies of liberalisation and globalisation for the last two and half decades. It examines the nature of collective bargaining and analyses the underlying structural-political conditions that shape the capital-labour relations. Based on original empirical material from West Bengal, a state long considered pro-labour, the book presents bargaining between capital and labour as endogenous to the interplay of the triad of the market, technology and the institutions of the state. It illustrates everyday interactions between labour and management, different unions and outside actors that shape collective bargaining, and highlights the negotiation, appropriations and compromises that shape bargaining at the operational level.

This book critically discusses the changing relationship between the Indian state and capital by examining the mediating role of society in influencing developmental outcomes. It theorizes the state’s changing context allowing the discussion of its pursuit of contradictory economic and social welfare goals simultaneously. Both structural and ideological factors are argued to contribute to a shifting context, but the centrality of re-distributive politics and the contradictions therein explain a lot of what the state does and cannot do. The book also examines what the state aspires to do but structurally cannot accomplish either because of the scale of the problem or the dysfunctionality that sets in with continuous reforms. The collection provides rich evidence on the contested forms of governance arising from changing contexts and shifting roles of the state. Readers will benefit from this recasting of the Indian state in terms of the actual forms of intervention today.Changing Contexts and Shifting Roles of the Indian State is a timely book.  At a time when the question of the role of the state in promoting more inclusive forms of development has never been more urgent, this book provides a range of powerful and insightful case studies of how a changing Indian capitalism is impacting and in turn being impacted by the multi-stranded role of the Indian state. Patrick Heller, Professor of Sociology and International Affairs, Brown University, Providence.Since the early 1990s, the Indian economy has moved away from a statist model of development to a more market-oriented one. However, very little scholarship exists that attempts to analyse India’s recent development experience from a political economy lens. This book, which is edited by two of India’s reputed scholars in the political economy of development, addresses this important gap in the literature. It provides an insightful account of the role of the state and the market in India’s economic resurgence in the last three decades. The book also contributes to a fresh understanding of what is meant by a twenty-first century developmental state in a globalised world.  The book will be valuable reading for all scholars of India, as well as to researchers in the political economy of development. Kunal Sen, Director, United Nations University – World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), Helsinki.This collection gives us a richer and more layered understanding of the Indian contemporary State. Rather than see the State as an unchanging entity with unchanging interests, the book argues that the role of the State changes with the context and with the change in political regime. Thus, taking contradictory decisions such as greater dispossession of land from the peasantry and expansion of the universe of economic rights is explainable. The argument is that we can have a better understanding when we see the Indian State as dealing with the ebb and flow of a democracy. C. Rammanohar Reddy, Former Editor, Economic and Political Weekly, Mumbai.

Damit stellt es einen Fortschritt in der Marxschen Theorie und Politik dar.Das Buch untersucht das Kapital von Marx aus der Perspektive und dem Blickwinkel des Ostens und konzentriert sich auf viele Themen, die an den "Grenzen" des Kapitals liegen, das sich hauptsächlich mit der Entschlüsselung des entwickelten Kapitalismus befasst.

In this regard, the book offers a reading of Capital that is distinct from conventional reflections on it in the Western world. The scope is vast, covering much of the territory in Marx's Capital, as well as addressing a few new issues connected to Capital.

This book contributes to growing literature on the role of business groups in the development of corporate sector and contains perspectives from the Indian economy. Readers interested in the Indian corporate sector, especially Indian business groups, will find the book useful.