China's path over the last 20 years has been mostly capitalist, and it has generated one of the most stunning growth performances in history. Violent, unequal, and ecologically destructive, but quite a success on its own terms. China has been able to do this in part because it's a very big country in a very strong bargaining position to set its own economic policy. On the face of it, India should be similarly situated. Why hasn't it performed similarly?
Doug
John Mage wrote:
> >> uvj at vsnl.com wrote:
>>>
>>> India's share in the world trade less than 1%.(It's probably 0.50%
>>> of the world trade) How does India contribute significantly to "the
>>> First world's" prosperity? How does "the First World" contributes
>>> significantly to India's poverty?
>>
>> Excellent questions. I'd really like to hear some good answers from
>> the partisans of the view that it does, but they've been scarce so
>> far.
>>
>> Doug
>
>As it happens, an Indian friend who is a professor of economics has been
>staying by me and is leaving for JFK to return to Delhi in the next few
>minutes. While waiting in my apartment for the car I mentioned this
>interchange to him. He laughed, and said "what part of India's poverty
>has NOT been 'significantly contributed' by imperialism ?" - and I asked
>him to set out the ABCs. What follows is his, but his condition is that
>this is a one-off and not an ongoing conversation since he has quite a
>bit to do on his return. The assumption of course, which I know at least
>that Doug shares, is that it is foolish to say that there was once
>history, but now there isn't any.
>
>john mage
>
>"While it is true that India's _merchandise_ exports to world
>_merchandise_ exports is around 0.7%, in order to search for an answer
>to the question posed, we suggest an approach that views the _present_
>as history. India's international political-economic relations can be
>characterised by at least 5 stages. The colonial period (1757-1947),
>comprising the mercantile period (1757-1810), the competitive industrial
>phase (1810-1870s), and the monopoly phase (1870s - 1913; 1919-1939 and
>the two war periods) and the post-independence period in two phases,
>1947-1991, and 1991 to the present. The mercantile period was of
>colonial plunder, the competitive industrial phase was of
>deindustrialisation, the monopoly phase was of imperialism, and the
>post-independence phase of neo-imperialism, together "contributing
>significantly" to the structures of underdevelopment and poverty in
>India today. The present (1991-2003) is a period wherein FDI [Foreign
>Direct Investment] and FPI [Foreign Portfolio Investment], especially
>the latter, have constrained macroeconomic policy including fiscal policy
>to weaken industrial growth rates since 1996-1997. For India the path of
>independent capitalist development that enabled Japan's ruling classes
>to end poverty in that country, let alone any more sophisticated version
>of the paths taken by the Soviet Union or China that reduced poverty in
>those countries, are effectively blocked today by "the First World".
>
>
>
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