> another issue here, though. That's the numbers, quite official, which
> makes me wary of them, partaining to the "doubling of rural living
> standards" and "nationwide GDP per capita quadrupled." ...
More generally, weren't Suharto and his friends at the World Bank found guilty of cooking the Gini coefficient books to make it appear that Indon had achieved growth with equity? I recall this became an issue around mid-1998 when real information emerged to show extraordinary inequality, against the Suharto/WB claims of the previous decade or so. (Don't have a cite...)
> C. Geertz years ago wtote Agriculture Involution, which is the key
> to understanding Indonesia economically. Run by the Dutch who were afraid
> of Brit influence and power, they failed to monetize the economy, i.e.,
That, I've just learned reliably from an Anglo American Corporation executive, is also the secret behind Jonas Savimbi's control of huge swaths of the Angolan countryside, against erstwhile-"marxist" MPLA government attempts to monetise in a variety of ways. Little or no cash circulates in UNITA terrain, my source says.