Slashdot Mirror
The Myth of the New India
theodp writes "An NYT op-ed on The Myth of the New India reports that only 1.3M Indians are participating in the so-called new economy of BPO, leaving 400M have-nots without a piece of the pie. Despite recent gains, nearly 380M Indians still live on less $1 a day, setting the stage for rural and urban conflict." From the article: "No labor-intensive manufacturing boom of the kind that powered the economic growth of almost every developed and developing country in the world has yet occurred in India. Unlike China, India still imports more than it exports. This means that as 70 million more people enter the work force in the next five years, most of them without the skills required for the new economy, unemployment and inequality could provoke even more social instability than they have already."
Also 1.3M + 400M adds up to only 401M. According to Wikipedia, ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India ) India has a population of 1,103M, so what's going on here?
If the reason is cultural, how come before 1800s, i.e. before British took over India, India had been either the richest country in the world, or the second richest from 1CE to 1800s?
Here are the numbers in various centuries from The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective by economic historian Angus Maddison
Country GDP($millions)1CE 1000 1600 1700
World 102536 116790 329417 371369
India 33750 33750 74250 90750
China 26820 26550 96000 82800
M. East 16470 16470 36725 40567
W. Europe 11115 13723 43000 45000
Don't blame ills of a socialist economy on cluture