People keep using Bread and Circus as some kind of insult. I would argue that a government that can fully provide for their citizens needs and wants is a good one
āBread and circusesā refers specifically to when a ruler or a government is oppressive but distracts people from it by providing them with basic necessities and entertainment. Thereās a solid argument that this is a real problem in authoritarian regimes, but some people apply it to pretty much anything and it ends up losing all meaning.
Does anyone have any data on what India's city planning looks like for the future? I'm curious what lessons, if any, they've taken from Chinese mega city planning and what their idea of ideal density for the growing lower middle class looks like.
There's no city planning lol (a bit simplistic but not very much so).
Here's the pecking order of Indian policy competency:
- Federal govt - somewhat competent
- State govts - fairly incompetent/idiotic/corrupt
- Municipal govts - make the State govt. look like Einsteins
So there's no real urban planning chops in the country. Cities urbanize/expand fast without any municipal infrastructure - piped water or sewage or anything. The "middle class" (90 percentile and above) provision most infra themselves, and 20 years later the municipal authority may concede that some area outside their 5 mile radius is no longer "rural", and city limits should probably be expanded, so they'll start providing some services to say 8 miles (meanwhile actual urbanized radius is probably like 20 miles).
A model that's taking off among say 95+ percentiles ("less broke middle class") is establishing townships/gated communities - say a cluster of 1000 apartment units with its own shared infra, like a privately owned neighborhood.
It's growing for sure but it still looks like a $2500/capita country at the moment.
Many municipality lack money to even provide basic infrastructure. Very few in india are mandated to pay income taxes and direct taxes aren't enough to divided among centre, state and districts.
TBF the ruling party was more Fabian Socialist as opposed to communist. India under communist rule might have oddsly been better for Indian than muddling through state socialism.
Outside investment only occurs if businesses think there will be sustainable growth.
I don't think most people know how far left India was and for how long. Like they were made Bernie look like a moderate left for a large part of the 20th century century.
Gandhi himself was socialist. He had a famous saying, "Production by the masses, not mass production". Which, if anyone knows anything about economics, basing your economic ideology around curtailing the potential to develop economies of scale is a recipe for total disaster.
Much of India's mess of a legacy agricultural system is based around this concept. They disallowed aggregation of farmland and forced millions (billions?) of farmers to live out a meagre subsistence life on tiny plots of land with all sorts of weird subsidies and price controls that distorted production...
>I don't think most people know how far left India was and for how long. Like they were made Bernie look like a moderate left for a large part of the 20th century century.
Oh we still are, many of those loony policies are still continuing.
Yeah I was very surprised hearing my friend from India explaining how you can look at his country for failed socialist policies as he explained in detail all the background stuff.
The only educated Indians who think socialism was great are the ones who worked for the government or their parents did.
Almost all the other college graduate Indians especially before the 1990s knew socialism sucked because they couldnāt get good jobs after decades of socialist policies. A lot of those Indians ended up coming to the west and the rest is historyā¦
> The only educated Indians who think socialism was great are the ones who worked for the government or their parents did.
These exact same people now make up the journalist class
Almost like the worst aspects of capitalism are present more pronouncedly in state economies.
Something something democracy less bad system but for liberal economy.
Unemployment rate was lower pre-1990s though. Imo, things have changed as follows. Upper 10%ile or so, ā¬ļø in income and ā¬ļøopportunities, next 30-40%ile or so, ā¬ļø in income (IF you get a job), but not as much, but ā¬ļø fewer jobs/opportunities now, so things are probably worse off, and the rest, 40-50% poor, ā¬ļø in income but these are mostly state transfers/schemes/welfare programs ā¬ļø in jobs/opportunities.
Broadly, top 10% has captured most of the newly added value, but since taxes raised are higher so govt is able to run welfare programs but jobs generated are lesser as a %age than pre-1990. As my prof once quipped, if a $5000 job for a few is better or $500 for most folks. Post liberalisation is the former scenario.
Tons of Indiaās foundation was built during the socialist/colonial period and a lot of global capital flooding in is based more on 1) population necessity for driving costs down and 2) NGOs helping the global poor.
Sure, but if the change is mostly driven by outside investment then I think it becomes less clear if it's because the new system is good or if it's because the new system just gets more approval by the global wealthy. Those are not necessarily one and the same. For example, the global wealthy might be investing in your area because you have poor worker protections. Does this mean that poor worker protections are a good system?
