Writing over a century ago, Lenin had talked of finance capital as the 'coalescence of bank and industrial capital', and of a financial oligarchy presiding over this capital that sat on the Boards of Directors of both banks and industrial…
This issue of Social Scientist leads with two long review essays: one based on a book by Rehman Sobhan, on his experiences as a member of the Planning Commission established after Bangladesh’s liberation in 1971; and the other on a…
Capital and Imperialism achieves a rare congruence between theory and history, structure and narrative. This is not a question of a theoretical argument finding empirical substantiation as narrative, or history being staged so as to put forth a theoretical proposition.…
Today we have gathered to celebrate the ninetieth birthday of one of the greatest historians of India, if not the whole world. It is both a solemn and a joyous occasion. There is no point in even sketching the awesome…
It is an honour to be asked to contribute a paper to this special issue of Social Scientist on the occasion of Professor Irfan Habib’s ninetieth birthday. The seminal academic influences on the development of some aspects of my own…
I would like to place on record my deep gratitude to Professors Sasheej Hegde and Atlury Murali (2021) for having engaged with my book, Infinite Double: Persons/Things Empire/Economy (Shimla: Indian Institute of Advanced Study, 2015) (hereafter ID), in such a…
Traversing across ten centuries, Amiya Kumar Bagchi, in the lead article in this issue, covers five phases of ‘imperialism’ involving different forms of conquest, plunder and aggrandisement by the dominant powers of the day. In this history, he identifies forms…
Everybody knows that capitalism is driven by greed, by the lure of profit. But greed in human beings was not born with capitalism. Callicles in Plato’s Gorgias expressed this perfectly when he said that in making decisions, he would consider…
Global expansion of western countries can be divided into pre-capitalist and capitalist epochs. The former marked the import of goods and export of bullion in order to purchase goods for the growing demand in the home market, whereas the latter…
In the lead article of the current number of Social Scientist Suchetana Chattopadhyay provides a detailed and fascinating account of the early efforts to build a Communist Party in India, which interestingly began almost immediately after the Bolshevik Revolution. A…