The Collected Works of A.K. Dasgupta: Essays in Planning and Public Policy (Volume III)

A.K. Dasgupta (1903-92) was unarguably one of India’s most distinguished economic theorists. His extensive scholarship included the critical evaluation and understanding of practically all schools of economic thought: classical, Marxist, marginalist, neo-classical, Keynesian, and the many variants of growth theory. The present volume–one of the three self contained companion volumes–is a collection of seventy essays, articles, reviews and reminiscences written by Dasgupta over a period of more than sixty years (1929-91). For Dasgupta, the overriding objective for a country like India had to be accumulation or growth with employment–employment particularly for those who have nothing but their labour to sell and thus have a living standard at the lowest end of the scale. The central objective of his ideas on planning and economic policy was to maximize the growth rate of income and employment at the lowest end–not immediately, but over a reasonable time horizon. A believer in ‘Gandhian economics’, a term he himself coined, Dasgupta felt the need for defining one’s social philosophy, with reference to which economic discourse should be conducted. A beautifully written introduction by the author’s son-in-law and distinguished economist, I.G. Patel, discusses the salient ideas behind this unique selection–a balance between thematic unity, chronology, and clusters of diverse thoughts and ideas–which provides an insight into Dasgupta’s thinking and philosophy.