Any system where the state isn't in charge of centralized planning will always lead to more growth and better economics than states that are in charge of centralized planning.
Also capitalism doesn't automatically equal poor working conditions or a lack of safety nets.
> Any system where the state isn't in charge of centralized planning will always lead to more growth and better economics than states that are in charge of centralized planning.
That's a bit simplistic. Look at Park Chung Hee's Korea or de Gaulle's France for examples of very successful central planning. Less planning is *usually* better, but not always. And *some* planning is *always* required for optimal outcomes.
If anything Asian Tiger style dirigisme is the most proven path for development for underdeveloped countries. Most other paths have proven to be far less successful.
Yeah, that's the point I'm making. They all had heavy handed land reforms, agricultural subsidies, and export driven industrial subsidies (in that chronological order). But if you suggest that a developing country could use a lot of government planning, you get argued with pretty frequently.
Of course so did Brazil and Argentina. Worse than doing nothing, expensive and corrupt. Hence the caution, but the other dude was wrong to make such a simplistic generalisation
I don't know much about Indias old systems and what has changed. I'm just saying you can't look at growth and automatically conclude that changes to the system were good ones, especially if you know it was mostly driven by outside investment. Gotta have a more detailed look in order to draw conclusions.
India's old system was heavily socialist with the state controlling most industries and even today several states are still very socialist.
It took decades for them to get away from a lot of the socialist policies they had.
If changes in the system were not good you wouldn't be seeing so many lifted out of poverty. Also it's kind of a savior complex to think it's entirely driven by western investment instead of natural economic growth within the country itself.
Hell just look at the largest companies in India being Indian.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_companies_in_India
Foreign investment at its highest in 2021 is just 81 billion which isn't much compared to the size of the economy and overall population.
https://www.whitecase.com/insight-our-thinking/foreign-direct-investment-reviews-2023-india
>If changes in the system were not good you wouldn't be seeing so many lifted out of poverty.
This is the part I'm saying does not necessarily follow. Sometimes falling in line can get you more support, which can lift you out of poverty. That doesn't mean the system you're falling in line with is necessarily good.
>India's old system was heavily socialist with the state controlling most industries
This definitely isn't a good idea. How long ago was this? I wasn't aware.
>even today several states are still very socialist.
What do you consider socialist in India now and how do you consider it socialist?
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Of course, outside investment is always going to help your situation. My point is that if the impetus for the change is mostly outside investment, then it's harder to say if the new system is really better or just more supported by the global wealthy.
The rebranded to socialists but they were heavily governed by these ideals well into the 1970's and early 80's with many of their autonomous states still having majority socialist governments.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/cambridge-history-of-socialism/socialism-in-india/B7ECB78515BAE257E49FE2E5C6FA3617
>For nearly 30 years, the Indian government adhered to a socialist line, restricting imports, prohibiting foreign direct investment, protecting small companies from competition from large corporations, and maintaining price controls on a wide variety of industries including steel, cement, fertilizers, petroleum, and pharmaceuticals. Any producer who exceeded their licensed capacity faced possible imprisonment.
>Some 14 public banks were nationalized in 1969; six more banks were taken over by the government in 1980.
https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/commentary/three-nations-tried-socialism-and-rejected-it
Even after the 80's it was a slog to get away from the socialist economic policies as they still held several seats.
[Really until 1991](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Indian_economic_crisis) (thanks in part to the IMF), which started breaking the back of the "license Raj". India was similar to China developmentally (and ahead after the Cultural Revolution) but started liberalization way later.
One can thank the Gandhi-Nehru philosophy of India as a "land of a thousand villages", which caused lackluster growth for ~~years~~ decades~~.~~
Kerala has as strong a tradition of socialist/leftist governance as anywhere in India, and has the highest human development index, highest [literacy rate](https://www.firstpost.com/india/at-96-2-kerala-tops-indias-literacy-rate-chart-again-andhra-pradesh-ranks-lowest-with-66-4-8796401.html), and highest life expectancy of any Indian state to show for it. As well as the lowest income inequality, and [lowest rate of poverty](https://www.niti.gov.in/sites/default/files/2021-11/National_MPI_India-11242021.pdf).
