Weekend Reads
- Writing in the Citizen, economist Prabhat Patnaik explains how the very conception of “black money” used in demonetisation is absurd. Black money isn’t a stock of money but a set of activities and the demonetisation does nothing to target it.
- Income tax data shows that only 6% of undisclosed assets is kept in hard cash. So how will demonetisation help win the war against black money, asks Appu Esthose Suresh in the Hindustan Times.
- Will demonetisation cause the price of real estate to crash? Probably not, explains Vivek Kaul in Equity Master.
- To really curb black money, political parties need to disclose the source of their funds, writes Shankkar Aiyar in the New Indian Express.
- Rumours of demonetisation abounded in India before the prime minister’s announcement, writes Aman Sethi in the Quint.
- Demonetisation proves that like Nehru, Modi is a top-down thinker who believes that an economy and a country can be run from above, as if the government is a proxy for god, says Amit Varma in Business Line.
- Liberals panicked by Trump dismiss the idea that Trump’s victory should start a process out of which an authentic Left could emerge, writes philosopher Slavoj Zizek in In These Times.
- Donald Trump’s election leaves Angela Merkel as the Liberal West’s Last defender, write Alison Smale and Steven Erlanger in the New York Times.
- Libertarians in the US are united by opposition to government, but when it comes to planning a new society they are deeply divided, writes Livia Gershon in Aeon.
- Is there something rotten in the state of physics today, asks Graham Farmelo as he reviews physicist Roger Penrose’s new book in the Guardian.
Giggle
Subscribe to “The Daily Fix” by either downloading Scroll’s Android app or opting for it to be delivered to your mailbox.