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There is a lot of talk about India and the freeing up of the economy. However it is quite clear that there is a massive legacy there. All that said, I think th

by nickik 6y ago

There is a lot of talk about India and the freeing up of the economy. However it is quite clear that there is a massive legacy there. All that said, I think the diversity and distributed power structure in India could not be overcome by any purely economic philosophy. About China we should also mentioned that decreasing the control over the economy is what allowed them to grow. Current policy in China is much more like the West then it was under Mao or afterwards. So success came by reducing control over the economy and to reintroduce private property. Market economy today is as powerful in China as it ever was in the history of China by far. China so far has profited from massive catch up growth and China is not unique in that, just much bigger. The same thing happened with the Asian Tigers. China is now starting to pull ahead in some technologies, but it has yet to be seen if how far that is possible. People also thought Japan would blow past US and the West. In the end if you have a reasonable competent government and a reasonable market economy with reasonable polices regarding global trade you will likely end up on the same overall growth path of all the advanced economies. If China manages to avoid this keep growing after the have reached per person parity, I would be incredibly impressed and it would challenge my thinking on economics. > You are mixing up periods I am talking about the pre-WW2 period where production was overwhelmingly focused on everything needed for military production. There were exceptions like housing construction but the overwhelming focus was military buildup.

littlestymaar 6y ago
> All that said, I think the diversity and distributed power structure in India could not be overcome by any purely economic philosophy. While I agree with you that it definitely shouldn't (mankind already had one too many cultural revolution last century), I think you vastly underestimate the destructive power of totalitarian states… > The same thing happened with the Asian Tigers. China is now starting to pull ahead in some technologies, but it has yet to be seen if how far that is possible. People also thought Japan would blow past US and the West. The Asian tiger are also a good example of sucessful central planning though… And Japan did indeed blow past the west by most metrics… including population aging, which has since then crippled the country.
- logicchains 6y ago
  >And Japan did indeed blow past the west by most metrics… What metrics exactly? Certainly not GDP per capita. It also has the lowest productivity per hour of the OECD countries.
  - littlestymaar 6y ago
    > Certainly not GDP per capita. Japan has been almost stagnant for nearly 30 years now, mainly because of demographics (and other reasons, but with such an aging population it's pretty much game over no matter what), but by 1990 Japan has a better GDP per capita than any of the biggest economies in the world at this point, by far (more than 20% over some most western countries). Obviously, when your GDP stay flat for 3 decades, other end up catching up… > It also has the lowest productivity per hour of the OECD countries. Productivity is a poor metric, because there is little correlation between time spent working and GDP, so culturally workaholic (Japan) countries ends up with poor results, while hedonistic countries (France) score super well, but that doesn't reflect much.
- nickik 6y ago
  > The Asian tiger are also a good example of sucessful central planning though Not really. I think people wastly exaturate the amount of central control because that is what they want to focus on. People love to say things like 'look the government invested in X industry and that insutry is now successful'. Ignoring the tons and tons of wasted investment and industries that didn't go anywere. It also ignored the massive amount of success private companies had that didn't explicity been pushed by specific government planning. The believe that Japan only has problems because of an aging population is also pretty false and was even more so in the early 1990s. I disagree that Japan blew past the West in most metrics, in some maybe but in others they are worse.

by nickik 6y ago

littlestymaar 6y ago

> All that said, I think the diversity and distributed power structure in India could not be overcome by any purely economic philosophy. While I agree with you that it definitely shouldn't (mankind already had one too many cultural revolution last century), I think you vastly underestimate the destructive power of totalitarian states… > The same thing happened with the Asian Tigers. China is now starting to pull ahead in some technologies, but it has yet to be seen if how far that is possible. People also thought Japan would blow past US and the West. The Asian tiger are also a good example of sucessful central planning though… And Japan did indeed blow past the west by most metrics… including population aging, which has since then crippled the country.

logicchains 6y ago
>And Japan did indeed blow past the west by most metrics… What metrics exactly? Certainly not GDP per capita. It also has the lowest productivity per hour of the OECD countries.
- littlestymaar 6y ago
  > Certainly not GDP per capita. Japan has been almost stagnant for nearly 30 years now, mainly because of demographics (and other reasons, but with such an aging population it's pretty much game over no matter what), but by 1990 Japan has a better GDP per capita than any of the biggest economies in the world at this point, by far (more than 20% over some most western countries). Obviously, when your GDP stay flat for 3 decades, other end up catching up… > It also has the lowest productivity per hour of the OECD countries. Productivity is a poor metric, because there is little correlation between time spent working and GDP, so culturally workaholic (Japan) countries ends up with poor results, while hedonistic countries (France) score super well, but that doesn't reflect much.
nickik 6y ago
> The Asian tiger are also a good example of sucessful central planning though Not really. I think people wastly exaturate the amount of central control because that is what they want to focus on. People love to say things like 'look the government invested in X industry and that insutry is now successful'. Ignoring the tons and tons of wasted investment and industries that didn't go anywere. It also ignored the massive amount of success private companies had that didn't explicity been pushed by specific government planning. The believe that Japan only has problems because of an aging population is also pretty false and was even more so in the early 1990s. I disagree that Japan blew past the West in most metrics, in some maybe but in others they are worse.