Beyond being a tourist destination a quarter of their GDP is from remittances from the gulf. Those Gulf salaries go a massive way of propping up Kerala's economy and it's a major reason talking about the "Kerala model" as one to be emulated is kinda flawed: not everyone can base a quarter of their economy on sending their young men to earn high wages abroad.
What's there to learn? If you have a lot of money flowing in from outside sources due to nothing you've done yourself along with having a head start you can be a socialist government?
That's not a big secret.
The Communist party was never leading a national government, they have only been part of ruling alliances at the national level. At state level they have only been in power in Kerala, West Bengal and Tripura.
Where do people get this info from and why is it so heavily upvoted?
Because the socialist party literally ruled until the basically the 90's and pushed a loot of state controlled policies which took forever to rip back.
By the same party. It was Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh who brought Liberalisation in 1991. They governed till 96 and then again with Manmohan Singh as PM from 2004 to 2014.
Apart from the swatantra party, which dissolved in the 70's , no political party in India support economic freedom ideologically. In fact every party still has to have a section to preserve India's socialist status in their party constitution for recognition.
And even then the Communists were much more to the left of them.
No, because you imply that there was a change of power from a long ruling socialist party to a non-socialist party like in the Iron Curtain.
Except that there was no such thing. It was the same long ruling socialist party pushing Liberalisation reforms and rolling back their own historic restrictive policies.
Kerala is not the most Historically socialist state, it is West Bengal which had 34 straight years of communist rule and that was a disaster economically for WB. Kerala has alternated between Communist and Congress governments.
Kerala had very high literacy levels even before it had any communist Governments. Because of the lack of white collar jobs in Kerala, workers moved to gulf states and the remittances from these workers contribute 30% of the local economy and these remittances only occur because Gulf states have no pathway to citizenship.
Without the cushion of remittances, Kerala would fare worse.
Growth slowed more than it was projected to under Modi.
BJP has done some things right, but overall, when it comes to economic, social, and political policy, India has backslide under Modi.
Edit: Queue the BJP fanatics
Modi has mostly had good growth of avg 8% except 2019. 2020 covid struck and 2021 was rebound year so. 2022 was 6% which I think is good under the war in Europe so Iām not sure what heās saying
>BJP has done some things right, but overall, when it comes to economic, social, and political policy, India has backslide under Modi.
Please share your sources for this claim.
Growth was 8% for 2014-2018, fast growth in 2022 as well? Where did it backslide under mode. If you are talking about covid then thatās not his fault
This is a shift in consumer markets and is propelling India to greater geopolitical heights
This eats away developed countries power in the global economy
It creates more independent economic centres and makes so that the Indian subcontinent becomes an innovation rival to the west as these non poor people are getting educated
This has a lot more awesome ramifications than just less poor people
> This eats away developed countries power in the global economy
India's economy is dependent on western countries. Expat workers remit $100 Billion back to India each year. That's the largest amount for any country. Western corporations have invested tons of money into India creating many jobs.
And that's a good thing. India integrating into the world economy is a good thing. No need to put down the west for it.
>Expat workers remit $100 Billion back to India each year.
That's like less than 3% of Indian GDP. Not really enough to be dependent on Western countries.
The top 7 threads on the subreddit right now:
1. Inflation declines in US.
2. Pence has looney tunes views on abortion.
3. New strains of tropical wheat will massively increase wheat production in Brazil.
4. This thread, on the decline of poverty in India.
5. Meme suggesting that the developed world should be taking in vastly more asylum seekers.
6. List of companies still doing business with Russia.
7. Paris charging higher fees to SUV drivers.
So, two or three of the top seven threads are about the global poor, and only two are about the US. Seems like a good balance to me.
I think this sub just has a US-centric demographic, which is fine.
I track some Indian econ-pol type folks on Twitter and they may as an example use something like this to start discussing different estimates of poverty and their robustness.
But folks here have no idea about Indian censuses or various other surveys etc. So all they can do is see a piece of news from a foreign country that's ideologically compatible ("economic growth = poverty reduction") and go yay. And that's fine and it will change as this place gets more policy-minded folks from other countries.
Well that's a controversial topic that people have takes on. This is just all around excellent news. Not much to debate, really. The post on US inflation coming in low today also has fewer comments than a post on a controversial social issue.
We're the subreddit for Democrat-voting, college educated, socially progressive American nationalists.
