A WORLD WITHOUT INFLATION 93 No clearer admission can be made by the mouthpiece of British monopoly capital to show that, left to itself, the socialist world is free from inflation; it is from increasing trade with the capitalist world that the socialist countries, if at all, will be faced with the problems of inflation. This knocks the very bottom off the oft-repeated argument of our ruling classes that inflation, like other manifestations of the economic crisis, is a 'global phenomenon9. The expression would be correct only if it is made clear that the 'globe' includes only the capitalist part thereof. It is in this part—in every capitalist country from the most developed, like the United States, West Germany and Japan on the one hand to the least developed like some African countries, with those of medium development including India in the middle—that inflation has been developing in the real sense of the term,| with prices skyrocketing for the most essential commodities of mass consumption, making it impossible for the common people to keep up the level of consumption of essentials like food. It is in this part of the globe that, because of inflation, the purchasing power of the common man is being steadily eroded and whatever savings he kept have disappeared without a trace. A Different Picture It is, furthermore, in this part of the globe that the steady fall in the purchasing power of the common people is inevitably leading to a steady decline in the demand for a large number of commodities and therefore to a fall in their production. This part of the globe thus faces the peculiar phenomenon called 'stagflation5—a combination of stagnation in a sector of the economy and inflation elsewhere. The inevitable consequence is increasing pauperization ofmedium-and small-scale owners of property, larger and larger sections of them being thrown into the labour market and the resultant swelling of the ranks of the unemployed. The situation in the socialist world is the very opposite of all this. This contrast between the capitalist and the socialist worlds, not only in relation to inflation but to every other aspect of the economy, transforms the initially economic problems of inflation into a political problem. For, the very facts admitted by such a self-confessed organ of British big business as The Economist bring1 to the fore the problem of state-political power. No solution offered even by the cleverest experts' in bourgeois policial economy will save the crisis-ridden socio-economic system in the capitalist countries. What is required is a radical restructuring of socio-economic relations which is indissolubly connected with the political process of replacing the present ruling classes by an alternate alliance of classes in the seats of power. It will be worthwhile to recall in this connection that the capitalist world had been faced with a similar crisis over 40 years ago, referred to as the World Economic Crisis of 1929-33. That too was a crisis of the capitalist world, though called a 'World Crisis.9 While the entire capitalist system was going through the most protracted, profound and painful crisis