> But is it true that much of Kerala's
> human development has actually been purchased by sending a large portion
> of the population abroad to work horrific jobs in the Persian Gulf?
It isn't true, and many of those jobs aren't that horrific, compared to the excruciating grind of peasant labor. I'm no India expert, but I do know Kerala had much better social indicators even before the expatriate boom. The south and coasts of India were always more developed than the interior, had more sophisticated trading networks and mercantile economies, etc. As for why India is poor: 350 years of godawful British imperialism.
> [NY Times article] The debate about Kerala
> is a debate about future strategies across the impoverished world.
Realistically, the global periphery has to find ways of rising up against global neoliberalism and local comprador elites, and joining with the developmental states of China, Vietnam, Russia and Venezuela. The Times isn't about to say this, of course.
> [NY Times article] The $5 billion that foreign workers send home augment
the
> state's economic output by nearly 25 percent.
This is true of most peripheral nations, from the Philippines to El Salvador, and from Senegal to Pakistan. Central Asians work in Moscow, Central Americans work in New York City. The workers of the world are moving to places where, potentially, they could unite.
-- DRR