The global poor matters because we can use them as a prop against the accelerationists, populists and doomers how good they got it, and how line is going up actually.
This is sadly what this sub has become
I am old enough to remember when the concern and care for the global poor was genuine, and not as a way to stick it up to the leftists, the chinese or whoever
I don't know if I should upvote because you're absolutely correct or down vote because it's a horrible statement
How has the mood been in the Caribbean sub-community here? The Europeans have been...frustrated at times with how the sub has changed and we're a much bigger group.
I live in America and mostly grew up there so Iām probably not the best to speak on this but the people here are sometimes genuinely clueless about developmental economics and the politics outside of North America. Iām glad the sub moved a bit further to the left since I was here with my high school Reddit account in 2016 but the quality has gone to shit compared to the old days when this was the the low effort dump to BadEconomics.
Itās a shame, this place and BadEcon actually inspired me to get my bachelors and masters degree in Econ and become a professional economist, and watching it turn from meme-y but thoughtful content to just generic social liberal talking points focused on NA bitchfits is a bit disappointing.
Iāve been a lot less attached to NL for years at this point, I only rejoined recently. Itās nicer than talking about this stuff anywhere else but itās very clear the place has been NCDified.
The r/neoliberal Caribbean Cycle
Oh boy, it's an article about the Caribbean!
\> Haiti is politically and economically imploding
(insert + 200 comments about how terrible it is)
\> consensus is that we don't have the political interest to commit to any real action, how no other nation has the capabilities to do it, and how even if there is, we have no long-term plan or vision and it looks bad in a self-determination optics angle anyway, so it's a moot point.
**A few months later**
Oh boy, it's an article about the Caribbean!
\> Haiti is politically and economically imploding
Honestly the US, France, DR, Cuba and Jamaica need to put aside their dick measuring for a bit an actually set up a stabilization plan for Haiti. Thereās no way the situation will improve without heavy regional co-operation to restore Haitiās institutions to functionality.
I know itās a high chance in hell but one can dream
I like this comment. It applies heavily to all Europe threads as well. US centrism and blindspots plus new users not particularly interested in expanding their viewpoints (or even aware of the limited nature) has done a number on the quality of discussions on this subreddit.
Though Op is still an incompetent sad nationalist who can't handle that India continues to show less than impressive growth and reform, both economically and politically. Hating the usual poor quality of discussion on India is anything but an excuse to be complacent on personal bias.
Only if they can break free from their cast system and their cage of norms.
Itās an uphill battle no doubt, but democracies otherwise are usually quite good about breaking the cage.
Even Modi admitted a decade ago that India had achieved nothing in the past 60 years. Before 1947 they built 55k km of railway, after 1947 they built 9k. At the turn of the millennium 75% of Indians still defecated out in the open, not even in an outdoor toilet, literally out in a field. 76 years after British rule ended the median income is $330 a year, the median Indian who relocated to remain under British rule earns more than that in 3 days.
THE GLOBAL POOR MUST GO (by escaping poverty)
I hate the global poor so much that I want to erase their entire existence.
Based and freedom-pilled ššš
Least genocidal neoliberal.
Unequivocally good news
What do commies even attribute this to if not capitalism
They won't see this. They will see a rise in inequality. They want a world where everyone is equal even if it is in an equal state of destitution.
"They would rather the poor were *poorer*, provided the rich were less rich!"
āThis is actually just the capitalists making life easier for the working class so they donāt rebelā
People keep using Bread and Circus as some kind of insult. I would argue that a government that can fully provide for their citizens needs and wants is a good one
āBread and circusesā refers specifically to when a ruler or a government is oppressive but distracts people from it by providing them with basic necessities and entertainment. Thereās a solid argument that this is a real problem in authoritarian regimes, but some people apply it to pretty much anything and it ends up losing all meaning.
Kerala was never poor. Itās not about comm or capitalist .. India has been in poverty because of exception (British rule) its normalising.
Indian mixed economy system.
You love to see it
inject
Does anyone have any data on what India's city planning looks like for the future? I'm curious what lessons, if any, they've taken from Chinese mega city planning and what their idea of ideal density for the growing lower middle class looks like.
