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How Kerala got rich

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Re: How Kerala got rich

#191

Post by momojo »

hammock wrote: post #182
fakedang wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bangalore today is a shadow compared to the Garden City it once was. For outsiders not in the know, Bangalore was famous for its beautiful lakes and the lush greenery around them. It was absolutely something else, finding these beautiful water bodies smack in the middle of what is supposed to be a major city. The weather was cool, almost like a warm European summer (which is extremely cool by Indian standards). Then…

I had no idea and thank you for sharing. Why did it fall apart?

Source: Grad student from Bengalaru I got lunch with.

It became India's Silicon Valley. Acecnture. Infosys. Western IT money came pouring in and never stopped.

https://www.businessinsider.com/india-silicon-valley-bengalu...

Re: How Kerala got rich

#192

Post by jyounker »

moomin wrote: post #97
Der_Einzige wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what happens when literal communists run your government.

Honestly, reading this article, it's not making Kerala-style communism sound bad. What's more, they appear to have pivoted when they'd achieved their aims into making people richer. It's a classic "invest, then profit" story, only for an entire state.

Portugal also has a similarly active communist party. I think what distinguishes Portugal and Kerala's communist parties from other communist parties is that they were (and are) first, and foremost, democrats.

A capitalist dictatorship will be every bit as horrible as a communist dictatorship.

Re: How Kerala got rich

#193

Post by skavi »

momojo wrote: post #191
hammock wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had no idea and thank you for sharing. Why did it fall apart?

Source: Grad student from Bengalaru I got lunch with. It became India's Silicon Valley. Acecnture. Infosys. Western IT money came pouring in and never stopped. https://www.businessinsider.com/india-silicon-valley-bengalu...

Fittingly, I’ve heard [0] a similar transformation happened to Silicon Valley itself. Apparently it used to be a bunch of orchards.

[0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/bayarea/comments/10672gn/til_before...

Re: How Kerala got rich

#194

Post by eunos »

NoelJacob wrote: post #181
zozbot234 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dirty little secret is that mom-and-pop stores are extremely inefficient compared to big chain businesses. A big business is also a lot more likely to actually pay taxes to the government, and it still manages to beat the mom-and-pop store on efficiency even after accounting for that!

Yes, they are efficient, obviously as economies of scale. Add in consulting and quants and they'll rise in profitability. But the problem is decision making power lies in hands of select few. When you are a too large a corporate, you basically have no oversight over how much you can optimize in exchange for ill social effects. All corporates had humble beginnings, and over time hyper optimization for profits creep in…

Mom and Pop shops likely won't invest in softwares for inventory or payrolls or analytics but big chains will. That means the more big chain markets swallowing mom and pop shops more capitals invested for software and other tertiary services. This boost GDP

Re: How Kerala got rich

#195

Post by trompetenaccoun »

rdedev wrote: post #136
trompetenaccoun wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That may be but the topic of the thread is how rich Kerala supposedly is, not how super awesome their public train announcements are. The claim is not just false, the article is outright propaganda given how one of the co-authors works for the state government.

I guess my main point is that a communist type govt was not exclusively bad for Kerala since they took a lot of effort to improve education and public health. You can look at other sources to see how good kerala is doing wrt other states but I do agree the article over emphasised the good parts without any hint to it's bad parts

To be clear I'm not saying Kerala is particularly bad by regional standards, it's not. But compare Kerala and India as a whole with other parts of Asia, they're not doing well. Look at China vs India in the 1970s vs 50 years later. Compare India/Kerala and Thailand in the same time frame. Kerala and Korea, etc etc. South Asia as a whole is doing worse than many other parts of Asia. Kerala government excels at what many socialist governments are good at: Praising themselves. In reality is has made little difference.

India has a lot of other issues, I grant you that the socialist ideology probably had a positive influence in some ways other than economics, particularly socially. But no offense, if you've ever walked the streets Trivandrum and other cities you know there are much more pressing issues.

Re: How Kerala got rich

#196

Post by kelipso »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #183
guerrilla wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lieracy surveys aren't as rigorous; likely 5% to 20% drop from reported numbers: https://www.dataforindia.com/measuring-literacy/ This is very well studied in sociology and anthropology and has been for many decades. Kerala is a major case study in many fields because of this.

