Explanation of Ideology: Family Structures and Social Systems (Family, sexuality, and social relations in past... by Emmanuel Todd and D. Garrioch (Oct 3, 1985)
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Sunday, May 17, 2015
Where are the poor?
I grew up in coastal Andhra (1941-54) and then got interested in mathematics and it has been a life of abstract thinking since then. My main connection with reality seem to those early years when poverty seemed to be all around. Now visits to that area are about once in year and half or so. Other NRIs from Melbourne visit more often to visit relatives or sick relatives or attend or perform weddings. I ask them about the poor. They say it is all fine now and there are very few poor. That does not correspond with my readings from Angus Deaton and others. So what goes? Again from my readings, the so called middle class in India is very small: about ten percent or so. So, I tell my friends this and say that may be they see only the relatively affluent. Some of them say that they spoke to one of their drivers. The personal drivers in India are an interesting category. Apart from driving, they do several tasks for the car owners like grocery shopping or car repairs and some of them keep a fraction of the proceedings. Since they spend a lot of time outside the house waiting for the owner's call they also interact with other drivers and one can get a lot of information and gossip about the other affluent people from them. So meeting them does not tell much about the poor.
My own impressions is that it reduced in some pockets. In coastal Andhra, I see much less beggars than those days and people do look a bit bigger than before. But it is different in Kolkata where you see a lot of thin people or the boatman on whose boat I crossed Hooghly for two rupees. I also saw women repairing tar roads with clothes tied around their feet, with babies sleeping on the roadside and they go off and on to feed them. There are some very rich neighbourhoods in Hyderabad where you dot see poor because they are kept outside by gatekeepers. But if there is a construction site, you can see many of the workers in small tents in rain and shine. In empty lots, you can sometimes see itinerant groups from medicine men to repairers camping. You can see them in the photographs of Kandukuri Ramesh Babu, or ...of lives and livelihoods series of Madhukar Shukla or from archives like those of P.Sainath. But we do not usually see them from our friends on Facebook which often show paunchy people attending functions or enjoying good food.
May be we cannot see misery all the time. We want to make our own spaces and live in some sort of comfort. After all, we have to make a livelihood, achieve some thing, caught up in these paradigms of growth and achievement. And anecdotal evidence and our own experiences are unreliable. Nor data as Angus Deaton and Tom Slee point out.
P.S. On my wall, Professor Shkla responded:
that's an interesting blog and observation, Prof!
the trend of keeping poor out of the frame in bollywood perhaps started with a film "Dil Chahta Hai" some 10-15 years back (good entertaining film, but that perhaps was the first of this kind showing a different sanitized reality), and now there are many movies which would fall into this category.
incidentally, poor have not disappeared - they are all around - in and in the backyard of most prosperous places... but mostly we dont "see" them
My response:
Professor Shukla, I see it a bit differently. We had this exclusion from times immemorial (for lower castes who were essentially poor and in Europe for Jews and Gypsies). During independence movement, there was some flowering of ideas but leadership was mostly from the privileged groups. I think films were influenced by this flowering as well as money at the bottom of the pyramid. That is why classical music, dance previously the exclusive to the privileged classes was reluctantly (remember the Keskar ban) 'diluted' (though some forms were originally adopted from folk idioms) to appeal to the masses. But now with a bigger middle class and NRI market, films can afford to ignore the poor again. Many sceneries in Piku look like those in Hollywood movies, highways, roadside restaurants etc. I think that there is also resurgence of classical music and dance among the middle classes and NRIs. May be.
My own impressions is that it reduced in some pockets. In coastal Andhra, I see much less beggars than those days and people do look a bit bigger than before. But it is different in Kolkata where you see a lot of thin people or the boatman on whose boat I crossed Hooghly for two rupees. I also saw women repairing tar roads with clothes tied around their feet, with babies sleeping on the roadside and they go off and on to feed them. There are some very rich neighbourhoods in Hyderabad where you dot see poor because they are kept outside by gatekeepers. But if there is a construction site, you can see many of the workers in small tents in rain and shine. In empty lots, you can sometimes see itinerant groups from medicine men to repairers camping. You can see them in the photographs of Kandukuri Ramesh Babu, or ...of lives and livelihoods series of Madhukar Shukla or from archives like those of P.Sainath. But we do not usually see them from our friends on Facebook which often show paunchy people attending functions or enjoying good food.
May be we cannot see misery all the time. We want to make our own spaces and live in some sort of comfort. After all, we have to make a livelihood, achieve some thing, caught up in these paradigms of growth and achievement. And anecdotal evidence and our own experiences are unreliable. Nor data as Angus Deaton and Tom Slee point out.