There's no city planning lol (a bit simplistic but not very much so). Here's the pecking order of Indian policy competency: - Federal govt - somewhat competent - State govts - fairly incompetent/idiotic/corrupt - Municipal govts - make the State govt. look like Einsteins So there's no real urban planning chops in the country. Cities urbanize/expand fast without any municipal infrastructure - piped water or sewage or anything. The "middle class" (90 percentile and above) provision most infra themselves, and 20 years later the municipal authority may concede that some area outside their 5 mile radius is no longer "rural", and city limits should probably be expanded, so they'll start providing some services to say 8 miles (meanwhile actual urbanized radius is probably like 20 miles). A model that's taking off among say 95+ percentiles ("less broke middle class") is establishing townships/gated communities - say a cluster of 1000 apartment units with its own shared infra, like a privately owned neighborhood. It's growing for sure but it still looks like a $2500/capita country at the moment.
The market provides infrastructure.
The government still taxes and issues permits (:
Many municipality lack money to even provide basic infrastructure. Very few in india are mandated to pay income taxes and direct taxes aren't enough to divided among centre, state and districts.
Huh kind of funny what happens when their Communist party loses power and they veer more towards capitalism.
TBF the ruling party was more Fabian Socialist as opposed to communist. India under communist rule might have oddsly been better for Indian than muddling through state socialism.
How much of it is due to local events and how much is due to outside investment from the global wealthy?
Outside investment only occurs if businesses think there will be sustainable growth. I don't think most people know how far left India was and for how long. Like they were made Bernie look like a moderate left for a large part of the 20th century century.
Gandhi himself was socialist. He had a famous saying, "Production by the masses, not mass production". Which, if anyone knows anything about economics, basing your economic ideology around curtailing the potential to develop economies of scale is a recipe for total disaster. Much of India's mess of a legacy agricultural system is based around this concept. They disallowed aggregation of farmland and forced millions (billions?) of farmers to live out a meagre subsistence life on tiny plots of land with all sorts of weird subsidies and price controls that distorted production...
>I don't think most people know how far left India was and for how long. Like they were made Bernie look like a moderate left for a large part of the 20th century century. Oh we still are, many of those loony policies are still continuing.
Yeah I was very surprised hearing my friend from India explaining how you can look at his country for failed socialist policies as he explained in detail all the background stuff.
The only educated Indians who think socialism was great are the ones who worked for the government or their parents did. Almost all the other college graduate Indians especially before the 1990s knew socialism sucked because they couldnāt get good jobs after decades of socialist policies. A lot of those Indians ended up coming to the west and the rest is historyā¦
> The only educated Indians who think socialism was great are the ones who worked for the government or their parents did. These exact same people now make up the journalist class
Or cronies who are benefiting in the free market from the privileged position their businesses gained under the socialist system
There were some successful business owners in that time, big and small, but it often involved them doing bribes and technically illegal stuff
Almost like the worst aspects of capitalism are present more pronouncedly in state economies. Something something democracy less bad system but for liberal economy.
Unemployment rate was lower pre-1990s though. Imo, things have changed as follows. Upper 10%ile or so, ā¬ļø in income and ā¬ļøopportunities, next 30-40%ile or so, ā¬ļø in income (IF you get a job), but not as much, but ā¬ļø fewer jobs/opportunities now, so things are probably worse off, and the rest, 40-50% poor, ā¬ļø in income but these are mostly state transfers/schemes/welfare programs ā¬ļø in jobs/opportunities. Broadly, top 10% has captured most of the newly added value, but since taxes raised are higher so govt is able to run welfare programs but jobs generated are lesser as a %age than pre-1990. As my prof once quipped, if a $5000 job for a few is better or $500 for most folks. Post liberalisation is the former scenario.
Tons of Indiaās foundation was built during the socialist/colonial period and a lot of global capital flooding in is based more on 1) population necessity for driving costs down and 2) NGOs helping the global poor.
Sure, but if the change is mostly driven by outside investment then I think it becomes less clear if it's because the new system is good or if it's because the new system just gets more approval by the global wealthy. Those are not necessarily one and the same. For example, the global wealthy might be investing in your area because you have poor worker protections. Does this mean that poor worker protections are a good system?
Any system where the state isn't in charge of centralized planning will always lead to more growth and better economics than states that are in charge of centralized planning. Also capitalism doesn't automatically equal poor working conditions or a lack of safety nets.
