>What are these exceptions in East Asia? China is 50 years behind
>India in its political structures.It's not even a liberal democracy.
I was speaking in purely economic terms. And you know the exceptions - Japan, S Korea, etc. China too, but it's got a long way to go.
> >So it's kind of remarkable that the comparison between the
>USSR >and the West is even made. Substitute Brazil or
>>India for the USSR and see how funny it sounds.
>
>The combined population of Britain, France, Germany, US and Japan
>was less than 150 million in 1850. India's development in 1950
>started with 400 million people.
Not sure what your point is here - the 400m made development more difficult? India's experience should have more weight when generalizing? Something else?
By the way, here are Angus Maddison's stats on per capital GDP as a percent of U.S. levels in several important years (mostly breakpoints in his periodizing).
Doug
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PER CAPITA GDP, PERDENT OF US (constant PPP dollars)
Japan Germany Mexico Russia S Korea China India 1820 53.2% 84.2% 60.4% 54.8% 47.7% 42.4% 1870 30.1% 74.5% 27.6% 38.6% 21.7% 21.8% 1913 26.2% 68.8% 32.7% 28.1% 16.8% 10.4% 12.7% 1950 20.1% 40.6% 24.7% 29.6% 8.1% 4.6% 6.5% 1973 68.5% 71.7% 29.0% 36.3% 17.0% 5.0% 5.1% 1990 80.9% 68.6% 26.3% 29.6% 37.5% 8.0% 5.6% 1998 74.7% 65.1% 24.3% 14.2% 44.5% 11.4% 6.4%