BodhiCommons

Bodhi Commons

0.0 (0)
SOCIAL SCIENCES

BodhiCommons is a left and progressive bilingual website in English and Malayalam. This podcast is a collection of lectures and talks on various topics like Marxian Political Economy, Feminism, Politics of India and Kerala, organised by BodhiCommons during the Corona lockdown in 2020.

26/05/2020

Stimulus for Whom? Demystifying the Economic Package of the Government of India

R. Ramakumar (Professor, Tata Institute of Social Sciences) and V. Sridhar (Associate Editor, Frontline) discusses the special package announced by the Government of India to fight against the economic downturn due to Covid-19 lockdown. They unpack the schemes devoted for agriculture, industry, and other sectors in the wake of ongoing crisis, exacerbated by the lockdown.

1h 14m
02/05/2020

COVID-19 Pandemic and Food Security

Professor Madhura Swaminathan talks about the situation of food security in India in the context of COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 pandemic has struck India where millions of Indians are malnourished and the situation will be worsened with large scale unemployment. Professor Madhura Swaminathan explains why the state should step in with measures of universal public distribution system (PDS), doubling cereal transfers to households, and expanded food basket under the PDS to tackle this crisis of mass hunger and malnutrition.

1h 2m
17/04/2020

The Economic Impacts of of COVID-19 Pandemic - Prof. R. Ramakumar

In this lecture, Prof R. Ramakumar talks about the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic and highlights the uniqueness of the crisis as it induces both demand and supply side shocks. The lecture shatters some misconceptions about the pandemic’s links to global agriculture and goes on to highlight the inadequacy of India’s economic package at a time when governments around the world are abandoning the orthodoxy of neoliberal economics.

1h 38m
12/04/2020

Science, Environment and Society: Emerging Lessons - Prof. T. Jayaraman

In this lecture, Prof. T. Jayaraman talks about the history of science as well as how the benefits of scientific knowledge and practice often tend to get appropriated for private gain under capitalism. The lecture also includes a critique of mainstream environmentalism that tends to ignore the livelihoods question. Prof. Jayaraman highlights the significance of productivity and science to reasonably address the environmental question without losing sight of the impact on livelihoods.

1h 17m
07/04/2020

Coronashock and the Global Left - Dr. Vijay Prashad

In this lecture, Dr. Vijay Prashad looks into the history and talks about why the COVID-19 pandemic has paralysed the world. He explains the dramatic transformation of capitalism from the 1970s to the current time, its implications, and the tasks for the global Left in the way forward.

59 min
04/04/2020

Marxian Political Economy: Lecture 4 - Questions & Answers

The fourth session of Marxian Political Economy lecture series has Prof. Venkatesh Athreya responding to the queries of the listeners, based on the previous three episodes. The queries and the discussion ranges from reading recommendations on Marxism to the role of mass movements, questions about stock markets, labour theory of value and the historical specificity of the capitalist mode of production.

1h 5m
02/04/2020

Marxian Political Economy: Lecture 3 - Theory of Surplus Value

In the third episode of Marxian Political Economy lecture series, Prof. Venkatesh Athreya introduces the circuits of capital and the general production process under capitalism. As Marx notes, it is at the “abode of production” that bourgeois democratic ideals breaks down. This is explained in relation to surplus value that is fundamentally produced by the working class which is appropriated by the capitalist class that owns the means of production. The episode explains what constitutes surplus value and how converting labour power to a commodity alienates the worker from the process of labour as well as the product of labour. Follow us for more updates: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/BodhiCommons Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/BodhiCommons Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BodhiCommons YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/BodhiCommons Telegram: https://t.me/BodhiCommons

53 min
31/03/2020

Marxian Political Economy: Lecture 2 - Commodity

In the second lecture of Marxian Political Economy, Prof. Venktesh Athreya examines Karl Marx’s analysis of the commodity and how the value of a commodity is determined in a capitalist society. A clear distinction is made between how Marx’s theory which highlighted the social relations involved in commodity production was distinct from bourgeois conceptualisation. These relations between people are mystified under capitalism as relations between things – which Marx referred to as commodity fetishism. Marxian political economy, therefore, becomes a scientific framework, for understanding society not just at its surface level of appearances, but also its underlying reality that determines these appearances and the contradictions that arise between essence and manifestation.

1h 3m
29/03/2020

Marxian Political Economy: Lecture 1 - Historical Materialism

In the first lecture, Prof. Venktesh Athreya talks about Marx's approach to the study of society, which starts with the society as a whole. According to Marx, man's fundamental activity is production, which does not exist in isolation, but is essentially social production. As historical development occurs, production relations change to keep up with change, leading to contradictions with the existing production forces. The Marxist approach thus emphasises that every society is transitory and focuses on the use of historically specific analytical categories in the study of societies. Reading material for this lecture can be downloaded from https://drive.google.com/open?id=12_P4w2_dYfAC2Yv7jCh_KqS19okzDsz2

40 min

9 Episodes

BodhiCommons is a left and progressive bilingual website in English and Malayalam. This podcast is a collection of lectures and talks on various topics like Marxian Political Economy, Feminism, Politics of India and Kerala, organised by BodhiCommons during the Corona lockdown in 2020.

Creator

Bodhi Commons
Years Active

2K
Episodes

9
Rating

Clean
Copyright

© Bodhi Commons
Show Website

BodhiCommons