Exploring the Poverty Question (Hardcover)

Utsa Patnaik

ISBN 10: 8196580339 / ISBN 13: 9788196580339

Published by Tulika Books, 2024

About this Item

Hardcover. The author argues that the claim by individual governments and by the World Bank that Asia has seen a large reduction in poverty over the last three decades, is a spurious claim. It is the result of a logical mistake, namely de-linking without any explanation, the definition of poverty from satisfaction of nutrition norms, so that in practice the poor are being improperly counted below a steadily declining standard of food consumption. Using nearly 50 years of data from India's National Sample Survey, she shows that applying a constant nutrition standard over time, poverty had worsened considerably over the period of neoliberal reforms. The author argues that the claim that South Asia has seen a large reduction in poverty over the last three decades is a spurious claim. Using nearly 50 years of data from Indias National Sample Survey, she shows that applying a constant nutrition standard over time, poverty had worsened considerably over the period of neoliberal reforms. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9788196580339

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Exploring the Poverty Question (Hardcover)
• Publisher: Tulika Books
• Publication Date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 8196580339
• ISBN 13: 9788196580339
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

The author argues that the claim by individual governments and by the World Bank that Asia has seen a large reduction in poverty over the last three decades, is a spurious claim. It is the result of a logical mistake; while the original definition of poverty was on the basis of satisfaction or otherwise of specified nutrition norms, later without any discussion this definition was changed and delinked from nutrition, thereby committing the fallacy of equivocation. In practice, for many decades the poor have been improperly counted as those below a steadily declining standard of food consumption. Using data for fifty years from India’s National Sample Survey, she shows that when we apply a constant nutrition standard over time, poverty is seen to have worsened considerably, in particular over the period of neoliberal reforms.

About the Author

Utsa Patnaik taught economics at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University, from 1973 to 2010. Her main research interests lie in the areas of the agrarian question both in history and at present, colonialism and imperialism, and the origins and current prevalence of poverty. These issues have been explored in over one hundred academic papers and several books, including Peasant Class Differentiation (1987), The Long Transition (1999) and The Republic of Hunger (2008). Her last two books (co-authored with Prabhat Patnaik) are A Theory of Imperialism (2016) and Capital and Imperialism (2021).