But I'm not convinced meritocracy is intrinsically a superior system to other models. It can simply be an aristocracy that's even more sanctimonious and self-important than most, at worst.
Was it inevitable China would surpass India in development and economy?
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But I'm not convinced meritocracy is intrinsically a superior system to other models. It can simply be an aristocracy that's even more sanctimonious and self-important than most, at worst.
A meritocracy strikes me as being the opposite of an aristocracy. In one, power is earned; in another, power is inherited. The first is much more productive of change.
That’s not really much of an argument when India is just as vulnerable to a loon/incompetent of some kind steering the country either straight off an economic cliff a la Sri Lanka, into a communitarian meltdown, or into a major war with Pakistan or China.
My opinion : For better or worse china has long had a powerful centralised government machine that, absent foreign meddling, has had little trouble imposing its authority.
Like many European countries it also did a lot of ethnic cleansing and communitarian murdering many generations ago, rather than having it as a major risk point post-1900. Both of these gave it a modest advantage vs India but by no means a guarantee.
I’d certainly have bet on China coming out ahead, but only a small stake. The winner was IMO by no means certain, and the size of the gap was mostly unforeseen.
PakistaniGuyUK
Banned
Kick
The Indian fixation for Kashmir (it should really be irrelevant to India given the gargantuan size of the country) has really not done it any favours. All that defence budget wasted on a region that doesn't even wanna be part of India and in some cases looks down on Indians as inferior. If Indians had been foresighted they should've settled this early on and let it secede or join Pakistan, focus on its own economy and pushed the country towards the First World hopefully creating a scenario where Pakistan just becomes econmically reliant on India... but strategic thinking of this level requires a European/Japanese mind to be quite frank.
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Kaushlendra pratap singh
Banned
India only spend 2-3% on the army and it's pension combine as any country is doing on the other place Pakistan army is dependent on loan to pay there due.
Well, "doing nothing" is certainly a big stretch; India has seen major improvements in poverty reduction, economic growth, et cetera.
But India's not doing exceptionally well, either. It's really about average. There are other large multi-ethnic post-colonial states who've maintained stability and relative (if flawed) democracy; see Indonesia and the Philippines[1], who are also roughly in the same economic ballpark as India. Nothing awful, but nothing exceptional either.
That said, compared to China's phenomenal post-Dengist economic growth, India really is pretty mediocre. Despite arguably having a better start than China, which underwent the Japanese invasion, Mao, a horrific civil war, more Mao, horrible famines[2], etc, and being democratic to boot, India's like several times poorer.
[1] Well, besides Suharto and Marcos. But then it's not like India's hasn't had it's own "dictator"-lite moment either.
[2] Well, India's didn't exactly get scot-free here either, but the Bengal famine and Partition aren't really in the same league, devastation-wise, to Mao and Japan.
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As other posters have noted, China's biggest advantage was concentrating on universal literacy, primary education, infrastructure (everything from transportation networks to amenities like sewage and indoor plumbing). Interestingly, much of the groundwork for this was laid down in the Maoist period itself. Credit where due, I have criticized Marxist-Leninist regimes for a lot of things (I think very deservedly), but one thing they are generally good at is raising HDI, literacy and in building basic infrastructure. This is extremely important. So when Deng started his reforms in the late 70s, all the foreign investors found that they had a literate workforce, an adequate power supply, and reliable transportation networks to get their goods to market.
In contrast, India never built the sort of infrastructure foreign investors love. A recent CBC story detailed the reasons some Canadian investors (including even Indian origin businesses) were more bullish on China than India. No reliable electricity generation (there are frequent blackouts and "load shedding" even in industrial cities like Chennai and Bengaluru). Less literacy than China. India, in contrast to China, concentrated on building world class IITs, IIMs and management schools. This has helped Indians become CEOs of Western corporations like Google, Adobe, Coca Cola and Microsoft and become Doctorsheading major Western hospitals (so much so that it'sbecome a meme), but it is clear China's approach was superior in creating a generally well educated workforce. And then there are the problems like open sewage (a huge turnoff for foreign investors, not to mention a health risk), poor roads, clogged ports, differing laws and regulations from State to State, etc.
