Yesterday’s Failures are Today’s Successes

Ref ahmedmadani #117

[#106 Harimau...... Thanks for telling about Bharat Dynamics.
If you know what is hsb (Hbs?) Report ? Thanks for troubles.]

HBS I presume would be Harvard Business School. This might have been a paper for a course in Public Policy but I do not have access to it.

sadna:
I agree with most of your post.
``China and India escaped the worst effects of those times``
It`s too early to say if the Chinese banks are out of the woods yet. They have been lending recklessly on the behest of their government without regard to sound business practices, much like the earlier lending by the public sector banks in India. Indian banking system seems to have survived intact because of some effective remedial actions taken by the govt. and RBI.
In case it has not been clear until now, I am not a laissez fare economist, only that the govt. should not have a seat at the boardrooms of the corporation, except to make rules to ensure that no hanky-panky is going on there.

gujjubania:
``There is nothing new in what you say.``
...nor did I intend to, except to draw attention to the unintended effects. The article makes only peripheral reference to the economic liberalisation; instead it tries to debunk the myth that the credit for the current success belongs to our earlier leadership for choosing english as its official language and the setting up of the institutes of higher learning. The credit for the first goes to south Indians and the second did not succeed in its intended effects. In fact, IIT engineers could be hired for a few hundred rupees a month during late sixties and seventies. I got my first job in 1964 in India after doing a simple M.A and was getting paid more than an IIT graduate did.

#106 Harimau...... Thanks for telling about Bharat Dynamics.
If you know what is hsb (Hbs?) Report ? Thanks for troubles.

#106 Harimau...... Thanks for telling about Bharat Dynamics.
If you know what is hsb (Hbs?) Report ? Thanks for troubles.

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Dost mitter

On a thread that disappeared you asked about the legal status of honour killing. Following is a quate from a post by none other than romair.

``Once again, the supporters of, “Constitutional democracy” in Pakistan were quiet. Constitutionally and democratically speaking, if the elected assemblies do not want to legislate against honor killings, then what right does an unelected and unconstitutional President have to take action against it, on his own? ``

For Pankaj and Arjun`s kind perusal:



THE CAPITALIST THREAT

What kind of society do we want? ``Let the market decide!`` is the often-heard response. That response, a prominent capitalist argues, undermines the very values on which open and democratic societies depend.
by George Soros
--excerpt--

IN The Philosophy of History, Hegel discerned a disturbing historical pattern -- the crack and fall of civilizations owing to a morbid intensification of their own first principles. Although I have made a fortune in the financial markets, I now fear that the untrammeled intensification of laissez-faire capitalism and the spread of market values into all areas of life is endangering our open and democratic society. The main enemy of the open society, I believe, is no longer the communist but the capitalist threat.

dost-mittar
Talking of Nehru`s other possible successes doesnot constitute a rival viewpoint.

Re banking and other Asian economies, weren`t the S.East Asian tigers economies` near-catastrophic meltdowns some years ago and Japan`s economic troubles precipitated by poor banking practices? Didn` t something similar happen in Russia, too - too much FDI too fast?

China and India escaped the worst effects of those times. The point is there has to be a balance between too much government oversight and too little, esp when life savings or jobs of millions of people are at stake.

ballukhan, silly:
I think that we are talking past each other.
I am not saying that these noveau Indians are the only ones with an Indian identity, but they do represent a sort of identity that is new to India. Back in the 50s and 60s we also had a certain pan Indian identity, which is represented on the chowk by nasah and myself (I hope nasah saheb wont mind my daring to put myself in the same category as himself!); I would also include people like RAS and temporal in that group even though they are Pakistanis. We were also haughty and arrogant, we thought both America and Russia to be inferior to us since we were free of both Mcarthyism and Stalinism (although we didn`t see anything wrong in taking the first opportunity to go to the same West we called decadent and exploitative) and we believed that, in our -i.e., Nehru`s leadership of the non-aligned block in the cold war, we were the conscience of the world. We are now an almost extinct species and these noveau Indians may also not survive as a specy for ever. But the local and religious identities have always survived and will probably always survive.

PM#107:
As the commercial says, ``these things take time``.
When I came to Canada, most of the immigrants coming here were from Italy, Greece, Ireland and other european countries, even England. And now, if anything, there is a net reverse immigration to these countries from Canada. Similarly, in the 70s we had large scale immigration from the so-called Asian Tigers - South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Hongkong, Taiwan, even Japan. Starting with the mid-80s or thereabout, these immigrations started to come down and have now come down to a trickle. We are still getting immigrants from certain provinces from China but there is an equal number of enterprising Chinese going back to the mainland.
I am almost certain that IF and when India starts to approach the same levels and growth rates that have been experienced in China for the last 15-20 years, immigration from India will also slow down.

soysauce:
``I`m not knocking you, mind you, but you might as well make the title read Yesterday`s (successes/failures) are today`s (successes/failures) and all four combinations would be valid.``
I do not disagree with this at all! In fact, I stated at the beginning of the article that ``One of the lessons learned from these analyses is that the unintended consequences of government programs and policies are SOMETIMES stronger and quite different from their intended effects.``

``Let`s consider the other side of your argument now: Suppose Nehru had emphasized primary education. Perhaps our population growth would have slowed and we would have a few hundred million mouths to feed. That would be development...``
Precisely! And this is what the HBS study comparing Korea and India also seems to be saying.