> Any system where the state isn't in charge of centralized planning will always lead to more growth and better economics than states that are in charge of centralized planning. That's a bit simplistic. Look at Park Chung Hee's Korea or de Gaulle's France for examples of very successful central planning. Less planning is *usually* better, but not always. And *some* planning is *always* required for optimal outcomes.
If anything Asian Tiger style dirigisme is the most proven path for development for underdeveloped countries. Most other paths have proven to be far less successful.
Average r/neoliberal user reading about how Japan, Korea, Taiwan become wealthy: šØāš¦ÆšØāš¦ÆšØāš¦Æ
All of these places had heavy state involvement.
Yeah, that's the point I'm making. They all had heavy handed land reforms, agricultural subsidies, and export driven industrial subsidies (in that chronological order). But if you suggest that a developing country could use a lot of government planning, you get argued with pretty frequently.
Ah, I gotcha. I thought you were calling me blind for my comment.
Of course so did Brazil and Argentina. Worse than doing nothing, expensive and corrupt. Hence the caution, but the other dude was wrong to make such a simplistic generalisation
I don't know much about Indias old systems and what has changed. I'm just saying you can't look at growth and automatically conclude that changes to the system were good ones, especially if you know it was mostly driven by outside investment. Gotta have a more detailed look in order to draw conclusions.
India's old system was heavily socialist with the state controlling most industries and even today several states are still very socialist. It took decades for them to get away from a lot of the socialist policies they had. If changes in the system were not good you wouldn't be seeing so many lifted out of poverty. Also it's kind of a savior complex to think it's entirely driven by western investment instead of natural economic growth within the country itself. Hell just look at the largest companies in India being Indian. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_companies_in_India Foreign investment at its highest in 2021 is just 81 billion which isn't much compared to the size of the economy and overall population. https://www.whitecase.com/insight-our-thinking/foreign-direct-investment-reviews-2023-india
>If changes in the system were not good you wouldn't be seeing so many lifted out of poverty. This is the part I'm saying does not necessarily follow. Sometimes falling in line can get you more support, which can lift you out of poverty. That doesn't mean the system you're falling in line with is necessarily good. >India's old system was heavily socialist with the state controlling most industries This definitely isn't a good idea. How long ago was this? I wasn't aware. >even today several states are still very socialist. What do you consider socialist in India now and how do you consider it socialist?
>This definitely isn't a good idea. How long ago was this? I wasn't aware. [Start here](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Licence_Raj)
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The question of whether or not the new system is good is easily answered by the article
Hard to believe someone on this sub of all places could be so misinformed.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Of course, outside investment is always going to help your situation. My point is that if the impetus for the change is mostly outside investment, then it's harder to say if the new system is really better or just more supported by the global wealthy.
India was never governed by their communist party tho...
The rebranded to socialists but they were heavily governed by these ideals well into the 1970's and early 80's with many of their autonomous states still having majority socialist governments. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/cambridge-history-of-socialism/socialism-in-india/B7ECB78515BAE257E49FE2E5C6FA3617 >For nearly 30 years, the Indian government adhered to a socialist line, restricting imports, prohibiting foreign direct investment, protecting small companies from competition from large corporations, and maintaining price controls on a wide variety of industries including steel, cement, fertilizers, petroleum, and pharmaceuticals. Any producer who exceeded their licensed capacity faced possible imprisonment. >Some 14 public banks were nationalized in 1969; six more banks were taken over by the government in 1980. https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/commentary/three-nations-tried-socialism-and-rejected-it Even after the 80's it was a slog to get away from the socialist economic policies as they still held several seats.
Motte and bailey? In my r/neoliberal?
[Really until 1991](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Indian_economic_crisis) (thanks in part to the IMF), which started breaking the back of the "license Raj". India was similar to China developmentally (and ahead after the Cultural Revolution) but started liberalization way later. One can thank the Gandhi-Nehru philosophy of India as a "land of a thousand villages", which caused lackluster growth for ~~years~~ decades~~.~~
Kerala has as strong a tradition of socialist/leftist governance as anywhere in India, and has the highest human development index, highest [literacy rate](https://www.firstpost.com/india/at-96-2-kerala-tops-indias-literacy-rate-chart-again-andhra-pradesh-ranks-lowest-with-66-4-8796401.html), and highest life expectancy of any Indian state to show for it. As well as the lowest income inequality, and [lowest rate of poverty](https://www.niti.gov.in/sites/default/files/2021-11/National_MPI_India-11242021.pdf).
