Although the deadlock over the nuclear liability bill is yet to be broken,the Left believes that the government and the main opposition party,the BJP,are on the verge of an agreement on the passage of the disastrous legislation.
It says the BJP might support the legislation because of US administration-applied pressure. The Obama administration has made it clear that nothing on the Indo-US nuclear deal front will move till UPA-II passes a bill freeing the suppliers of nuclear reactors and other equipments from payment of any compensation in case of nuclear accident, says an article in CPIs official voice,New Age. The Manmohan Singh government has committed to pass such a law and now it seems the US has educated enough of the BJP leadership to support such legislation. (When the electric giant Enron got the contract to establish a power plant in Maharashtra,its accounts showed millions of dollars spent on educating the politicians,particularly of the Shiv Sena brand),it says.
Talk to them
The Left had,by and large,been in agreement with the governments anti-Maoist strategy,especially the point that talks can begin only if the insurgents stop violence. But an article in the New Age now says the government should be ready for unconditional talks with the left-wing insurgents.
It says that neither the government nor the Maoists have showed any interest for talks. Both are indifferent,and keen on the use of arms to bring peace. Following such contentions,there have been civil war-like situation in many parts of the country. Such developments could boost their ego,but may prove dangerous for the people, it says.
It says there is still time left and the government should come out for unconditional talks,while the Naxalites should take initiatives to compromise on their demands.
Political and incorrect
For the CPM,the participation of PCPA leaders at Mamata Banerjees Lalgarh rally has come as a shot in the arm. The rally,it says,reconfirms that the Trinamool Congress and the Maoists have,indeed,been political collaborators in creating mayhem and anarchy in certain areas of West Bengal.
While attacking Banerjee,the party is now concentrating on embarrassing the Congress. The lead editorial in CPM mouthpiece Peoples Democracy says UPA-II,in a crass display of political opportunism,requiring the numbers of TMC MPs in the Lok Sabha for the survival of this government,is tolerating such support to the Maoists,making a mockery of its commitment to safeguard Indias internal security.
The prime minister has repeatedly asserted that Maoist violence constitutes the gravest threat to Indias internal security. Yet,its own cabinet colleague,under the leadership of this very prime minister,openly collaborates with Maoist violence and defends the attempted subversion of parliamentary democracy. The defence of Indias unity and integrity must rise above the petty electoral pursuits and crass political opportunism, it says.
Capital mistake
An article by Left economist Prabhat Patnaik in the edition questions the argument that sub-prime lending caused the global economic crisis. The basic argument about sub-prime lending causing the crisis was a flawed one. The banks had given loans to the so-called sub-prime borrowers against the security of the houses they had bought with these loans. If the values of the houses collapsed then banks asset values collapsed relative to their liabilities,precipitating a financial crisis.
The cause of the crisis therefore lay not in the identity of the borrowers,the fact of their being sub-prime,but in the collapse of the asset values,which in turn was because asset markets in a capitalist economy are dominated by speculators whose behaviour produces asset-price bubbles that are prone to collapse, he says.
It points out that when the banks were giving loans against houses to the so-called sub-prime borrowers,they too were essentially speculating in the asset markets,using the sub-prime borrowers only as instruments,or as mere intermediaries in the process. To attribute the crisis to sub-prime lending therefore amounted to shifting attention from the immanent nature of the system,the fact that it is characterised by asset markets,which are intrinsically prone to being dominated by speculators whose behaviour produces asset-price bubbles that necessarily must collapse,to a mere aberration,a misjudgement on the part of the financial institutions that made them lend to the wrong people. It was a deft ideological manoeuvre, he says.
Capitalism,like the proverbial horse,kicks even when in decline. Even as the current crisis hit it,it gave an ideological kick by attributing the crisis to sub-prime lending; and so well-directed was its kick that the whole world ended up calling it the sub-prime crisis,he says.
Compiled by Manoj C.G.
