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Why China got rich and India didn't

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Re: Why China got rich and India didn't

#71

Post by ifwinterco »

yoavm wrote: post #66
ifwinterco wrote: post #61

This site is very US-centric so people don’t want to hear this, but “democracy” is not necessarily the best form of government for a nation. Obviously in the case of India and China there are other factors at play, but for me this is the elephant in the room

Can you elaborate? What's unique about the nations for which democracy isn't the best form of government? What's unique about their people? And is it still relevant to call the view that democracy _is_ the best form of government a "US-centric" idea, considering that the current US seems to not be concerned about (and sometimes even embrace) non-democratic powers, in-land and around the world? If anything, it sounds…

Other comment addressed which countries are suited to democracy much better than I would have, I agree with that.

On the US: while one could argue the US is becoming less democratic is some sense, Americans remain extremely wedded to the idea of democracy as an ideal or even a panacea. That’s what I mean when I called it a US-centric viewpoint, not all cultures share this idea or at least not to the same extreme extent.

For example I think a lot of Americans were genuinely surprised that “democracy” in Russia in the 1990s failed to produce good outcomes, whereas for others from different backgrounds this was less surprising

Re: Why China got rich and India didn't

#72

Post by adjejmxbdjdn »

The history this article presents is complete nonsense.

India didn’t fight a “war of independence”, but India fought for its independence. Lots of Indians died in that fight for Independence.

This article also ignores the massive transfer of wealth, and resources from India to the UK during WW2 (and before).

And the author seems to forget entirely about the existence of Pakistan with which India fought multiple wars, engaged in a war to liberate Bangladesh, and also has been in a state of essentially a Cold War ever since.

History would have liked very different if the Indian government had not kicked out US companies and nationalized them while they were looking for cheaper manufacturing destinations. So they chose China instead, brought a tremendous amount of knowledge and expertise.

The differing geopolitical starting points of India and China is most evident by the fact that China is a permanent member of the UN Security Council while India isn’t.

In reality, someone who was actually in 1950 and not someone who was pretending to be in 1950, would not have expected India to survive another 75 years, never mind compete with China.

Re: Why China got rich and India didn't

#73

Post by rayiner »

adjejmxbdjdn wrote: post #72

The history this article presents is complete nonsense. India didn’t fight a “war of independence”, but India fought for its independence. Lots of Indians died in that fight for Independence. This article also ignores the massive transfer of wealth, and resources from India to the UK during WW2 (and before). And the author seems to forget entirely about the existence of Pakistan with which India fought multiple wars,…

You’re ignoring the most important point. India had a larger per capita GDP than China until the 1990s. As the article points out, China’s median income was lower than India’s until 2000. All those historical things you mention about India happened before that time period and were already baked into the numbers as of 1990-2000.

Those numbers also show why the “wealth transfer from India” is mostly fake. India and China were both at a subsistence level. There was no meaningful wealth to transfer.

Re: Why China got rich and India didn't

#74

Post by rayiner »

yoavm wrote: post #66
ifwinterco wrote: post #61

This site is very US-centric so people don’t want to hear this, but “democracy” is not necessarily the best form of government for a nation. Obviously in the case of India and China there are other factors at play, but for me this is the elephant in the room

Can you elaborate? What's unique about the nations for which democracy isn't the best form of government? What's unique about their people? And is it still relevant to call the view that democracy _is_ the best form of government a "US-centric" idea, considering that the current US seems to not be concerned about (and sometimes even embrace) non-democratic powers, in-land and around the world? If anything, it sounds…

> What's unique about the nations for which democracy isn't the best form of government? What's unique about their people?

It’s the other way around. Countries that are well suited to democracy are the exception. You need to have a state, rule of law, etc., before you have democracy. Then you need generations of people socialized in the ideas that allow democratic societies to function. For example, in many places in the world, people are socialized to put their trust in leaders of extended kinship groups and clans rather than in neutral institutions. You can’t effectively have a democracy under those conditions.

On all those fronts, Americans were standing on the shoulders of giants. England has offices of civil government (like the Chancellor of the Exchequer) that have been in continuous operation for over 800 years. Many of the concepts of the constitution date back to the Magna Carta 800 years ago. There’s also the non-religious aspects of religion. Protestants were developing decentralized church governance 500 years ago. American democracy is the product of an 800-year long process where you’re slowly and incrementally molding the structure of society and the mindset of the people generation after generation.

Read De Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America,” where he describes the organic, bottom-up self governance that prevailed in America 150 years ago. That description bears no response to how an Indian or Iraqi village is governed. Those societies, like most, are structured and hierarchical. An individual owes obedience to the layers above (father, clan or tribe elders, all the way to the top). And those at the top have obligations flowing downward, to care and feed their subjects and maintain order. These societies are much better suited for benevolent dictatorships.

Re: Why China got rich and India didn't

#75

Post by yoavm »

gwerbret wrote: post #68
yoavm wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate? What's unique about the nations for which democracy isn't the best form of government? What's unique about their people? And is it still relevant to call the view that democracy _is_ the best form of government a "US-centric" idea, considering that the current US seems to not be concerned about (and sometimes even embrace) non-democratic powers, in-land and around the world? If anything, it sounds…

> Can you elaborate? What's unique about the nations for which democracy isn't the best form of government? What's unique about their people? Not the person you responded to, but functional democracies require either an already-established functioning government, which can be efficiently perpetuated and controlled by elected leaders (think the United Kingdom); or a non-functioning government which can be effectively…

Thanks, I very much agree with your points. I do however think it sounds very different to say "democracy has some prerequisites" and "democracy is not necessarily the best form of government for a nation. One can still think it's the best form (that we know of?) for all nations, albeit the path there isn't a one-step path.