P.S. On my wall, Professor Shkla responded:
that's an interesting blog and observation, Prof!
the trend of keeping poor out of the frame in bollywood perhaps started with a film "Dil Chahta Hai" some 10-15 years back (good entertaining film, but that perhaps was the first of this kind showing a different sanitized reality), and now there are many movies which would fall into this category.
incidentally, poor have not disappeared - they are all around - in and in the backyard of most prosperous places... but mostly we dont "see" them
My response:
Professor Shukla, I see it a bit differently. We had this exclusion from times immemorial (for lower castes who were essentially poor and in Europe for Jews and Gypsies). During independence movement, there was some flowering of ideas but leadership was mostly from the privileged groups. I think films were influenced by this flowering as well as money at the bottom of the pyramid. That is why classical music, dance previously the exclusive to the privileged classes was reluctantly (remember the Keskar ban) 'diluted' (though some forms were originally adopted from folk idioms) to appeal to the masses. But now with a bigger middle class and NRI market, films can afford to ignore the poor again. Many sceneries in Piku look like those in Hollywood movies, highways, roadside restaurants etc. I think that there is also resurgence of classical music and dance among the middle classes and NRIs. May be.
Saturday, May 16, 2015
Friday, May 15, 2015
Back-scratching
After a three year study Back-scratching: Do what is best for your mates and screw the rest:
"For me the take-home lessons are:
"For me the take-home lessons are:
- Loyalty is strong. Rotation policies are good, unless those people being rotated in have existing loyalties. This means there is a trade-off for regulators; staff with more industry experience are also likely to come with stronger prior alliances and hence be more prone to back-scratching. In politics it means voting in a different political party brings with it the alliances of that party.
- Bureaucracy can work. The array of procedures emerging in our large organisations could simply be the result of seeking internal fairness over favouritism. But back-scratching can still arise even with minimal amounts of discretion.
- Social norms are strong. In organisations or groups where some people are observed ‘doing the right thing for the group’, this quickly becomes the norm. Whereas where favouritism is observed, the group descends into counterproductive back-scratching.
- Be loyal, but not too loyal. If your alliance partner fails to come through with favours when expected it pays to look for someone else whose back needs scratching." and "And if you look deep enough there is an evolutionary foundation for this behaviour. As Joshua Green explains:
Morality evolved to enable cooperation, but this conclusion comes with an important caveat. Biologically speaking, humans were designed for cooperation, but only with some people. Our moral brains evolved for cooperation within groups, and perhaps only within the context of personal relationships. Out moral brains did not evolve for cooperation between groups (at least not all groups). How do we know this? Because universal cooperation is inconsistent with the principles of natural selection. I wish it were otherwise, but there's no escaping this conclusion
This. Fundamentally. Is why corrupt back-scratching is so hard to eradicate, and why it will continue to be the main game in politics." The part attributed to Joshua Greene seems to from a review of Joshua Green book by Thomas Nagel
Thursday, May 14, 2015
Tom Slee on open data
From 'Seeing like a geek": "According to Bhuvaneswari Raman, the Dalit claim was sideswiped by a Tamil Nadu government program to standardize, digitize and centralize land records. The program, promoted by the World Bank as a pro-poor, pro-transparency initiative, was undertaken to capitalize on the boom in nearby Chennai. The absence of clear land titles made extensive land purchases time consuming and expensive, and this was a bottleneck to large-scale development projects. As part of the program, the Tamil Nadu government declared that the digitized records would be the only evidence admissable in court for land claims, so the older records and less precise data that formed the basis of the Dalit claims lost any legal footing they had, and their claim was sunk.
A new generation of land developers grew up alongside the digitized records: firms with the skills and information to make efficient use of this new resource. These developers lobbied effectively for records and spatial data to be made open, and then used their advantages to displace smaller firms who, as Raman writes, "relied on their knowledge of local histories and relationships to assemble land for development". The effects went far beyond the three-acre plot near Marakkanan: newly visible master plans became used as "the reference point to label legal and illegal spaces and as a justification for evicting the poor from their economic and residential spaces." The "pro-poor" initiative turned out to be anything but. Tamil Nadu was not alone in running an open data project that made life harder for the poor; neighbouring Karnataka’s "Bhoomi" (or ‘land’) e-governance program has had similar effects....."
A new generation of land developers grew up alongside the digitized records: firms with the skills and information to make efficient use of this new resource. These developers lobbied effectively for records and spatial data to be made open, and then used their advantages to displace smaller firms who, as Raman writes, "relied on their knowledge of local histories and relationships to assemble land for development". The effects went far beyond the three-acre plot near Marakkanan: newly visible master plans became used as "the reference point to label legal and illegal spaces and as a justification for evicting the poor from their economic and residential spaces." The "pro-poor" initiative turned out to be anything but. Tamil Nadu was not alone in running an open data project that made life harder for the poor; neighbouring Karnataka’s "Bhoomi" (or ‘land’) e-governance program has had similar effects....."
