Skip to main content
Together NHS Rally
Inflation: refusing to pay for it
In the past, the Western ruling class has sought to manage inflation by ensuring that rising prices are not matched by growing salaries — but the global environment and domestic resistance from the organised working class are making this difficult, writes PRABHAT PATNAIK
The fact that inflation is sought to be controlled by squeezing the share of the working class does not mean that the working class was responsible for starting the inflationary process. In fact, the two phenomena have nothing to do with one another.

ECONOMISTS distinguish between two kinds of inflation: “demand-pull” and “cost-push.” Demand-pull inflation is said to occur when there is excess demand in a situation where supply cannot be augmented, because full capacity output has been reached in one or more crucial sectors. Wartime inflation is a classic example.  

In India during the pre-neoliberal, dirigiste period, inflation was often the result of an insufficient grain output relative to demand, arising from a poor harvest.

Cost-push inflation on the other hand occurs when supplies can be augmented, as the economy is nowhere near full capacity in key sectors, but one of the classes tries to raise its share of output, by demanding a higher price for the input it provides, while other classes are unwilling to lower their shares, giving rise to a tug-of-war, which manifests itself through inflation.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
General view of the Job Centre Plus on Benalder St in Glasgow
Economy / 21 March 2026
21 March 2026

PHILIP ENGLISH says military spending will not create the jobs young people need — instead, build an economy based around needs, not profit

INVESTMENT WITHELD: Paternoster Square, City of London, on the right with the columns is the new home of the London Stock Exchange / Pic: gren/CC
Features / 31 January 2026
31 January 2026

If the government really wanted to address public finances, improve living standards and begin economic recovery, it would increase its borrowing for investment, argues MICHAEL BURKE

IN WASHINGTON’S SIGHTS: A man wears shirt with a image of US President Donald Trump during a government-organised rally against foreign interference, in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday October 30 2025
Features / 11 November 2025
11 November 2025

Western nations’ increasingly aggressive stance is not prompted by any increase in security threats against these countries — rather, it is caused by a desire to bring about regime changes against governments that pose a threat to the hegemony of imperialism, writes PRABHAT PATNAIK

THE PAST INFORMS THE FUTURE: People visit the mausoleum for Burkina Faso's revolutionary leader Thomas Sankara in Ouagadougou, inaugurated last Saturday
Features / 23 May 2025
23 May 2025

PRABHAT PATNAIK details the epochal shift of political power from Western neocolonialists to the people