Friday 16th April, 2021Former Finance Minister and newsmaker, Ronnie de Mel, has attracted media attention, again, at the age of 96. Capitalism has been in crisis; this situation is mostly due to the fact that the capitalist state has to carry out two mutually contradictory functions—accumulation and legitimisation. Hence attempts by the capitalist state to give its policies a socialist flavour with social welfare and pro-poor schemes. (The JRJ government went so far as to call this country a ‘Democratic Socialist Republic’, in the Constitution it introduced. It is against this backdrop that former Finance Minister de Mel’s aforesaid advice to the Opposition leader should be viewed.

Source: The Nation April 17, 2021 01:08 UTC