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2012-06-10 Economy

Sunday Morning Book Review #2: Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not

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Posted by 2012-06-10 10:32|| || Front Page|| [3 views ] Top

#1 The whole geographic determinism thing, Jared Diamond's conceit, was put to rest with authority by Victor Davis Hanson a decade ago.

Why is this Indian guy even desirous of beating this dead horse?

Posted by no mo uro 2012-06-10 12:51|| 2012-06-10 12:51|| Front Page Top

#2 Diamond is easy to put to rest, since his claims are so very sweeping and general.

Parthasarathi does an excellent job of documenting a much greater pre-industrial sophistication in India than is usally recognized in the West. fWIW, I find his book interesting for that reason, for the specifics of economic policies etc. he documents and in general as a springboard to contemplate just how complex and intertwined culture, law, economy and use of military power can be ....

Posted by lotp 2012-06-10 13:08|| 2012-06-10 13:08|| Front Page Top

#3 Or, to put it another way:

My field is cognitively informed computing, so I watch e.g. related Chinese publications with much interest. For a long time, they were pretty derivative. But lately they have taken the lead in some areas.

It interests me to speculate why and how that might have come about and what we might want to do in response.

Posted by lotp 2012-06-10 13:10|| 2012-06-10 13:10|| Front Page Top

#4 The United States (aka the 13 colonies) revolted from GB largely because of economic issues. So given that the economic policies of the time were not remotely even handed it is fair to say that India was operating under an econoimic handicap.

But on the flip side, India had access to western technology, education, and markets. Also, the caste system disenfranchised a large portion of the population. Blaming the whole thing on resource imbalances strikes me as odd; didn't most of the cotton come from India by the time of the US Civil War?

Posted by Mike Ramsey 2012-06-10 16:22|| 2012-06-10 16:22|| Front Page Top

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