Left abandoned peasants, lost Bengal: Prabhat Patnaik

Kozhikode: The Left forces lost Bengal as they failed to defend the peasants and petty-producers, according to noted economist Prof. Prabhat Patnaik. Addressing a session on the ‘Future of Communism’ at the Kerala Literature Festival here on Friday,  he said that the failure of the Left in Singur and Nadigram was because of this faulty approach. “Anything which brings about development in productive forces is something the Left should support as a progressive move,” he added.

“Under neo-liberal capitalism, the development of production is associated with enormous assault on the petty-production. The movements at Singur and Nandigram were actually about industrialisation which would entail attack on the peasantry,” he added. The concept  of classical Marxism prevents the Left from defending the peasants and petty-production which the Left has to  overcome, he added.

On the future of the Left,  Mr Patnaik said, “if you want to try for any change within the existing capitalist system, if you are serious about it, you must be prepared to go beyond the system.”   Mr Patnaik said that mankind cannot have a future without the Left. Everything has been commoditised in capitalism as there is a tendency towards centralisation. Small capitalists disappear and you see the emergence of gigantic capitalist blocks,”  he pointed out.