The economy should be the concern of ordinary people. For it is they who work it. And the quality of their lives, their joys and tragedies, are decided by the way the economy functions.
Thus began the first editorial, “Why ‘Aspects’?” in Aspects of India’s Economy no. 1, July 1990. That economy, which shaped the lives of ordinary people, was in its view “rotten”. It was marked by, among other things, unemployment and the depression of agricultural producers. “[D]rought and flood in such rural conditions drive some to the cities where they add to the insecure wretched seeking odd jobs at any wage. This is twentieth century India.”
The editorial made clear at the very outset the aims of Aspects:
As rulers have ruled, economists have advised and are increasingly giving consent. Economists cannot change the economy; they are a profession as any other. People can and must, for their own sake. For economic history is made in political terms. And the sooner people become conscious of this and are in their own democratic forums organised to effect it, the sooner will such change take place. For this they must understand how the economy functions; why it functions in ways opposite to the stated objectives of policy; why their economic condition is what it is; and what premises must change – how the constitution of society itself must change…
What was called a “balanced view of the economy”, ostensibly reflecting the needs of all classes and interests, actually reflected business interests:
We will thus be concerned with restoring a different kind of balance. We will persistently aim to show how unemployment is bad for the economy (not only for the people who are unemployed), how particular interests make the economy less efficient in their pursuit of self-interest. Efficiency and inefficiency of economic decisions or policy must be judged in terms of whether the particular deployment of means and labour in fact best serves the needs of ordinary people and their development as productive beings; whether the particular deployment is part of such a path of cumulative deployment; whether it conserves resources.
Further, the editorial placed the meaning of ‘efficiency’ for India in the context of the world economy as it had developed historically:
There is also a fundamental fact about the international arena which defines a crucial criterion for efficiency: The world today is divided into individual States with vast inequalities in their wealth, development, and living-standards – inequalities which have developed as part of a historical process of colonisation and resource “transfers”. We must always judge therefore whether a particular deployment of resources takes us further into inequality and dependence or away from it.
So judged, the greater profits of individual enterprises may actually reflect a misallocation of resources from the point of the whole economy and may totally militate against overall economic efficiency. On the other hand, a unit may be highly innovative and efficient in the use of resources but helpless in particular market situations. Yet such units get driven out in the name of competition as the market today is structured in favour of an inefficient deployment and stunted development of our own resources of men, materials and equipment.
The first issue appeared at a juncture when there was much uncertainty, churning and discussion regarding India’s past course of development, and its future. The country stood at a crossroads. The industrial stagnation that had set in since the mid-1960s had persisted till the end of the 1970s. To overcome this stagnation, India’s rulers undertook a phased relaxation of various industrial and import controls in the 1980s, resulting in a surge in the rate of growth (though not of employment). This import-dependent growth was accompanied by ballooning trade deficits and foreign debt to pay for those deficits. Then, in 1990-91, the supply of fresh commercial loans suddenly dried up, and India was plunged into a balance of payments crisis. The country’s rulers went the following year to the IMF for a structural adjustment loan. The overwhelming sense of crisis, and the IMF’s loan conditions, helped the Government push through sweeping policy changes starting in July 1991.
But it is worth remembering that, even before the IMF programme, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Special Secretary to the Prime Minister, had presented an internal discussion paper in May 1990 titled “Toward a Restructuring of Industrial, Trade and Fiscal Policies”, which spelled out the entire programme. India’s ruling classes were intent on a radical restructuring of India’s economy in favour of big capital and foreign investors, and they used the pretext of the balance of payments crisis of 1990-91 to push through this changed ‘regime of accumulation’.
While India stood at a crossroads, the other path could have been chosen only by the classes who would stand to gain by it:
Aspects of India’s Economy will try to trace the reasons for the economy’s rottenness. It will pose the question whether a change of policy can rejuvenate the economy, or whether the flows of the surplus (given the structure of the economy) are such that it will remain perennially crippled whichever policy is put on paper. In which case only a reconstitution of the production relations in the economy can channel the surplus flows into productive activity needed to resurrect this economy.
This determined the style and nature of Aspects: “As Aspects addresses itself to a distinct audience – those in whose interests it is to change our society fundamentally – its viewpoint and manner of presentation will be distinct.” The editorial did not underestimate the difficulty of this task:
Aspects of India’s Economy is aimed to reach ordinary people. It can only reach them indirectly, in the present circumstances of illiteracy and diversity of language, through individuals and associations who, having direct contact with broad sections of the people, can widely disseminate its contents.
Today, 35 years later, the direct reach of Aspects remains small. But it appears to be read by many among those engaged in changing society, and the sizeable number of translations testifies to the fact that they feel it is worth disseminating among the people. Many more draw on it for their writings and talks. A range of contributors have identified with this mission, and given Aspects much of their best work over the years.
The form of Aspects has changed over the years. In recent years, its articles have grown longer, despite our intentions to the contrary. The issues, which could once be slipped into one’s pocket, have sometimes bulged into book-length volumes. We have dropped any attempt at fixed periodicity; subscriptions now are for a certain number of issues, not for a certain period. All of these decisions have had their compulsions, but also their drawbacks. We fear that the articles have become too long and heavy, but some readers have assured us that in fact these writings are useful. We will only know if more readers tell us their views on this.
Today more persons read Aspects via the website and the blog than buy the print edition, but we do not believe the print edition is less important, for it may allow more focussed engagement. Some issues of Aspects – such as no.s 33 & 34 (Behind the Invasion of Iraq) and no.s 70-73 (a collection titled India’s Working Class and Its Prospects) have appeared as books. (No.s 81-86 too will soon appear as a book, Digitalisation in India: The Class Agenda.)
While Aspects may not have flourished, it has remained steadfast on its course (even as our own clarity improved, and we are not what we were at the outset). Given our own limitations, as well as the difficult objective situation, we could not have hoped for much more, and we are glad of the task we undertook 35 years ago. As for the future of this work, its fate is linked to the fate of all those who need, and are working for, fundamental change in our society.
We greatly value the responses that we receive from readers, for it shows that they own the paper. We request readers to continue sending their responses, both positive and critical.