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India is generally more culturally and politically similar to the west than China. Unless they decide to embark on some unexpected imperialist conquest, I don’t

by fiblye 6y ago

India is generally more culturally and politically similar to the west than China. Unless they decide to embark on some unexpected imperialist conquest, I don’t think they’ll have such an active movement to divest from them in the future.

totalZero 6y ago
India is so culturally dissimilar to the USA that it's almost laughable to suggest that they are similar. I'm not trying to be adversarial; I just don't see any logical basis -- aside from a few years of anglophone rule -- for your premise.
- mikkelam 6y ago
  OP said more similar as opposed to "completely similar" which you are implying. India definitely is more of a western country when compared to China
  - vishnugupta 6y ago
    For the context —- the framework to rule India was constructed by the British. While it’s easy to focus on the political structure, it should be noted that the day to day work is carried out by the bureaucratic apparatus, which was put in place by the British. Institutions such as civil services, education framework, public works department, court, corporate laws, penal code etc are all from the British era, carried forward post independence with minimal change if at all. It is this bureaucratic structure that makes India work and any work needs to make it’s way through this to get implemented. Whatever politicians promise is largely irrelevant, by and large because they’ve been known to get lost in this labyrinth of bureaucracy. The Indian version of British comedy “Yes Minister” was quite popular in India, for a good reason as Indian could relate to it . So yes, Indian ruling structure is definitely closer to “West” than to China. But we could be more specific and say it’s close to British, because they were the ones who put it in place to begin with.
  - totalZero 6y ago
    OP's comment is right there above mine; I haven't obscured it. The premise of OP's argument is that India is more similar to the West than is China. The conclusion is that relative similarity will impede a future push by the West to divest from Indian manufacturing. There's a bit of a switcheroo in that argument, because the conclusion is only weakly supported by the premise. The strength of the argument depends on a comparative advantage in India-Western similarity versus Sino-Western similarity. I don't agree that India is more of a Western country than China, apart from the influence of British rule. Think about cultural norms, religious thinking, political philosophy, racial discrimination, and women's rights in India. Would you describe these aspects of India as "Western"? China is arguably a more capitalist country than India; does that mean it is more "Western"? Even if India were "more similar" to the West than China, it is so dissimilar from the West that it is totally within the realm of reason that the China manufacturing quagmire could be replaced by an equivalent India quagmire within a decade or two. Both countries are faraway, populous, third-world regional powers with nuclear weapons and territorial disputes. They are more similar to each other than either of them is to the West. There exist many third-world nations that are smaller (thus easier to influence) and closer to home (thus easier to defend in times of insecurity). If we have to invest in creating a new manufacturing hub in a place that will inevitably profit handsomely from our consumer demand, there is little sense in repeating the mistakes of the past and putting that hub in a massive Asian nation with which we have little in common.
- bluGill 6y ago
  The parts of culture that matter to business is a small subset of the whole culture. For businesses India may as well be a western country. They speak English (we can ignore the exceptions just like we ignore the few Germans who don't speak English), they have similar rules of law, so contracts will work. Businesses don't care about anything you do at home, which is most of where the culture is different.
- 16bytes 6y ago
  As one who has traveled to rural India and experienced the culture shock, I can still say that India and the US are more similar than India and China. The systems of government, economic engines, individualism vs. collectivism are all well-aligned.

by fiblye 6y ago

totalZero 6y ago

India is so culturally dissimilar to the USA that it's almost laughable to suggest that they are similar. I'm not trying to be adversarial; I just don't see any logical basis -- aside from a few years of anglophone rule -- for your premise.

mikkelam 6y ago
OP said more similar as opposed to "completely similar" which you are implying. India definitely is more of a western country when compared to China
- vishnugupta 6y ago
  For the context —- the framework to rule India was constructed by the British. While it’s easy to focus on the political structure, it should be noted that the day to day work is carried out by the bureaucratic apparatus, which was put in place by the British. Institutions such as civil services, education framework, public works department, court, corporate laws, penal code etc are all from the British era, carried forward post independence with minimal change if at all. It is this bureaucratic structure that makes India work and any work needs to make it’s way through this to get implemented. Whatever politicians promise is largely irrelevant, by and large because they’ve been known to get lost in this labyrinth of bureaucracy. The Indian version of British comedy “Yes Minister” was quite popular in India, for a good reason as Indian could relate to it . So yes, Indian ruling structure is definitely closer to “West” than to China. But we could be more specific and say it’s close to British, because they were the ones who put it in place to begin with.
- totalZero 6y ago
  OP's comment is right there above mine; I haven't obscured it. The premise of OP's argument is that India is more similar to the West than is China. The conclusion is that relative similarity will impede a future push by the West to divest from Indian manufacturing. There's a bit of a switcheroo in that argument, because the conclusion is only weakly supported by the premise. The strength of the argument depends on a comparative advantage in India-Western similarity versus Sino-Western similarity. I don't agree that India is more of a Western country than China, apart from the influence of British rule. Think about cultural norms, religious thinking, political philosophy, racial discrimination, and women's rights in India. Would you describe these aspects of India as "Western"? China is arguably a more capitalist country than India; does that mean it is more "Western"? Even if India were "more similar" to the West than China, it is so dissimilar from the West that it is totally within the realm of reason that the China manufacturing quagmire could be replaced by an equivalent India quagmire within a decade or two. Both countries are faraway, populous, third-world regional powers with nuclear weapons and territorial disputes. They are more similar to each other than either of them is to the West. There exist many third-world nations that are smaller (thus easier to influence) and closer to home (thus easier to defend in times of insecurity). If we have to invest in creating a new manufacturing hub in a place that will inevitably profit handsomely from our consumer demand, there is little sense in repeating the mistakes of the past and putting that hub in a massive Asian nation with which we have little in common.
bluGill 6y ago
The parts of culture that matter to business is a small subset of the whole culture. For businesses India may as well be a western country. They speak English (we can ignore the exceptions just like we ignore the few Germans who don't speak English), they have similar rules of law, so contracts will work. Businesses don't care about anything you do at home, which is most of where the culture is different.
16bytes 6y ago
As one who has traveled to rural India and experienced the culture shock, I can still say that India and the US are more similar than India and China. The systems of government, economic engines, individualism vs. collectivism are all well-aligned.