I think that this and other articles confuse Socialism with
Bureaucracy.  Libertarianism as implemented in North America is not
exactly the shining pinnacle of economic efficiency.
Just try starting a telephone company in the US or (even worse)
Canada.  It can take a year or more to get the blessing of our own
"Permit Rajs" at the FCC, PUC, and PTTs (or, in the decidedly more
socialist leaning Canada, Industry Canada and the CRTC).
Yet, despite all of this intense regulation and paper pushing, as
well as regulatory scrutiny by the FTC, SEC, and IRS, the
executives of Telecom Companies have managed to bilk the investment
community for what looks to be tens of billions of dollars.  They
finished their routine with the a quadruple lutz -- laying off
hundreds of thousands of workers when it all came crashing down.
So.. tell me again.. how are we better off?
-Ian.
On Tuesday, August 20, 2002, at 12:09 PM, John Hall wrote:
The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails
Everywhere Else -- by Hernando De Soto
Is something I'm reading now.
My impression is that France is not anywhere near the "Permit Raj"
nightmare that India is (and became).  Nor has its market been closed
like India's has.
But De Soto's work is perhaps just as important or more so.  He hasn't
dealt specifically with India, but I recall examples from Peru,
Philippines, and Egypt.  In Lima, his team took over a year (I think it
was 2) working 8 hr days to legally register a 1 person company.  In the
Philippines, getting legal title can take 20 years.  In Egypt, about 80%
of the population in Cairo lives in places where they are officially
illegal.
India hasn't been helped by its socialism.  Socialism has certainly
helped strangle the country in permits.  But perhaps De Soto is right
that the real crippling thing is keeping most of the people out of the
legal, official property system.
Putting most of the people in the property system was something the west
only finished about 100 years ago, or Japan did 50 years ago.  It wasn't
easy, but we live in a society that doesn't even remember we did it.
-----Original Message-----
From: fork-admin@xent.com [mailto:fork-admin@xent.com] On Behalf Of
Robert
Harley
Sent: Tuesday, August 20, 2002 11:24 AM
To: fork@spamassassin.taint.org
Subject: Re: The Curse of India's Socialism
RAH quoted:
Indians are not poor because there are too many of them; they are
poor
because there are too many regulations and too much government
intervention
-- even today, a decade after reforms were begun. India's greatest
problems
arise from a political culture guided by socialist instincts on the
one
hand and an imbedded legal obligation on the other hand.
Nice theory and all, but s/India/France/g and the statements hold just
as true, yet France is #12 in the UN's HDI ranking, not #124.
Since all parties must stand for socialism, no party espouses
classical liberalism
I'm not convinced that that classical liberalism is a good solution
for countries in real difficulty.  See Joseph Stiglitz (Nobel for
Economics) on the FMI's failed remedies.  Of course googling on
"Stiglitz FMI" only brings up links in Spanish and French.  I guess
that variety of spin is non grata in many anglo circles.
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