Now, if the informal sector continues to languish, then that means considerable loss of employment. Likewise, if there is retrenchment of salaried workers, or a wage cut imposed on the mass of workers, whether blue or white collar, then that means loss of income per labour-hour for them. Both these ways entail a reduction in labour income per unit GDP, i.e., an absolute immiserisation of workers in the process of the recovery of GDP from the lockdown-induced abyss. Even as the recovery of the GDP still keeps it below the pre-pandemic level, the average living condition of the working people remain to an even greater extent below the pre-pandemic level. This entails an increase in the rate of surplus value in the process of recovery itself.

operating profits of the corporate sector, as revealed by the performance of 887 non-financial listed companies which account for four-fifths of the total capitalization of all listed non-financial companies. Comparing a quarter to previous year’s corresponding quarter, the RBI’s monthly Bulletin says: “Expenses of these companies...fell faster than sales in the quarter ending September 2020,resulting in a sharp rise in operating profits after two consecutive quarters of contraction”.

The other bit of evidence is the sharp rise in the number of job applicants under the MGNREGS. This number increased by 91.3 per cent in October, which is indicative of the inaccessibility of jobs elsewhere. There has been a reverse migration from the town to the country during the lockdown, and whatever revival is occurring in the economy has not ameliorated the over-crowding of rural job markets arising from this reverse migration. This also lends credence to the suggestion made above that the urban informal sector from which most of these migrants had come is still not witnessing any significant recovery.

If a recovery is nonetheless occurring despite an absolute worsening of the conditions of the working people relative to GDP, the reason for it must be that consumption demand is sustained by borrowing or by using up cash reserves. But this cannot go on for long. The absolute worsening of the condition of workers because of unemployment and reduced incomes, must soon affect consumption demand, and hence aggregate demand. At this point the recovery will come to an end.

Despite repeated pleas by economists and civil society groups, and several political parties, including above all the Left, the Modi government has done nothing to put purchasing power in the hands of the people. The warning that not doing so will scuttle the recovery has fallen on deaf ears. Most of the measures announced in the stimulus packages announced by the government from time to time, including in the latest one, apart from being utterly paltry, address themselves primarily to the task of making life easier for the capitalists. But no matter how easy life is made for them, no matter how great an improvement occurs in the “ease-of-doing-business” index for India, capitalists are not going to invest in this country unless there is an increase in aggregate demand.