Some studies about empowerment
In a previous post, I said "most people are corrupt and take advantage of whatever privileges they have". I meant not just corporations and the -1 percent. In ny case, in what sense is this correct? at personal level, I have seen how cast connections work in India or in different countries middle class people encroaching public land, or people using office stationary for personal purposes.At the academic level, I have read some articles from India in connection with "The 74th amendment, or Nagarapalika Act, provides a legal
framework for urban self-governance, and the ministry of urban
development of the government of India claims on its web site
that the Act has “made the urban local bodies into vibrant
self-governing institutions”." John Harriss in a study of civil society organizations in Chennai says "Finally, to sum up. The kind of local organisation in civil society
that is looked for in the agenda of “empowerment” does exist
in a metropolitan city of India like Chennai, but it is very largely
exclusive in regard to the urban poor of the informal working
class – certainly as active agents. It is organisation of and for
the “consumer-citizen” subjects of the neoliberal state, and much
of the activity that it sustains is directed at disciplining the urban
poor rather than supporting their struggles over rights to housing,
livelihood and protection, or their self-realisation. It is important,
however, to nuance these conclusions, for there are organisations
and activities that do address the needs and interests of poor
people, support their claims to political citizenship and aim to
extend the possibilities for them to participate in local governance.
But there are then the antinomies of representative democratic
politics." There are similar studies from other cities. Here is the summary of Solomon Benjamin's paper about Bangalore:
"SUMMARY: This paper suggests that an understanding of poverty in cities such as Bangalore (often referred to as India’s Silicon Valley) requires more attention to the governance processes in which different groups compete for public investments and support. It describes the differences between the “local” and the “corporate” economies within Bangalore and their links with government. The local economies provide most of the population (including virtually all poor groups) with their livelihoods. They mostly develop outside the “master plan” areas, with diverse and complex economies and land tenure forms within which poor groups find accommodation and work. Their links with government are through local government – the City Corporation and its councillors and lower level bureaucracy. The corporate economies include the information technology industries for which Bangalore is well-known. Most of their links with government are with state and national parastatal agencies that control most of Bangalore’s development functions and have access to most government funding. But there is little local representation in these agencies. This profoundly disadvantages poor groups and the local economies in the competition for land, infrastructure and services. Rigid land use controls in the expanding corporate enclave areas exclude most pro-poor economic activity and threaten poorer groups’ fragile claims to land. Poor groups suffer demolition, resettlement, increased land prices and a governance system in which their local representative structure has little power. Meanwhile, the publicly sponsored “mega-projects” in Bangalore do little to support the local economies that are so important for the city’s prosperity; indeed, as this paper describes, many serve to disrupt them."
I will try to find some other article that I read and will post the links to them when I find them.
"SUMMARY: This paper suggests that an understanding of poverty in cities such as Bangalore (often referred to as India’s Silicon Valley) requires more attention to the governance processes in which different groups compete for public investments and support. It describes the differences between the “local” and the “corporate” economies within Bangalore and their links with government. The local economies provide most of the population (including virtually all poor groups) with their livelihoods. They mostly develop outside the “master plan” areas, with diverse and complex economies and land tenure forms within which poor groups find accommodation and work. Their links with government are through local government – the City Corporation and its councillors and lower level bureaucracy. The corporate economies include the information technology industries for which Bangalore is well-known. Most of their links with government are with state and national parastatal agencies that control most of Bangalore’s development functions and have access to most government funding. But there is little local representation in these agencies. This profoundly disadvantages poor groups and the local economies in the competition for land, infrastructure and services. Rigid land use controls in the expanding corporate enclave areas exclude most pro-poor economic activity and threaten poorer groups’ fragile claims to land. Poor groups suffer demolition, resettlement, increased land prices and a governance system in which their local representative structure has little power. Meanwhile, the publicly sponsored “mega-projects” in Bangalore do little to support the local economies that are so important for the city’s prosperity; indeed, as this paper describes, many serve to disrupt them."
I will try to find some other article that I read and will post the links to them when I find them.
Possible futures
This engaging essay Four Futures by Peter Frase envisions that capitalism will end imagines four possible futures after capitalism. I am not sure. The analysis seems to ignore 1) infinite capacity of humans to survive putting up with injustices and 2) most people are corrupt and take advantage of whatever privileges they have. Though I do not like it, I think capitalism will survive in much more unjust form with more and more people working hard to make a living and a few from 1-20 percent cornering the benefits.