Re: Why China got rich and India didn't

#76

Post by [deleted] »

rayiner wrote: post #27
api wrote: post #11

It’s been kind of obvious to me that China did it by copying what America was doing from the post Civil War era until we abandoned the formula in the 1970s. China calls it “iron and salt” I think. The state makes very large investments in infrastructure and helps build huge globally competitive conglomerates in strategic and bedrock industries. The state builds the “iron.” Then it allows the free market to do the “sa…

I agree. It’s worth remembering that the Lincoln GOP was an interventionist party. That history was retconned by the Reagan GOP.

[deleted]

Re: Why China got rich and India didn't

#77

Post by maxglute »

Important to caveat, large cohorts of China got relatively rich... there's still 100s of millions predominantly old who got left behind by modernization. Because countries with pop size of PRC (and India) can specialize in EVERY sector category and still not have enough opportunities to uplift everyone. Where PRC dodged bullet is family planning, i.e. averting 100s of millions of births, but that's 100s of millions additional poor averted, and because poor bias overwhelmingly old and un/der educated, they will die and PRC per capita will converge towards urban high income, i.e. PRC entering high income is mechanically/mathematically determined. Obviously demographics may be issue later, but PRC figured out how to be rich, even if slightly after being old.

India (who also tried family planning) utterly fucked in this regard, i.e. trending towards 1.8B people, ignoring all the things PRC did that India didn't. PRC 1.4b trending towards 400m old/poor vs 1000m young/rich. Indian trending towards 1400m old/young poor, 400m young/rich. Can't craw out of per capital poverty with that composition, not within this century, and also very different configuration of constituents to govern, i.e. volatility is going to go way up when more than half of country is young and poor... worse if young educated and poor.

As for why. Democracy sucks at development.

Not a single >10m country has gone from developing to reasonably developed on democratic system. The few If you're a poor country, hope you have competent authoritarian leadership, bandwagon with hegemons (or rather do not trigger ire of hegemons) or do not get on bad side of hegemon, do some land reforms, sort out your problematic minorities, break eggs before they become problems. It will be bloody but it may pay off, alternative is generations trapped in poverty that accumulates more averted deaths than if you just slapped country into shape in the first place. Don't fall for democratic promotion = aka political elite capture, that will also happen under incompetent autocrats but will 100% happen in democratic system.

Re: Why China got rich and India didn't

#78

Post by oa335 »

rayiner wrote: post #73
adjejmxbdjdn wrote: post #72

The history this article presents is complete nonsense. India didn’t fight a “war of independence”, but India fought for its independence. Lots of Indians died in that fight for Independence. This article also ignores the massive transfer of wealth, and resources from India to the UK during WW2 (and before). And the author seems to forget entirely about the existence of Pakistan with which India fought multiple wars,…

You’re ignoring the most important point. India had a larger per capita GDP than China until the 1990s. As the article points out, China’s median income was lower than India’s until 2000. All those historical things you mention about India happened before that time period and were already baked into the numbers as of 1990-2000. Those numbers also show why the “wealth transfer from India” is mostly fake. India and Chi…

> Those numbers also show why the “wealth transfer from India” is mostly fake. India and China were both at a subsistence level. There was no meaningful wealth to transfer.

Can you expand? What was the EIC doing in India?

Re: Why China got rich and India didn't

#79

Post by rayiner »

oa335 wrote: post #78
rayiner wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re ignoring the most important point. India had a larger per capita GDP than China until the 1990s. As the article points out, China’s median income was lower than India’s until 2000. All those historical things you mention about India happened before that time period and were already baked into the numbers as of 1990-2000. Those numbers also show why the “wealth transfer from India” is mostly fake. India and Chi…

> Those numbers also show why the “wealth transfer from India” is mostly fake. India and China were both at a subsistence level. There was no meaningful wealth to transfer. Can you expand? What was the EIC doing in India?

“Wealth transfer” implies that there’s a pile of money in one place that’s moved to another place. That’s not what happened with India. At first, the EIC was a very profitable middleman. It was like Ticketmaster—it made a profit on a trade monopoly between Indian producers and European customers. The nature of middlemen monopolists is that they get rich through a tax on value creating transactions. But they don’t represent a transfer of wealth from one country to the other.

Say a shipment of tea is worth 100 pounds in India, but 400 pounds to the British. EIC has a monopoly on the transaction. They pay the Indian producer slightly over 100 pounds, and charge the British consumer slightly below 400 pounds. They collect the surplus of 300 pounds. But money isn’t being taken from India! Instead, India’s loss is the lost opportunity to get an higher price for their goods. But British consumers also lost—they were overcharged. The EIC captured the value created by the Britain-India transaction.

When the EIC became a government, they got into the business of wealth extraction. They usurped the Mughals prerogative to levy taxes. But this wasn’t profitable! Within less than 20 years of the Battle of Plessay, the East India Company was in dire financial straights. It couldn’t make royalty payments to England and owed large sums of money to the Bank of England. That’s what precipitated the government takeover of the EIC.

Re: Why China got rich and India didn't

#80

Post by _DeadFred_ »

esjeon wrote: post #50

I think the caste system is what’s hampering social and economic progress in India (or at least partially). It’s a sort of game theory stuff here. A structured class hierarchy makes it inherently more difficult for individuals to challenge the authority in power, even under the democratic government. The system imposes an additional risk of social backlash/punishment/retaliation for anyone who attempts to disrupt the…

Isn't China's hukou a class/caste system?
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