To add to this: the most recent "96.2% literacy" estimate is based on a 2017 survey (not the 2011 census) where they interviewed a little over 2500 households in Kerala, though there are 7.7 million households there. I'm not a statistician, but this feels like too small of a sample size to make a definitive estimation. In addition, other states got very close to that literacy rate, but are probably managed quite diff…

Most of the literacy education efforts started in the 1800s in Kerala. For example,

> Education in Kerala has deep historical roots, dating back to the rule of local dynasties and the influence of colonial missionaries. The rulers of Travancore and Cochin played a crucial role in establishing schools and promoting learning, especially among marginalized communities. The British and Christian missionaries also made significant contributions by setting up institutions that emphasized modern education.

> In 1817, the Travancore government issued a royal decree stating that education should be provided to all, including women and lower castes. By the early 20th century, Kerala had already built a strong foundation for literacy, ensuring that access to education was widespread.

https://livekerala.com/blog/how-kerala-became-indias-most-li...

Re: How Kerala got rich

#197

Post by anon291 »

sva_ wrote: post #137
2511 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you are correct. Padmanabhan temple apparently has gold worth 22 billion dollars. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Padmanabhaswamy_Temple_treas...

That's crazy, I wonder what led people to 'donate'. Something like monetary indulgence as has been carried out by the catholic church?

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Padmanabhaswamy_Temple_treasur...:

> The valuables have been accumulated in the temple over several thousand years, having been donated to the Deity, and subsequently stored in the Temple, by various Dynasties, such as the Cheras, the Pandyas, the Travancore royal family, the Kolathiris, the Pallavas, the Cholas, and many other Kings of both South India and beyond.[10][11][12][13][14][15][16] Most scholars believe that this was accumulated over thousands of years

Remember that most Roman gold ended up in India. India was the main far East recipient and trading partner of Rome, not China (trade with China was mediated by Indian kingdoms). And that was one empire with which South India traded. It's unfortunate that a lot of narratives about India are driven by the North. The South is way more interesting, in my opinion (I'm biased).

Re: How Kerala got rich

#198

Post by anon291 »

kdin wrote: post #165

The key question one should ask is where the money came from? The answer is Keralites moved out of the state for work and sent back most of their earnings. What is useful is if Kerala is able to encourage home built businesses that brought in the money while keeping the Keralites inside.

> The valuables have been accumulated in the temple over several thousand years, having been donated to the Deity, and subsequently stored in the Temple, by various Dynasties, such as the Cheras, the Pandyas, the Travancore royal family, the Kolathiris, the Pallavas, the Cholas, and many other Kings of both South India and beyond.[10][11][12][13][14][15][16] Most scholars believe that this was accumulated over thousands of years

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Padmanabhaswamy_Temple_treasur...

People have a really hard time understanding inflation and time, but, anything that's lasted this long is going to be wealthy.

Re: How Kerala got rich

#200

Post by goku12 »

__rito__ wrote: post #64

Kerala is a very empty place. People emigrate parmanently or stay outside for decades. Elderlies live on their own. Schools and home remain empty. It is just intuitively sad. One should read this interesting piece- "Kerala: A ghost town in the world's most populated country" [0]. Many laborers from my state- West Bengal travel to ameliorate the labor shortage of Kerala. Because their laborers are in the Gulf. The uns…

I wasn't planning to respond to this topic, since I'm a Keralite living and earning in Kerala. But this seems a little odd:

> Kerala is a very empty place. People emigrate parmanently or stay outside for decades. Elderlies live on their own. Schools and home remain empty. It is just intuitively sad. One should read this interesting piece...

I'm writing this from my home here in Kerala. Empty is not how I would describe the place. It's very crowded around here compared just a decade here. My house was surrounded by farm land from 3 sides. Now it's all houses in close proximity. Even remote places were developed into commercial or residential areas. The biggest indicator is that the road traffic is way more than what it was 15 years ago. Schools aren't that empty either - my own sister is a teacher. Job situation isn't that great - in line with the global situation, but the private sector has been growing fast in the past few years - driven especially by a startup boom. We do have problems with some anti-corporate sentiments like 'nokku-kooli' (supervision fees). But it seems to be less of a problem to businesses these days. (Not sure what happened. There is less news about it too)

To add in more context, I lived in a western country for several years before returning to take up a job with a decent pay. I can't say that Kerala is too bad in comparison, considering the cost of living and the general law and order situation.

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