I think this is a fairly nuanced, balanced answer. I mostly concur.
The posters who say that India has been a "failure" are exaggerating. As someone who has traveled to India frequently, from my first trip as an 8 year old in 1980, and returning every few years until my last trip in 2017, I can state that objectively speaking India has improved materially each time. A new road here, a new college there, more and more people educated than ever before, more and more people online, etc. And the statistics bear that out, generally improving HDI, improving literacy, falling birth rate, slowly but surely improving infrastructure (both amenities and transportation), and with some inevitable reversals, a rise in both nominal and PPP GDP per year. This is especially true in the southern states (where my family originated).
But no, it is definitely not China, it isn't even in the same league. I agree with you that it is better to compare India with countries like Philippines or Indonesia. Yes those countries are richer for now, but I can see at current growth rates, India plausibly reaching the economic strength and standard of living of those nations in the next few decades.
China? No. Barring some kind of near-ASB level destruction/Civil War in China, it isn't happening.
As stated, China laid the groundwork for their boom decades ago, long before Deng. India took a different path. Not exactly a failure, as some falsely assert, but far from China. Very very far.
In contrast, India never built the sort of infrastructure foreign investors love. A recent CBC story detailed the reasons some Canadian investors (including even Indian origin businesses) were more bullish on China than India. No reliable electricity generation (there are frequent blackouts and "load shedding" even in industrial cities like Chennai and Bengaluru). Less literacy than China. India, in contrast to China, concentrated on building world class IITs, IIMs and management schools. This has helped Indians become CEOs of Western corporations like Google, Adobe, Coca Cola and Microsoft and become Doctorsheading major Western hospitals (so much so that it'sbecome a meme), but it is clear China's approach was superior in creating a generally well educated workforce. And then there are the problems like open sewage (a huge turnoff for foreign investors, not to mention a health risk), poor roads, clogged ports, differing laws and regulations from State to State, etc.
I think this is a fairly nuanced, balanced answer. I mostly concur.
The posters who say that India has been a "failure" are exaggerating. As someone who has traveled to India frequently, from my first trip as an 8 year old in 1980, and returning every few years until my last trip in 2017, I can state that objectively speaking India has improved materially each time. A new road here, a new college there, more and more people educated than ever before, more and more people online, etc. And the statistics bear that out, generally improving HDI, improving literacy, falling birth rate, slowly but surely improving infrastructure (both amenities and transportation), and with some inevitable reversals, a rise in both nominal and PPP GDP per year. This is especially true in the southern states (where my family originated).
But no, it is definitely not China, it isn't even in the same league. I agree with you that it is better to compare India with countries like Philippines or Indonesia. Yes those countries are richer for now, but I can see at current growth rates, India plausibly reaching the economic strength and standard of living of those nations in the next few decades.
China? No. Barring some kind of near-ASB level destruction/Civil War in China, it isn't happening.
As stated, China laid the groundwork for their boom decades ago, long before Deng. India took a different path. Not exactly a failure, as some falsely assert, but far from China. Very very far.
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Garrison
Donor
It's not meant as a detailed argument, just pointing out that not there was nothing inevitable about China outpacing India.
Only a person ignorant of the geographical significance of Kashmir to India would say something like this, right now the only way for pakistan to invade India is through Punjab rest is difficult because of the thar desert and the salt pans in Rann of Kutch. In absence of Kashmir the amount of land India had to defend would double and from Kashmir it easy to attack the Heartland in the gangetic plains.
And letting go of Kashmir does not really help the unity of the federal government 75 years ago, Tamil Nadu, the problems in the north east would get a lot worse as it would set a dangerous precedent.
All this talk sounds good in theory in the vaccum of a hypothetical situation created in the imaginary world of armchair university professors but it would be suicidal for the Indian state politically and geo politically. There's no guarantee that pakistan would not behave and it could well behave like in our time line, we will have to spend more on military.
