This conversation with Amartya Sen is fascinating for many reasons. But one thing jumped out at me in the context of yesterday's discussion of S&D price theory.

https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev-economics-020520-020136

Sen notes that rising demand for food in India drove up the price, which led to the Bengal famine.

This might seem to validate marginalist price theory, where prices settle at the market-clearing equilibrium of independent supply & demand.

It does nothing of the sort. Sen describes a historical phenomenon and actual demand, which was driven by the presence of several armies on the Indian subcontinent. He is not describing an abstract downward-sloping demand curve.

Actual prices would have been fluctuating wildly as those controlling food charged "what the market will bear." The supply was always local. It would have been artificially constrainted.

At the same time, government officials would have intervened to ensure privileged access for soldiers.

Poor civilians could not afford the food. According to marginalist theory their meagre incomes were due to low marginal contribution to production.

And on the demand side their utility was maximized by spending their income elsewhere.

The brutality of this idea becomes clear when brought to an actual historical event.

Marginalist theory is a recipe for cluelessness not insight.