The Poverty of Imagination: Mainstream Economics and Our Unending Economic Crisis

A dialogue between Aasim Sajjad Akhtar & Aqdas Afzal

Over the past few months, Pakistan’s dire economic situation has garnered considerable attention in the political, media and intellectual mainstream. Back-breaking inflation, record unemployment and a plunging rupee have been accompanied by desperation to acquire more loans from external creditors, most notably the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

After many months, the IMF’s decision to lend Pakistan a paltry US$3 billion – total external debt is more than US$120 billion – was met with widespread jubilation. There has been almost no introspection about the conditionalities attached to IMF money, or the deeply entrenched political-economic structures that keep the Pakistani state indebted, and society badly divided along class, ethnic-national and gendered lines.

All mainstream parties and the military establishment are more interested in taking and holding on to power rather than resolving the deep structural issues that afflict Pakistan’s economy, and, therefore, its youthful masses. Indeed, economic woes are borne by workers, peasants, women, ethnic and religious minorities – not by ruling class landlords, real estate moguls, generals, judges, big industrialists, traders, and, global creditors/investors.

How do we devise an economic programme that speaks to the needs of the working masses beyond the poverty of imagination of mainstream economics? Join us for this conversation between two heterodox economic thinkers, Dr. Aasim Sajjad and Dr. Aqdas Afzal.