As for people of Kashmir who look down upon us because of our religion to the skin colour, ordinary people here don't like them too and if you ask any policy makers or civil servant in the Indian government they'll say they care more for the land of Kashmir than its people and before you go around saying pakistan is better, it is not going to deny that but it's marginally better given the fate of gilgit baltistan.
Optical_Illusion
Banned
A large share of the difference is simply that India hasn't poured women into the workforce in the same way that China has.
Penn World Tables (https://www.rug.nl/ggdc/productivity/pwt/?lang=en) is a good resource for comparing economies.
If we look at this, we find that comparing the size of the total economy for GDP at PPP (rgdpna - real GDP per capita national accounts at purchasing power parity), we find that India is currently 45% the size of China.
If you adjust for population size, then this doesn't change too much, and India has 46% GDP at PPP per person.
However, if we adjust for GDP PPP per employed population, then India is 72% as productive as China. This is because China has this huge female workforce, while India really doesn't.
Now furthermore, if we compared consumption at PPP per employed population - which reflects the actual size of the private economy in the country without distortions from FDI, exports, etc, then we find that consumption per worker (the kind of living standards enjoyed per worker) is about 85% the size of China, in India.
Plots:
A large (in absolute terms) divergence in GDP per worker did not really happen even until the 1990s. Now this is mainly women, although it is to some extent also the different age-structure of China and India at the moment.
This is a big thing to remember about China is that a lot of the story of growth has been about pushing large numbers of people into conventional forms of investment in relatively low skill based manufacturing still and making big investments to do so. The average years of schooling per worker, for example, is still not so high for China vs India - https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/mean-years-of-schooling-long-run.
Penn World Tables (https://www.rug.nl/ggdc/productivity/pwt/?lang=en) is a good resource for comparing economies.
If we look at this, we find that comparing the size of the total economy for GDP at PPP (rgdpna - real GDP per capita national accounts at purchasing power parity), we find that India is currently 45% the size of China.
If you adjust for population size, then this doesn't change too much, and India has 46% GDP at PPP per person.
However, if we adjust for GDP PPP per employed population, then India is 72% as productive as China. This is because China has this huge female workforce, while India really doesn't.
Now furthermore, if we compared consumption at PPP per employed population - which reflects the actual size of the private economy in the country without distortions from FDI, exports, etc, then we find that consumption per worker (the kind of living standards enjoyed per worker) is about 85% the size of China, in India.
Plots:
A large (in absolute terms) divergence in GDP per worker did not really happen even until the 1990s. Now this is mainly women, although it is to some extent also the different age-structure of China and India at the moment.
This is a big thing to remember about China is that a lot of the story of growth has been about pushing large numbers of people into conventional forms of investment in relatively low skill based manufacturing still and making big investments to do so. The average years of schooling per worker, for example, is still not so high for China vs India - https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/mean-years-of-schooling-long-run.
And what happens once power is earned? You think parents won’t move heaven and earth to pass it on to their children? And succeed because any system can be gamed no matter how well-intentiond?
Familial nepotism, by definition, is not meritocratic. It is in fact a key element of aristocracy.
But how do you prevent familial nepotism from happening? Short of taking children away from their parents, they’ll try to pass on their advantages because there’s nothing more human than wanting the best for your family. Or do you seriously believe that in a meritocracy, they won’t try to get an unfair advantage because that’s immoral?
I remember reading that Vallabhbhai Patel was fine with Kashmir joining Pakistan. Then Ali Jinna tried to get the Hindu majority principalities to join Pakistan.
The wikipedia article on Vallabhbhai Patel said:
India and China really should not be compared in my opinion.
China is a very unified country with dissent stamped out and general education brought to a high level.
China has somehow after all the mistakes of the first few 5 year plans actually arrived in the 90's as an industrial superpower with incredible governmental support for foreign factories. The transfer of knowledge required to make all the factories making our high tech phones and gadgets upskilled china at an incredible pace. The smart trained and literate workforce was perfectly placed at the right time.