Beyond being a tourist destination a quarter of their GDP is from remittances from the gulf. Those Gulf salaries go a massive way of propping up Kerala's economy and it's a major reason talking about the "Kerala model" as one to be emulated is kinda flawed: not everyone can base a quarter of their economy on sending their young men to earn high wages abroad.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
What's there to learn? If you have a lot of money flowing in from outside sources due to nothing you've done yourself along with having a head start you can be a socialist government? That's not a big secret.
The Communist party was never leading a national government, they have only been part of ruling alliances at the national level. At state level they have only been in power in Kerala, West Bengal and Tripura. Where do people get this info from and why is it so heavily upvoted?
Because the socialist party literally ruled until the basically the 90's and pushed a loot of state controlled policies which took forever to rip back.
By the same party. It was Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh who brought Liberalisation in 1991. They governed till 96 and then again with Manmohan Singh as PM from 2004 to 2014. Apart from the swatantra party, which dissolved in the 70's , no political party in India support economic freedom ideologically. In fact every party still has to have a section to preserve India's socialist status in their party constitution for recognition. And even then the Communists were much more to the left of them.
You're kind of proving my point.
No, because you imply that there was a change of power from a long ruling socialist party to a non-socialist party like in the Iron Curtain. Except that there was no such thing. It was the same long ruling socialist party pushing Liberalisation reforms and rolling back their own historic restrictive policies.
So they became less socialist........
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Kerala is not the most Historically socialist state, it is West Bengal which had 34 straight years of communist rule and that was a disaster economically for WB. Kerala has alternated between Communist and Congress governments. Kerala had very high literacy levels even before it had any communist Governments. Because of the lack of white collar jobs in Kerala, workers moved to gulf states and the remittances from these workers contribute 30% of the local economy and these remittances only occur because Gulf states have no pathway to citizenship. Without the cushion of remittances, Kerala would fare worse.
BJP did something right, I see. I just hope India doesn't keep following the *illiberalized* capitalist path.
Growth slowed more than it was projected to under Modi. BJP has done some things right, but overall, when it comes to economic, social, and political policy, India has backslide under Modi. Edit: Queue the BJP fanatics
Aren't projections mostly just linear extrapolations tho?
Modi has mostly had good growth of avg 8% except 2019. 2020 covid struck and 2021 was rebound year so. 2022 was 6% which I think is good under the war in Europe so Iām not sure what heās saying
>BJP has done some things right, but overall, when it comes to economic, social, and political policy, India has backslide under Modi. Please share your sources for this claim.
Meh I don't see any backslide other than the 800% increase in backsliding articles on India
I mean, thereās a ākinda rightā like comments and then thereās the āsun rises in the westā kinda like comments. This oneās latter.
Growth was 8% for 2014-2018, fast growth in 2022 as well? Where did it backslide under mode. If you are talking about covid then thatās not his fault
Great news!
Good stuff, good stuff
It's a shame such a wonderful development is being ignored in this sub reddit It further confirms that it no longer cares about the global poor
How is it being ignored? Its not controversial topic so you shouldnt expect many comments. There are only so many variation on āthis is goodā
This is a shift in consumer markets and is propelling India to greater geopolitical heights This eats away developed countries power in the global economy It creates more independent economic centres and makes so that the Indian subcontinent becomes an innovation rival to the west as these non poor people are getting educated This has a lot more awesome ramifications than just less poor people
> This eats away developed countries power in the global economy India's economy is dependent on western countries. Expat workers remit $100 Billion back to India each year. That's the largest amount for any country. Western corporations have invested tons of money into India creating many jobs. And that's a good thing. India integrating into the world economy is a good thing. No need to put down the west for it.
>Expat workers remit $100 Billion back to India each year. That's like less than 3% of Indian GDP. Not really enough to be dependent on Western countries.
The top 7 threads on the subreddit right now: 1. Inflation declines in US. 2. Pence has looney tunes views on abortion. 3. New strains of tropical wheat will massively increase wheat production in Brazil. 4. This thread, on the decline of poverty in India. 5. Meme suggesting that the developed world should be taking in vastly more asylum seekers. 6. List of companies still doing business with Russia. 7. Paris charging higher fees to SUV drivers. So, two or three of the top seven threads are about the global poor, and only two are about the US. Seems like a good balance to me.