Dost,
``That is very nice to know. But you must be aware that at the election time, political parties in India not only appeal to narrower loyalties but also generally take caste, religion and similar narrower loyalties into consideration while choosing a candidate.``
This statement can be made about any democracy. All the politicians want power. They will go by the demographics before they field candidates/before appealing for votes. Have you not observed this in US. I have seen Democrats trying to appeal black voters and republicans trying to appeal hispanics all the time.

I remember Congress and TDP fielding Muslim candidates for parliament seats where the 90% of population is Hindu. Which ethnic community are they trying to appease in this scenario.

#95 by dost-mittar on December 1, 2003 7:07am PT

Dost Mitter. You have completely missed the point- and the issue- it is regarding IDENTITY and not about Raising Issues in the Democratic Election of this Multi-Cultural and Ethnically diverse country by the local candidates.
You fail to understand that Indian IDENTITY issues do not figure much in the Local and State election unless there is some serious conflict between the local identity and the national identity. NAidu raises issues of local identity , but that is not the CORE ISSUE as ``one nation- one identity`` purists of Islamic variety make it out to be as in Pakistan. In a REAL MULTI ETHNIC and MULTI CULTURAL, MULTI-RELIGIOUS , MULTI_LINGUISTIC democratic countries like India (or even America), Local issues are important at local levels (like a local parliament constituency).

TRying to DEGRADE the Indian democracy by calling the pan-Indian identity as a construct of the so called noveau Indians is same as saying that PAkistan is an IMAGINED NATIONED with the PAkistani IDENTITY forming only in the DISCOURSE of the TNTs (which is not TRue anymore).
I would only call it- Khatte-Angur.!!!

re. #99 arjun-m:
``Is capitalism like it is practised in the US perfect? heck no.....but is it better than any socialist system India had? heck YES.... ``

You would know more about that than myself I guess.
But rest assured, American median income hasn`t increased at all over the past 25 years, and in fact in real terms actually fallen. The average guy works longer hours to make the same bread today as his father did in the 70`s.

All this while wealth in America has increased quite a bit-- obviously concentratedly. But that in itself is not a problem. My beef with Pankaj was his advocacy of the laizzez faire economics. The problem with removing the regulations introduced byBretton-Woods, and the later introduction of NAFTA, all of which I would imagine Pankaj would be a willing signatory to, has resulted in a loss of control over captial flight, that in turn has lead to greater worker insecurity.

Sure, all this is great for the health of the Economy, coz it`s creating much wealth, as Pankaj would point. However, it doesn`t seem to be very good for the health of the average worker.

Dost mittarji:

I guess we`ll have to agree to disagree on the point of where Indians would want to settle. Of course, I think everyone, not just Indians, have some feep desire to settle in the land of their birth, but the class you referred to earlier (the yuppies) are the least likely to share this sentiment.

I agree with your income/PPP equation. However, I think you will be hardpressed to find single young Indians foregoing opporunties to make $60 p.a in the US for Rs. 30,000 p.m. jobs in the Indian market.

Besides, it would be a willingness to work for less I think that would truly indicate love for country. I don`t mean that one impoverish onself with patriotic spirit. But I think too much about how much is enough is informed by western media and norms, (did you read that TIME or newsweek article on India`s new rich some MONTHS ago?) which is why tend to think that much of the new Indian Identity isn`t really Indian at all, and not at all inclusive either. It`s the identity of the landed Middle Class, psychically landed in America, for the most part. And that should worry the true nationalists, not only for what it might portend for the environment in the not-so-long run, but also to the economy which will may likely turn runaway credit-oriented.

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re. the Northies and the Southies;
``Two factors would explain such phenomenon, a very small sample and, secondly, the curiousity factor which would draw an Indian towards a Pakistani.``

nahiN paaji.. these Indians were all buddies of mine, actually, and a couple of times we met at restaurants, with me being with a different group each time. It was interesting, to say the least, to hear some comments from each side on the other. Though i admit, the sample size is too small for me to set my idea in stone.

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harimau:
My idea that Americans are preferred in the jobs currently opening up is based on my own job search experience. Even where TS clearance isn`t required, an increasing number of employers seem to not want H1B`s either (though GC holders will do)