China and India
The lead article in this week’s Economist argues that in the long-run, India’s chaotic democratic capitalism is likely to outperform Chain’s authoritarian capitalism for two reasons. First, due to China’s one-child policy, the country’s working-age population is falling, while India’s far younger population means the workforce is going to grow. Second, information flows much more easily and quickly in India compared to China because the former is a democracy and the latter is not. As a result, India has a big advantage over China in taking advantage of the information revolution. The big takeaway point is centralized planning is probably not the best model for sustaining long-term economic growth in today’s world. Rather, democracy in India, chaotic as it is, is a far better environment for sustaining economic development.
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[...] of a recent post, Bill Easterly points out that while non-democratic regimes have some of the world’s fastest [...]
can’t agree more this. more ‘stable’and ‘sustainable’ eceonomic development , china needs democracy. state over society for economic development does not seem to work anymore. chinese government has ignored problematic social changes caused by government-led and labor intensive industry(not because of communism. communism in China is just a format(?) or chinese name of authoritarian regime). democratic regime is required for social welfare system for labors, the bridge to gap btw the poor and the rich, unjustice in market, etc–the new infrastructure in economy. thesedays, chinese people also become aware of what they want. it will be a huge potential for political change in China.
haha i mistyped. it’s not ‘for unjustice in market’ (it does not make sense! ) , but ‘for justice in market’!
I don’t know enough about China to have any view of what a political transition would look like there. However it has always seem fanciful to me to believe that China can go from a poor, rural society to a wealthy, urban one without major political changes. China’s increasingly assertive foreign policy reminds me of Germany’s actions in the late 19th century. We all know how that ended.