Category: Development

Rebirth of Liberty

A conference cosponsored by the Cato Institute and Libertad y Progreso titled “The Rebirth of Liberty in Argentina and Beyond” concluded a few hours ago in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The last two events on Wednesday evening were streamed live on X: a conversation between Johan Norberg and Elon Musk, followed by concluding remarks by Javier Milei.

Norberg and Musk conversed for nearly half an hour, in English of course. After that Milei spoke in his native Spanish. Perhaps a dubbed version of his remarks will be available later. Continue reading “Rebirth of Liberty”

The Problem of Economic Growth – Part 3

Most of the Founding Fathers of the American republic were seriously wary of “factions”—their term for what we call political parties—which they viewed as dangerous to the public interest.

Politics to them was a joint enterprise that the citizens undertook to seek out what was in the general interest, and after the appropriate deliberations of the various individuals were concluded and a consensus was arrived at, there was no room for different factions to pull in different directions.

For them, the political process was not about deciding winners and losers but about determining what served the common interests of all. If something is acknowledged to be in the common interest, there is no point in not pursuing it or opposing it.

With that, let’s continue on from the previous part of this essay — Continue reading “The Problem of Economic Growth – Part 3”

The Problem of Economic Growth – Part 2

I ended the previous part of this essay with:

The one factor that motivates the vast majority of people is self-interest. Self-interest is not a pathology because it’s a normal and unalterable aspect of human nature. It’s not a bug in human nature but is actually a feature. Indeed, self-interest broadly construed — enlightened self-interest — is what accounts for the advancement of civilization itself. People work hard to better the circumstances of themselves and those they care about, and in doing so advance the greater good even without intending to. This had been recognized two and a half centuries ago by Adam Smith and others.

Moving on —
Continue reading “The Problem of Economic Growth – Part 2”

The Problem of Economic Growth – Part 1

The economic growth of India since 1947 has been disappointingly low. Many countries—such as Hong Kong, South Korea, China—starting with comparable low levels of per capita GDP as India in the 1950s have over the last 75 years or so made phenomenal economic progress. Broadly speaking, those countries escaped poverty primarily because their political leaders were able to formulate and implement policies that promoted growth. In contrast to them, India stagnated. Continue reading “The Problem of Economic Growth – Part 1”

An Introduction to RISC (from the archives)

Photo by Ravigopal Kesari on Unsplash

Time to revisit RISC — the development model that I proposed over 20 years ago. It was about helping the rural population develop so that they become urbanized. The solution to rural development is urbanization. The first step to urbanization is the development of rural people. That means providing them with services that help them increase their productivity.

The core insight is the importance of distinguishing between rural people and rural areas. We have to focus on the development of rural people and not on the development of rural areas. Quote: Continue reading “An Introduction to RISC (from the archives)”

Rising Equality

Click to embiggen. There’s a famous landmark in the picture. What’s it?

I can justifiably claim that equality is rising in the world. Meaning, the world used to be less equal than it is today, and that in the future it will become more equal than today. The reason that claim appears to contradict reality is that I have not specified the dimension for the comparison implicit in any measure of equality. When it comes to comparisons of material wellbeing, there are three distinct dimensions — consumption, income, and wealth.

My claim is that consumption equality is increasing, not wealth or income.

Here’s a trivial case that illustrates what I mean. Warren Buffet’s income and wealth is six orders of magnitude greater than mine. Meaning his wealth is measured in units of “000,000,000” and mine is measured in units of “000.” Billions as opposed to thousands. Similarly his income per year is measured in billions and mine in thousands. Certainly, compared to Buffet in terms of wealth and income, I am dirt poor. But I am not dirt poor compared to Buffet in consumption. Continue reading “Rising Equality”

Back to 1960s Nehruvian Socialist Poverty

Good news for Indians. Back to autarky. Back to grinding poverty.

Economic Growth, Population and Poverty Numbers

I normally don’t do numbers. But in this post, I will have to refer to numbers because wealth and poverty have to be understood quantitatively too. So let’s do the numbers.

It is an amazing fact that extreme poverty has fallen both in absolute and relative terms. The world’s population living in extreme poverty has dropped from 42% in 1981 to 11% in 2013. The world population was 4.5 billion in 1981, and 7.2 billion in 2013. Therefore in absolute numbers, extreme poverty numbers dropped from 1.9 billion to 0.8 billion. Over one billion people climbed out of extreme poverty, mostly in China. Good job, China. Continue reading “Economic Growth, Population and Poverty Numbers”

On the Distress of Indian Farmers – The Introduction

Of the three major sectors of any economy, agriculture is the primary sector. It is prior in time and naturally enough forms the basis for the other two sectors — manufacturing and services. Without a solid foundation provided by an efficient agricultural sector, no society can prosper.

Everybody — factory workers, quantum physicists, doctors, programmers, musicians, writers, politicians — needs food. Farming is the oldest occupation and all civilizations begin as essentially agrarian societies. Agricultural success is the necessary precondition for the advancement of civilization. Without an agricultural revolution there can be no avenues for social, technological, and economic development.

The claim of this essay is that India has not had a comprehensive agricultural revolution. All the other problems that India faces derive from that failure. The good news is that India has the opportunity to have an agricultural revolution. It has always had that opportunity. Primarily because of plain idiocy — let’s not sugarcoat this bitter fact — India has failed in progressing much beyond subsistence agriculture. India’s abysmal poverty follows relentlessly from that fact. Continue reading “On the Distress of Indian Farmers – The Introduction”

Which Countries Win the International Mathematical Olympiads

IMOI was asked on twitter how students of Indian origin do in the maths equivalent of the US spelling bee contests. (I had written a blog post on how students of Indian origin appear to have cornered the market on US spelling bee contests.)

I guess they do well in math too. I did a bit of searching on the web and here’s what I found.  Continue reading “Which Countries Win the International Mathematical Olympiads”