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How Kerala got rich

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Re: How Kerala got rich

#131

Post by trompetenaccoun »

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.

Have you read the Communist Manifesto? It also makes Communism sound like a good idea. Nevermind that Kerala doesn't have a particularly high GDP per capita even by southern Indian standards. It's not rich by any rational measure, not in median income or otherwise. There is a lot of poverty, slightly better compared to some of the northern states but then South India in general does a bit better than the north so there isn't anything particularly noteworthy.

Btw, for some historic context this part of India used to be extremely rich in the past by global standards, centuries ago. They became rich with international trade. Modern India is nowhere close to its wealthy past, the subcontinent as a whole produced the largest percentage of the world's GDP during Late Antiquity, surpassing China and all others!

Re: How Kerala got rich

#132

Post by decimalenough »

rdedev wrote: post #110
rakejake wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article is co-written by a member of Kerala's Planning Board and heavily oversells the state. I'd say Kerala is nowhere near rich so even the title is technically incorrect.

When COVID was spreading around china the state govt was putting out public announcements about this disease and what symptoms to watch out for. I remember that even in the month of Feb 2020 there were public announcements in train stations. There is a lot of emphasis on education and health in the state. Granted it may not be rich as other states but it leads other states in a lot of other markers

Kerala is rich by Indian standards, but its GDP per capital is still only around $3500/year, making it nowhere near rich by world standards.

Re: How Kerala got rich

#133

Post by ryoshoe »

zozbot234 wrote: post #119
RUnconcerned wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, when literal communists run your government, you become China-rich, as OP put it. Contrast China's economic development with that of India's post 1950.

China is the best case, yes. But "literal communists" also ran Cambodia, North Korea, Cuba etc. Not so good!

Haiti is capitalist but people don't use it an example for capitalism as a whole. More important than a stated ideology is whether a government is corrupt

Re: How Kerala got rich

#134

Post by trompetenaccoun »

rdedev wrote: post #110
rakejake wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article is co-written by a member of Kerala's Planning Board and heavily oversells the state. I'd say Kerala is nowhere near rich so even the title is technically incorrect.

When COVID was spreading around china the state govt was putting out public announcements about this disease and what symptoms to watch out for. I remember that even in the month of Feb 2020 there were public announcements in train stations. There is a lot of emphasis on education and health in the state. Granted it may not be rich as other states but it leads other states in a lot of other markers

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.

Re: How Kerala got rich

#135

Post by TulliusCicero »

zozbot234 wrote: post #123
satvikpendem wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compare the policies and results of Deng to Mao, the latter is more "literally communist." Their embracing of capitalist principles is what enabled their boom, same with Vietnam with their Đổi Mới policies.

Deng famously said "white cat, black cat, as long as it catches mice it's a good cat". His policy choices were not driven by 'embracing' of any principles but pure pragmatism.

It's hilarious how uncomfortable certain internet posters are about getting the specific of what policies Deng embraced to get that economic growth.

They know exactly what it is, but they don't wanna say it out loud.

Re: How Kerala got rich

#136

Post by rdedev »

trompetenaccoun wrote: post #134
rdedev wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When COVID was spreading around china the state govt was putting out public announcements about this disease and what symptoms to watch out for. I remember that even in the month of Feb 2020 there were public announcements in train stations. There is a lot of emphasis on education and health in the state. Granted it may not be rich as other states but it leads other states in a lot of other markers

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

Re: How Kerala got rich

#137

Post by sva_ »

2511 wrote: post #18
xnx wrote: post #7

Doesn't a Kerala temple contain in excess of $22 billion worth of gold?

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?

Re: How Kerala got rich

#138

Post by miohtama »

benced wrote: post #61

Kerala has extremely aggressive out-migration (including my entire family): it is a bad place to be ambitious, particularly with the France-like union culture. If India is to become China-rich or Mexico-rich, my prediction is Kerala will regress to the mean of India states. Its model seems geared towards being an extremely good place to be poor (which is a huge achievement to be clear: they dealt with COVID better th…

Kerala is Finland of India.

Re: How Kerala got rich

#139

Post by RobotToaster »

zozbot234 wrote: post #119
RUnconcerned wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, when literal communists run your government, you become China-rich, as OP put it. Contrast China's economic development with that of India's post 1950.

China is the best case, yes. But "literal communists" also ran Cambodia, North Korea, Cuba etc. Not so good!

Cuba is doing pretty well for a country under one of the biggest and longest blockades in history.

Re: How Kerala got rich

#140

Post by spyckie2 »

benced wrote: post #61

Kerala has extremely aggressive out-migration (including my entire family): it is a bad place to be ambitious, particularly with the France-like union culture. If India is to become China-rich or Mexico-rich, my prediction is Kerala will regress to the mean of India states. Its model seems geared towards being an extremely good place to be poor (which is a huge achievement to be clear: they dealt with COVID better th…

I noticed this in Taiwan between 2018-2020 when I was staying there. A highly educated population but with little to no opportunities. Most of very ambitious talent found jobs in China or Singapore.

A strong business environment, or strong investment opportunities, or a large consumer base is very much needed to have attractive jobs. A strongly educated workforce does little to enable such an environment. Intuitively, it is just very hard to make money off of a small, low income population, and it is even harder to export services built for a local market to a non local market. So the ambitious talent just find opportunities elsewhere.

It also depends how hard it is to migrate out of the region. If there are strong family ties and good standard of living, you'd be surprised at how much talent is willing to stay.

Interestingly enough, Taiwan in 2024/2025 has seen huge growth in wages, for many reasons, but the biggest IMO being the highly educated workforce.

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