FROM THE EDITOR 5 Mitra's article On the other hand the inflation generated by the landlord lobby restricts public investment., as the government cuts back on its expenditure for fear of generating further inflation. Thus both arguments point to monopoly ownership of land as one of the major causes underlying stagnation. However., the limit to state investment is set not only by the ^fear of inflation", but also by two other factors. First, monopoly capital restricts the expansion of the state sector by the pre-emption of capacity. Recent figures on big business houses as shown in table I reveal very high increase rates registered in the value of assets owned during the period 1963-64 to 1975-76. Secondly, the state is unable to mobilize sufficient resources because of its inability, given its class character, to mop up adequate proportions of the surplus of the monopolists and the landlords. Further it fritters away much of the limited resources it is able to mobilize, by subsidizing the private sector through cheap inputs and direct subsidies. K Nagaraj in his study presents similar arguments in explaining the stagnation in the iron and steel industry. The low level of public investment, according to him, has depressed overall growth rate, and steel being an important intermediate input has suffered the same fate. It is evident that the tremendous power concentrated in the hands of the big bourgeois-big landlord combine and its dominating role in the economy underlie the factors behind the stagnation. But the government, instead of attacking landlordism and implementing land reforms and curbing monopoly capital, has sought an alternative in the strategy of export-led growth by collaboration with foreign capital. This has meant generous concessions in the form of relaxation of foreign exchange regulations, repatriation of profits, and easing of import controls All these further restrict the manoeuvrability of the state, gradually closing the doors 10 independent economic development. At'the Expense of Working People Most of the articles in this number have failed to carry out a detailed analysis of what stagnation and crisis have meant for the working class, the peasantry and the fixed-income earners in the cities. The share of wages in the net value added in the factory sector has .been steadily declining as Mitra points out. Another indicator of the deteriorating condition of the working class is the decline in the index number of real earnings for factory workers. On the other hand, factory employment in the five years between. 1965 and 1970 rose by 5.2 per cent — from 4,730,0')0 to 4,977,000,— ap. annual increase of only one per cent. In certain sectors like textiles, employment has in fact declined from 13,30,000 in 1967 to 12, 49,000 in 1970. Despite such trends, the government went in for its so-called anti-inflationary measures which involved a huge withdrawal of purchasing