Search results

What are the most important cleavages created by political struggles over redistributive economic policies? What are the likely policy outcomes of these struggles? The classic answer to the first question is that the most important cleavage is that of class, dividing rich and poor. The class-based model is usually not taken to yield clear predictions about outcomes, because rich and poor would be expected to engage in an inconclusive bidding war for the support of the median voter or pivotal middle stratum. A more recent answer is that the most important cleavages will reflect the position of a given country in the international economy, pitting those benefiting from international trade against those hurt by it. This trade-based model yields stronger predictions about outcomes, since there is usually a clear majority that either does or does not benefit from international trade. Finally, there is a long, though loose, tradition that largely grows out of empirical observation. This emphasizes the pivotal role that the agricultural population appears to play in the more important political battles concerning institutional development and economic policy.

Like all great cities, Calcutta has its share of catty rumors, many of which are about Calcuttans themselves. One of these runs as follows: Nirad C. Chaudhuri (1897–1999), the noted Bengali Anglophile and man of letters, visited England for the first time sometime in the late 1950s. Out on the streets of London, Niradbabu started navigating his cab like a veteran Londoner. What the driver found incongruous was the fact that Niradbabu mentioned some landmarks which no longer existed. It was explained to him that these had either been demolished or bombed during the War. Now, how did he know about the city so well without ever setting foot in England? By his own admission, he was brought up to consume England as an ever-present entity, "very much like the sky above our head," in his remote ancestral East Bengal village, largely through books, pictures, and newspapers.