Prabhat Patnaik reflects on the COVID-19 shock that has worsened the crisis triggered by globalized finance. Only two possibilities emerge: restructure capitalism by controlling finance, or let the tendencies towards very coercive forms of fascism grow.
August 2, 2020 Produced by Lynn Fries / GPEnewsdocs
TRANSCRIPT
LYNN FRIES: Hello and welcome. I’m Lynn Fries, producer of Global Political Economy for GPEnewsdocs. This is a report on a conversation with Prabhat Patnaik on why capitalism is going to be finding it very difficult to come to terms with a post COVID-19 world.
Prabhat Patnaik is professor emeritus of economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. An eminent and prolific economist, Patnaik’s published work includes books like The Value of Money, and Accumulation and Stability Under Capitalism. In a forthcoming book titled, Capital and Imperialism, to be released in February, co-authors Prabhat Patnaik & Utsa Patnaik will publish their comprehensive survey of capitalism’s colonialist roots and uncertain future.
We go now to our conversation with Professor Prabhat Patnaik.
Prabhat, What I want to get at in this conversation is why the working population is being pushed into acute distress, unemployment and insecurity. You’ve long argued that capitalism throughout the era of globalization under neoliberalism has been characterized by a conflict between the interests of finance and working people. And with COVID-19 this is intensifying. So we’re going to talk about that and let’s start with one of the main pillars of neoliberal policy – the withdrawal of the state from demand management.