A Class-Focused Theory of Minimum Support Price and Agricultural Distress in India. Issue 1 (2nd January 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Majumdar, Sayonee
• Is Part Of: Rethinking Marxism. Volume 33:Issue 1(2021)
• Page Start: 71
• Page End: 97
• Publication Date: 2021-01-02
• Subjects: Class -- Indian Agriculture -- Minimum Support Price -- Overdetermination -- Value Theory; Communism -- Periodicals; Periodicals; 335.4305
• DOI: 10.1080/08935696.2020.1847017
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0893-5696

Abstract

Abstract : Minimum support price (MSP) is posed as a remedial response to the distress condition of Indian farmers. This essay dissects MSP and the debate regarding it from the class-focused theory of surplus labor. The analytical tool of class sets shows the limited scope of MSP compared to the disaggregated nature of the Indian agricultural sector and shows that the MSP policy debate is blind to class questions and their consequences. Bringing in various overdetermining and contradictory effects of class-related production and circulation processes, value theory is applied to unravel the dissimilar crisis conditions of agrarian enterprises. Once MSP is combined with class and other nonclass processes, it follows that the MSP outcome will not have uniform effects across enterprises and will not secure its self-proclaimed objective of redressing farmer distress.