Prabhat Patnaik is an Indian

Marxist economist Marxian economics, or the Marxian school of economics, is a heterodox school of political economic thought. Its foundations can be traced back to Karl Marx's critique of political economy. However, unlike critics of political economy, Marxian e ...

and political commentator. He taught at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning in the School of Social Sciences at

Jawaharlal Nehru University Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) is a public major research university located in New Delhi, India. It was established in 1969 and named after Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first Prime Minister. The university is known for leading faculties and r ...

New Delhi New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament House ...

, from 1974 until his retirement in 2010. He was the vice-chairman of

Kerala State Planning Board The Kerala State Planning Board is an advisory board under the Government of the State of Kerala, India. It was constituted in 1967 with Chief Minister as Chairman and a non-official as part-time Vice-Chairman. The board assists the state gov ...

from June 2006 to May 2011.

Early life and education

Patnaik was born on 19 September 1945 in Jatni,

Odisha Odisha (English: , ), formerly Orissa ( the official name until 2011), is an Indian state located in Eastern India. It is the 8th largest state by area, and the 11th largest by population. The state has the third largest population of ...

. His father was the communist leader and

Member of the Legislative Assembly A member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) is a representative elected by the voters of a constituency to a legislative assembly. Most often, the term refers to a subnational assembly such as that of a state, province, or territory of a country. S ...

(MLA), Prananath Patnaik. Prabhat, after his early schooling in his hometown, studied at the

Daly College The Daly College is a co-educational residential and day boarding school located in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India. It was founded by Sir Henry Daly of the British Indian Army during India's colonial British Raj, following an English public sch ...

Indore Indore () is the largest and most populous Cities in India, city in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. It serves as the headquarters of both Indore District and Indore Division. It is also considered as an education hub of the state and is t ...

on a Government of India Merit Scholarship. He passed his B.A. with Economics Honours from the

St. Stephen's College, Delhi St. Stephen's College is a constituent college of the University of Delhi, widely regarded as one of the oldest and most prestigious colleges for arts and sciences in India. It was established in 1881 by the Cambridge Mission to Delhi. The college ...

, ranking first in the first class. Afterwards, He went to

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

in 1966 on a

Rhodes Scholarship The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom. Established in 1902, it is the oldest graduate scholarship in the world. It is considered among the world' ...

and studied at

Balliol College Balliol College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. One of Oxford's oldest colleges, it was founded around 1263 by John I de Balliol, a landowner from Barnard Castle in County Durham, who provided the f ...

and later at

Nuffield College Nuffield College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. It is a graduate college and specialises in the social sciences, particularly economics, politics and sociology. Nuffield is one of Oxford's newer co ...

. He obtained his

Bachelor of Philosophy Bachelor of Philosophy (BPhil, BPh, or PhB; la, Baccalaureus Philosophiae or ) is the title of an academic degree that usually involves considerable research, either through a thesis or supervised research projects. Unlike many other bachelor's ...

and his

Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common Academic degree, degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields ...

degrees from Oxford.

Career

Patnaik joined the Faculty of Economics and Politics of the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

, UK in 1969 and was elected a fellow of

Clare College, Cambridge Clare College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. The college was founded in 1326 as University Hall, making it the second-oldest surviving college of the University after Peterhouse. It was refounded ...

. In 1974 he returned to India as an associate professor at the newly established Centre for Economic Studies and Planning (CESP) at the

(JNU),

. 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 Sukhamoy Chakravarty (26 July 1934 – 22 August 1990) was an Indian economist who, along with Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis, was a key architect of the Five-Year plans of India. He attended Ballygunge Government High School, Calcutta and Presidenc ...

Chair in Planning and Development at CESP. His specialization is

macroeconomics Macroeconomics (from the Greek prefix ''makro-'' meaning "large" + ''economics'') is a branch of economics dealing with performance, structure, behavior, and decision-making of an economy as a whole. For example, using interest rates, taxes, and ...

and

political economy Political economy is the study of how Macroeconomics, economic systems (e.g. Marketplace, markets and Economy, national economies) and Politics, political systems (e.g. law, Institution, institutions, government) are linked. Widely studied ph ...

, areas in which he has written a number of books and articles. Some of his books includes ''Time, Inflation and Growth'' (1988), ''Economics and Egalitarianism'' (1990), ''Whatever Happened to Imperialism and Other Essays'' (1995), ''Accumulation and Stability Under Capitalism'' (1997), ''The Retreat to Unfreedom'' (2003), ''The Value of Money'' (2008) and ''Re-envisioning Socialism'' (2011). He is the editor of the journal ''

Social Scientist Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of socie ...

''. He is married to a Marxist economist Professor

Utsa Patnaik Utsa Patnaik is an Indian Marxian economist. She taught at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning in the School of Social Sciences at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi, from 1973 until her retirement in 2010. Her husband is t ...

. He served as the vice-chairman of the

from June 2006 to May 2011. He was part of a four-member high-power task force of the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...

