Prabhat Patnaik reviews the connections between imperialism and capitalism through history to stress that by necessity of the accumulation of wealth, somewhere demand has to be suppressed to provide cheap inputs to ‘the markets’. That colonialist relation is retained to the present, with changing subjects.
Prabhat Patnaik explains how the colonial system led to depression. Then, in advanced countries governments stepped in to increase demand and productivity, but how unless the periphery is available for extraction of wealth and cheap provision of inputs the system would collapse. So, the Global South was absorbed by a globalization process where finance becomes predominant, income deflation is widespread and governments everywhere are turned into servants of financialization.
Prabhat Patnaik shows that as capital is relocated, real wages do not rise, inequality widens, and global demand is suppressed. The system remains in protracted crisis; Keynesianism in the North alone is no solution. The struggle is everywhere.