Revisiting redistribution

RENOWNED economist and former Labour politician Meghnad Desai in his new book takes a critical look at the bodies of thought that have driven economics across the world and studies its contributions to domestic and international politics.

Published by HarperCollins, The Poverty of Political Economy studies the ideas first presented by the likes of Adam Smith, and John Maynard Keynes and through events of global importance such as the Great Depression and the fall of the Lehman Brothers.

Desai said the book is a “distillation of a lifetime’s thinking and debating about economics” as he looks at fundamental and radical questions posed by the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Economics has been for too long soft on the well-todo and hard on the poor... I trace how it was the struggle for universal franchise which made economics more oriented towards the poor. But that legacy of Pigou has been lost in the debates about Keynes and Monetarism. I propose a revisit to economics of redistribution...,” Desai said.

The book will hit the stands on December 9.