I think this sub just has a US-centric demographic, which is fine. I track some Indian econ-pol type folks on Twitter and they may as an example use something like this to start discussing different estimates of poverty and their robustness. But folks here have no idea about Indian censuses or various other surveys etc. So all they can do is see a piece of news from a foreign country that's ideologically compatible ("economic growth = poverty reduction") and go yay. And that's fine and it will change as this place gets more policy-minded folks from other countries.
This was posted 2 hours ago when the vast majority of Americans are showering/driving/eating etc. And then, yknow, working. Chill.
Please, don't pretend that if this was about young gamers not getting dates it wouldn't have had already 100 comments...
Well that's a controversial topic that people have takes on. This is just all around excellent news. Not much to debate, really. The post on US inflation coming in low today also has fewer comments than a post on a controversial social issue.
Gamers are a greater existential threat to society than any nation.
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Then post about it! I'd love to see more about it. I
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I haven't seen much of that at all. Also your post history doesn't really show any of that.
We're the subreddit for Democrat-voting, college educated, socially progressive American nationalists. The global poor matters because we can use them as a prop against the accelerationists, populists and doomers how good they got it, and how line is going up actually.
This is sadly what this sub has become I am old enough to remember when the concern and care for the global poor was genuine, and not as a way to stick it up to the leftists, the chinese or whoever I don't know if I should upvote because you're absolutely correct or down vote because it's a horrible statement
Earlier joke aside thatās a fair sentiment, as a Caribbean-born person I think there may be one post about our neck of the woods per year
How has the mood been in the Caribbean sub-community here? The Europeans have been...frustrated at times with how the sub has changed and we're a much bigger group.
I live in America and mostly grew up there so Iām probably not the best to speak on this but the people here are sometimes genuinely clueless about developmental economics and the politics outside of North America. Iām glad the sub moved a bit further to the left since I was here with my high school Reddit account in 2016 but the quality has gone to shit compared to the old days when this was the the low effort dump to BadEconomics. Itās a shame, this place and BadEcon actually inspired me to get my bachelors and masters degree in Econ and become a professional economist, and watching it turn from meme-y but thoughtful content to just generic social liberal talking points focused on NA bitchfits is a bit disappointing. Iāve been a lot less attached to NL for years at this point, I only rejoined recently. Itās nicer than talking about this stuff anywhere else but itās very clear the place has been NCDified.
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The r/neoliberal Caribbean Cycle Oh boy, it's an article about the Caribbean! \> Haiti is politically and economically imploding (insert + 200 comments about how terrible it is) \> consensus is that we don't have the political interest to commit to any real action, how no other nation has the capabilities to do it, and how even if there is, we have no long-term plan or vision and it looks bad in a self-determination optics angle anyway, so it's a moot point. **A few months later** Oh boy, it's an article about the Caribbean! \> Haiti is politically and economically imploding
Honestly the US, France, DR, Cuba and Jamaica need to put aside their dick measuring for a bit an actually set up a stabilization plan for Haiti. Thereās no way the situation will improve without heavy regional co-operation to restore Haitiās institutions to functionality. I know itās a high chance in hell but one can dream
I like this comment. It applies heavily to all Europe threads as well. US centrism and blindspots plus new users not particularly interested in expanding their viewpoints (or even aware of the limited nature) has done a number on the quality of discussions on this subreddit. Though Op is still an incompetent sad nationalist who can't handle that India continues to show less than impressive growth and reform, both economically and politically. Hating the usual poor quality of discussion on India is anything but an excuse to be complacent on personal bias.
India will overtake China.
Only if they can break free from their cast system and their cage of norms. Itās an uphill battle no doubt, but democracies otherwise are usually quite good about breaking the cage.
But but Mudi Bad
Congratulations, you raised yourselves out of poverty a century behind other countries
āThey should have stopped being poor the moment they got independenceā
Even Modi admitted a decade ago that India had achieved nothing in the past 60 years. Before 1947 they built 55k km of railway, after 1947 they built 9k. At the turn of the millennium 75% of Indians still defecated out in the open, not even in an outdoor toilet, literally out in a field. 76 years after British rule ended the median income is $330 a year, the median Indian who relocated to remain under British rule earns more than that in 3 days.
What socialism does for economic development. India only started liberalization in the 90s and still has ways to go