Thursday, July 13, 2017

Quick notes: Low inflation, Halli Labs...

5 comments:

san said...

"On the one hand, middle-class celebrates one of the lowest food inflation rates, and on the other hand farmers get nothing in return of their toil."

Are you saying that only middle class people eat food? It's useful to remember that poor people eat food too. When inflation is high, it's poor people who complain loudest about food prices.

Pagan said...

It is more a producer versus consumer issue. They thought "middle-class" sounds more appealing than "consumer" while writing about agrarian crisis and farmers' unrest.

san said...

What they're really doing is resorting to the well-worn trope of class warfare. Every issue has to be framed as class warfare, it seems. The poor are most certainly part of the consumer market, and not all farmers are poor - a number of them are middle class or even upper class.

Pagan said...

It is not so cut and dry, San. The agrarian crisis is real.

I was reading this post of yours:
Indebted Farmers Sell Wives

I have great admiration for you but here you were quite dishonest -- you took an isolated incident and came to the conclusion that factory jobs are the only way out. There is honor in agriculture -- that is why white societies go so far to protect their farming communities.

san said...

Sir, there is currently more desperation in agriculture than honour - most farmers own tiny plots which can't conceivably earn them a decent living, and meanwhile agriculture doesn't have much productivity compared to other livelihoods. There's a reason why the developed world has moved most of its people from agriculture into more efficient industries. I read that previous post you quoted, and Rajeev commented that basic education in India is inadequate to support industries more complex than agriculture. I disagree - factory jobs can be done even by those without any education whatsoever, and meanwhile at least they have a chance to get themselves more educated, even if only marginally. Agriculture will never be able to provide the kind of employment India needs, and so it's better to bite the bullet and shift towards better industries sooner rather than later. The more we delay, the more opportunity is lost, and the harder it will be to change.