[lbo-talk] Alex Cockburn on India: wrong? (was, U.N. seeks aid...)

Cseniornyc at aol.com Cseniornyc at aol.com
Tue Aug 9 15:37:54 PDT 2005


Dwayne Moroe writes:Indian reality is a vast, complex and contradictory reality and I don't claim tobe an India expert. But Cockburn is frequently one-sided and his claims are exaggerations." Comment; It seems that Alex Cockburn piece has shocked the neo-lib soul inside Mr. Monroe. However, Mr. Monroe doesn't present statistical evidence that shows Cockburn is "unbalanced" or wrong in his view of India. As a matter of fact, the recent research by Branko Milanovic, a world expert in development economies,using the World Bank data base, shows that income inequality between rural and urban incomes has increased in India for the last 20 years.. . The same result is found if you consider income distribution within the country for both rural and urban individuals. These data and analysis can be found in his latest book "Worlds Apart: Measuring International and Global Inequality" Princeton:2005. Mr Monroe also claims that Cockburn should have been "spending time with Intel engineers and biomed researchers after visiting slums"and distraught farmers?" as if it was a matter of impressionistic comparative visuals. In addition, why interview Intel engineers in India? Why not in Texas,where hey come from? It is interesting to see that some people can't let go of the "new economy" myth and still see IT as a new panacea, a la Thomas Friedman, Truth is IT is in India to propagate low wage production of cheap consumer gadgets for export to the rich west and it employs an infinitesimal amount of the labor force, whose great majority is in the rural fields where it suffers from declining land yields,ignorance, lack of water and disease. Cristobal Senior -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <../attachments/20050809/a724a094/attachment.htm>


More information about the lbo-talk mailing list