Yes.

Relying on pure and simple liberalization and free markets is like saying “ok everyone start treating each other well and sooner or later we will live in paradise”…It works well in theory but “the long run” could be infinity.

If we do accept the poverty-line figures, and agree that being just above the poverty-line means near-destitution, that still means about 50% or so people in India have access to the basic requirements of life. I don’t see how that means 80% of our children are deprived of basic needs? What parameters were used to come up with the numbers?

Chinese economic development has centered around economic development zones, where the government allows an extra degree of economic freedom.

A Socialist party has run the government in Sweden in 6 out of the last 7 decades. That does make it socialist.

By your logic the Communist party has been in power in China since the 50s so the china is a communist country.

The socialist democrat party started out as a traditional labour party but today is more of a centrist, white collar party.

Furthermore, your reasoning erroneously assumes that “economic freedom” is antithetical to socialism or socialist philosophies (which are different than communism or totalitarianism by the way….)

I guess you are right, but in an indian context socialism is associated with Nehru style ‘mixed-economic’ system which is a middle groud between outright marxism and capitalism (leaning more towards marxism than capitalism).

Yes China has done better now that it has liberalized. Nobody contests that. But the point of this thread was to ask what is to be done about poverty in India. The answer is not simply to liberalize.

India has a lot more similarities with China than with Sweden

ok somehow the link tab is isn’t working for me

http://heritage.org/research/features/index.countries.fm

I am not an economist, have no idea how they come up with these rankings, or if they are just a bunch of baloney. But it is interesting, isn’t it?

And Sweden has a large welfare state, but it actually has a pretty liberal economy in some ways and is less regulated in the business sector than the United States. To have so much money to spread around, you first have to make that money (I wish I could find the article, it was linked on Arts and Letters Daily about a month or so ago – about how liberal Sweden’s economy is. Vurdlife – they have a lot of foreign investment, which is something you seem to be against.)

My admission was not a complaint. (Though I see how you could read one.) And my posts were an effort to center the discussion.

This is my second day participating on Sepia. I’m a little surprised by the vehemence and energy of the discussions, but, on balance, I take that as a positive.

Anyway, while I can’t speak for gc, in my case, it’s precisely because India is such a poor country, and because I’ve seen the gut-wrenching poverty that so many Indians live in first-hand, that the socialist lunacy embraced by its leaders over the years sparks my rhetorical ire.

The discussion became a posturing and somewhat dated debate about the relative virtues of two economic models.

I feel stupid for participating.