Growth and Equity

Growth and Equity: A Critique of the Lewis-Kuznets Tradition by Anindya Datta; Oxford University Press, Calcutta, 1986; pp xii + 119, Rs 110.
A REACTIONARY radical is one who favours an improvement in the condition of the poor provided it is at the expense of the rich, and who opposes all practical economic changes since they could conceivably worsen the condition of some poor. A common reactionary radical line of argument goes as follows: the Indian economy is constrained by demand; redistribution would stimulate the demand for food and raise the growth rate. This argument has been expounded so often in the pages of EPW that its readers are not likely to jump for joy at another statement of it. This book is such a statement