The annual rate of increase in commodity prices, as measured by the official index, reached close to 8 percent in early May. Prices of food items are rising much faster, wheat having risen by more than 30 percent. The actual rate of price rise is higher than what the official index shows.

As millions of working people worry about how they will feed their families, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is calling for patience. He says we cannot expect the government to have some magic solution to control prices.

If prices are rising due to some natural or super-natural reason, we can accept the Prime Minister’s statement.  However, prices are the result of what human beings do, and can therefore be controlled by human effort. Why then is he talking of magic?

On 17th May, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is reported to have said that if inflation were the only problem then it would have been easy.  He said, “We want to control inflation without hurting the rhythm of growth, which is moving forward at 8 to 9 percent in the last four years.” (Hindustan Times, 18 May, 2008). He added that it was a delicate balance and would take time.

Capitalist growth leads to accumulation of wealth at one pole and impoverisation of working people at the other. At the present time, the efforts of the big capitalists to keep pocketing maximum profits in spite of economic crisis is the main reason why food prices are rising rapidly in India and rest of the world, The Manmohan Singh government’s first priority is to make sure that the profits of the big business houses of India and foreign investors continue to rise rapidly. 

If the Government of India was committed to provide prosperity and protection to all Indians, then it would take measures against the capitalist class, to stop them from pocketing profits at the expense of the people. It will not need any magic to control prices in that case. However, the truth is that the Government of India is committed to serve the capitalist class, and especially the big banks and monopoly corporations. This is the reason why Manmohan Singh is talking about magic, and about the need for a “delicate balance”.

We cannot and must not believe the bourgeois lie that it is possible to strike a balance between the greed of big capital and the well-being of the working class. Capitalist greed is responsible for the rising prices. Either the economy is oriented towards fulfilling the greed of big capital, or it is oriented towards ensuring well-being of the toiling masses. The solution is for the working class to lead all the toiling people to establish a worker peasant government that will reorient the economy to ensure well-being of the masses of people.