Prabhat Patnaik


Prabhat Patnaik is an Indian Marxist economist and political commentator. He taught at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning in the School of Social Sciences at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, from 1974 until his retirement in 2010. He was the vice-chairman of Kerala State Planning Board from June 2006 to May 2011.

Early life and education

Prabhat Patnaik was born in Jatni in Odisha on 19 September 1945 and after early schooling in his home town, studied at Daly College, Indore, on a Government of India Merit Scholarship. He passed his B.A. with Economics Honours from the St. Stephen's College, Delhi. He went to University of Oxford in 1966 on a Rhodes Scholarship and studied at Balliol College and later at Nuffield College. He obtained his Bachelor of Philosophy and his Doctor of Philosophy degrees from Oxford.

Career

Patnaik joined the Faculty of Economics and Politics of the University of Cambridge, UK in 1969 and was elected a fellow of Clare College, Cambridge. In 1974 he returned to India as an associate professor at the newly established Centre for Economic Studies and Planning at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He became a professor at the Centre in 1983 and taught there till his retirement in 2010. At the time of retirement, he held the Sukhamoy Chakravarty Chair in Planning and Development at CESP.
His specialization is macroeconomics and political economy, areas in which he has written a number of books and articles. His books include Time, Inflation and Growth, Economics and Egalitarianism, Whatever Happened to Imperialism and Other Essays, Accumulation and Stability Under Capitalism, The Retreat to Unfreedom, The Value of Money and Re-envisioning Socialism. He is the editor of the journal Social Scientist,.
He is married to Marxist economist Professor Utsa Patnaik.
He served as the vice-chairman of the Kerala State Planning Board from June 2006 to May 2011. He was part of a four-member high-power task force of the United Nations to recommend reform measures for the global financial system. Chaired by Joseph Stiglitz, the other members were Belgian sociologist Francois Houtart and Ecuador's Minister for Economic Policy Pedro Paez.

Views

Prabhat Patnaik is a staunch critic of neoliberal economic policies, Hindutva and is known as a social scientist of Marxist-Leninist persuasion. According to him, in India, the increase in economic growth has been accompanied by an increase in the magnitude of absolute poverty. The only solution is to alter the class orientation of the State.

Honours, awards and international recognition

In 2012, Prabhat was awarded honorary Doctor of Science in Economics from School of Oriental and African Studies at University of London.

Books, research papers and journals

Prabhat is a published author of several books, research papers and journals. A complete list of papers, books and journals is included below to which he is the author.

Books