(U.N.) to recommend

reform Reform ( lat, reformo) means the improvement or amendment of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory, etc. The use of the word in this way emerges in the late 18th century and is believed to originate from Christopher Wyvill#The Yorkshire Associati ...

measures for the

global financial system The global financial system is the worldwide framework of legal agreements, institutions, and both formal and informal economic actors that together facilitate international flows of financial capital for purposes of investment and trade financ ...

. Chaired by

Joseph Stiglitz Joseph Eugene Stiglitz (; born February 9, 1943) is an American New Keynesian economist, a public policy analyst, and a full professor at Columbia University. He is a recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2001) and the Joh ...

, the other members were

Belgian Belgian may refer to: * Something of, or related to, Belgium * Belgians, people from Belgium or of Belgian descent * Languages of Belgium, languages spoken in Belgium, such as Dutch, French, and German *Ancient Belgian language, an extinct languag ...

sociologist Francois Houtart and

Ecuador Ecuador ( ; ; Quechua: ''Ikwayur''; Shuar: ''Ecuador'' or ''Ekuatur''), officially the Republic of Ecuador ( es, República del Ecuador, which literally translates as "Republic of the Equator"; Quechua: ''Ikwadur Ripuwlika''; Shuar: ''Eku ...

's Minister for Economic Policy Pedro Paez.

Views

Prabhat Patnaik is a staunch

critic A critic is a person who communicates an assessment and an opinion of various forms of creative works such as art, literature, music, cinema, theater, fashion, architecture, and food. Critics may also take as their subject social or governmen ...

of both

neoliberal Neoliberalism (also neo-liberalism) is a term used to signify the late 20th century political reappearance of 19th-century ideas associated with free-market capitalism after it fell into decline following the Second World War. A prominent fa ...

economic policies and

Hindutva Hindutva () is the predominant form of Hindu nationalism in India. The term was formulated as a political ideology by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in 1923. It is used by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), the ...

, and is known as a social scientist of

Marxist–Leninist Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialect ...

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 Indian State.

Honours, awards and international recognition

In 2012, Prabhat was awarded honorary

Doctor of Science Doctor of Science ( la, links=no, Scientiae Doctor), usually abbreviated Sc.D., D.Sc., S.D., or D.S., is an academic research degree awarded in a number of countries throughout the world. In some countries, "Doctor of Science" is the degree used f ...

in Economics from

School of Oriental and African Studies SOAS University of London (; the School of Oriental and African Studies) is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the federal University of London. Founded in 1916, SOAS is located in the Bloomsbury ar ...

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...

. He also delivered the prestigious Prof. Baidyanath Misra Endowment Lecture of the Orissa Economics Association, in 2012.He has been selected for the 2022 Malcom Adiseshiah Award for his contributions to development studies for an outstanding economist.

Books, research papers and journals

Books

* ''Accumulation and Stability under Capitalism'' (1997) (Publisher: Oxford University Press; ) * ''A Theory of Imperialism'' (2016) (Publisher: Columbia University Press; ) * ''The Value of Money'' (2008) (Publisher: Columbia University Press; ) * ''Marx's Capital: An Introductory Reader Essays'' (2011) (Publisher: Leftword Books; ) * ''Lenin and Imperialism: An Appraisal of Theories and Contemporary Reality'' (1986) (Publisher: Stosius Inc/Advent Books Division; ) * ''Re-Envisioning Socialism'' (2011) (Publisher:

Tulika Books Tulika Books is a New Delhi-based independent publisher of scholarly and academic books in the humanities and social sciences, with a "broadly left perspective." The Chennai-based Tulika Publishers is a sister company of Tulika Books. History ...

; ) * ''Excursus in History: Essays on Some Ideas of Irfan Habib (Modern Indian Thinkers)'' (2011) (Publisher: Tulika Books; ) * ''Economics and Egalitarianism'' (1991) (Publisher: Oxford University Press; ) * ''Accumulation and Stability under Capitalism'' (1997) (Publisher: Clarendon Press; ) * ''Retreat to Unfreedom: Essays on the Emerging World Order'' (2003) (Publisher: Tulika Publishers; )

Others

* ''Economic Challenges for the Contemporary World: Essays in Honour of Prabhat Patnaik'' (2016) (Publisher: SAGE Publications Pvt. Ltd; )

References

External links

Home page at JNU

Audio of Prabhat Patnaik on "The State under neo-liberalism" 30 October 2006

* ttps://archive.org/details/BadriSeshadriDr.PrabhatPatnaikonTheGlobalEconomicCrisis/ Audio of Prabhat Patnaik's lecture on "The Global Economic Crisis" 2 December 2008 {{DEFAULTSORT:Patnaik, Prabhat 1945 births Living people Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford Alumni of Nuffield College, Oxford Alumni of the University of Oxford 20th-century Indian economists Indian Marxists Marxian economists St. Stephen's College, Delhi alumni Fellows of Clare College, Cambridge Academics of the University of Cambridge Jawaharlal Nehru University faculty Indian Rhodes Scholars Indian Marxist writers Indian political writers Indian male writers Scientists from Odisha People from Khordha district 21st-century Indian economists 21st-century Indian non-fiction writers 20th-century Indian non-fiction writers Writers from Odisha