China is however facing a massive crisis, and it is one of their own creation. That crisis is the literal halving of population as the old die off. Now elderly people passing away is hardly new, work in age care and you see it often enough and often your can predict a week or two early that someone is going to die.
China however does not have the people to look after those elderly people and does not have the population coming through that can carry the load.
In 20 years china will either be struggling due to population reduction through old age or entering a golden age due to less people and excellent infrastructure.
I really am not familiar with India however the impression i get is that India does a fantastic job of turning out absolute elites in numerous fields such as IT and Medicine.
I have worked with numerous Indian Nurses etc and the level of competency is really high. So the education side is working to an extent.
I have been told local corruption is hard to combat and turns infrastructure projects into literal retirement funds for officials.
This means maybe half the projects get finished and half the resources are wasted.
India is a superpower with considerable power to flex, If anything it is on par with China from a military point of view and can control most of the Indian ocean if it wants to.
India has problems and some deep divisions within the country that are not resolved as of yet. In 20 year India's population will exceed China and maybe just maybe the government may ask for restricted numbers.
Honestly I like both countries for different reasons, the people I have met from both countries have been professional and competent. I just don't think comparisons can be done without full intimate knowledge of both.
China is a very unified country with dissent stamped out and general education brought to a high level.
China has somehow after all the mistakes of the first few 5 year plans actually arrived in the 90's as an industrial superpower with incredible governmental support for foreign factories. The transfer of knowledge required to make all the factories making our high tech phones and gadgets upskilled china at an incredible pace. The smart trained and literate workforce was perfectly placed at the right time.
China is however facing a massive crisis, and it is one of their own creation. That crisis is the literal halving of population as the old die off. Now elderly people passing away is hardly new, work in age care and you see it often enough and often your can predict a week or two early that someone is going to die.
China however does not have the people to look after those elderly people and does not have the population coming through that can carry the load.
In 20 years china will either be struggling due to population reduction through old age or entering a golden age due to less people and excellent infrastructure.
I really am not familiar with India however the impression i get is that India does a fantastic job of turning out absolute elites in numerous fields such as IT and Medicine.
I have worked with numerous Indian Nurses etc and the level of competency is really high. So the education side is working to an extent.
I have been told local corruption is hard to combat and turns infrastructure projects into literal retirement funds for officials.
This means maybe half the projects get finished and half the resources are wasted.
India is a superpower with considerable power to flex, If anything it is on par with China from a military point of view and can control most of the Indian ocean if it wants to.
India has problems and some deep divisions within the country that are not resolved as of yet. In 20 year India's population will exceed China and maybe just maybe the government may ask for restricted numbers.
Honestly I like both countries for different reasons, the people I have met from both countries have been professional and competent. I just don't think comparisons can be done without full intimate knowledge of both.
I don't think that is going to change anytime soon, indian society is very conservative and to a large extent kinda sexist towards women, although we perform better than the country's with worst track records for women's rights but if you compared to say China, it's pretty far behind. On the flip side though India's birthrate has the potential to remain stable for significant longer time Period than China since most women are pushed into being full time mother's especially in the middle class.
Another important factor that no one talks about is our neighbours and the wider neighbourhood. Look at the PRC they have hongkong, Taiwan, Japan, ROK, diaspora in Singapore all of whom had undergone industrial revolution and were looking for a workshop to produce cheap goods which just few years ago they were producing.
Burma is a unstable dictatorship, Bhutan is an Indian state except in name, Nepal has civil wars, Sri Lanka too and Pakistan and Afghanistan, yeah i don't need to explain that.
The only good neighbour we have is Bangladesh.
Look at the wider region then we have oil rich middle East who despite 75 years livin off oil haven't diversified but the middle East oil boom did set off industrialization on the west coast of India. Just goes to show how big the screw up did middle East monarchies did with their oil money.