Wednesday, May 13, 2015
Cuba's lung cancer vaccine
"To be fair, Cimavax probably won’t be a game-changing cancer drug in its current form. The vaccine doesn’t attack tumors directly, instead going after a protein that tumors produce which then circulates in the blood. That action spurs a person’s body to release antibodies against a hormone called epidermal growth factor, which typically spurs cell growth but can also, if unchecked, cause cancer. (Although most people normally think of a vaccine as something that prevents a disease, technically a vaccine is a substance that stimulates the immune system in some way.) So the point of Cimavax is to keep lung tumors from growing and metastasizing, turning a late-stage growth into something chronic but manageable." More in the article Cuba has a lung cancer vaccine-and America wants it by Neel V.Patel (via Lambert Strether in Naked Capitalism)
The passion of Rassundari DevI
:Madhukar Shukla links to an article about the beginnings of girl's schools and an earlier lady Rassundari Devi born in 1810 who had twelve children, so busy with household drudgery that she did not even have time to eat on some days. But she was so passionate about reading and writing that she taught herself "to read and write by scratching the letters of the alphabet onto a corner of the blackened wall of the kitchen" (from the introduction to her pages in "Women's writing in India: From 600 B.C. to the present" Edited by Susie Tharu and K.Lalita, 1993).. Her memoirs were published in two parts in 1876 and 1906. She married at the age of twelve, the idea that she should read and write entered her mind at the age of fourteen, but could not do any thin about it. She had her first child at 18. She says as a child she used to sit in a classroom and listen to the chants of the children. At some stage (she does not say when) she started recalling thirty letters. One day she dreamt that she was reading 'Chaitanya Bhagavata' and woke up feeling happy that at least in dreams, she could read. The book was available at home but she did not know which book it was. Her eldest son was eight at that time and she got the book with his help, took out a sheet from it and kept in a secret place in the kitchen (because women were not supposed to read and write). After many days, she stole a palm leaf on which her son used to practice writing." One look at the leaf, another at the sheet, a comparison with he letters I already knew, and, finally, a verification with the speech of others-that was the practice I adopted for some time. Furtively I would take out the sheet and put it back promptly before anybody could see it."
Here is the link from Madhukar Shukla's wallhttp://infochangeindia.org/kids/forwomen_02.php
Here is the link from Madhukar Shukla's wallhttp://infochangeindia.org/kids/forwomen_02.php
Tuesday, May 12, 2015
Globalization and TPP
The first (via Naked Capitalism) says The Great Unravelling of Globalization "Indeed, although multinational executives avoid talking about it publicly, profits in global markets are underwhelming — and doing business internationally is full of unanticipated risks."
The second from John Quiggin Through the Looking Glass quotes from an article in New York Times "Obama's Pacific Trade Push Faces Senate Vote This Week: " To the president, the Trans-Pacific Partnership would counter the economic weight of China and set rules on labor, the environment, intellectual property and investor protections for the growing economies of the Pacific Rim. For members of Congress, it is about jobs." He goes on to say "For the critics (just about everyone on the left), it’s precisely the “rules on labor, the environment, intellectual property and investor protections” that represent the big concerns. All of these rules benefit corporations at the expense of workers, the environment, the free flow of information and national sovereignty. It’s the general strengthening of corporate power, and not the flow of goods, that will harm jobs, wages and working conditions Investor-State Dispute Settlement provisions, for example, have been used to challenge minimum wage laws.
The second from John Quiggin Through the Looking Glass quotes from an article in New York Times "Obama's Pacific Trade Push Faces Senate Vote This Week: " To the president, the Trans-Pacific Partnership would counter the economic weight of China and set rules on labor, the environment, intellectual property and investor protections for the growing economies of the Pacific Rim. For members of Congress, it is about jobs." He goes on to say "For the critics (just about everyone on the left), it’s precisely the “rules on labor, the environment, intellectual property and investor protections” that represent the big concerns. All of these rules benefit corporations at the expense of workers, the environment, the free flow of information and national sovereignty. It’s the general strengthening of corporate power, and not the flow of goods, that will harm jobs, wages and working conditions Investor-State Dispute Settlement provisions, for example, have been used to challenge minimum wage laws.
Leading US critics like Elizabeth Warren and the AFL-CIO have raised some of these points, noting (for the benefit of Republicans in particular) that the ISDS provisions will enable unaccountable arbitrators to override US federal and state laws.
The use of trade deals as an instrument of geopolitics is also unwelcome for a country like Australia that needs to balance itself between the US and China. Despite its enthusiastic support for the US and the TPP deal, the conservative government here signed up to join China’s regional infrastructure bank, developed largely in response to China’s exclusion from the TPP."
John Quiggin also posted this at Crooked Timber, where there will a lot of comments. Dean Baker has also written several posts on TPP, the latest here.
P.S. More from Elizabeth Warren
P.S. More from Elizabeth Warren
Monday, May 11, 2015
Sunday, May 10, 2015
The Silk Road documentaries
A recent dance posted by Richard Singer reminded me of these excellent documentaries on the Silk Road which came around 1980 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlWhWyoAMRk&list=PLILRQ_uVCaoOtZ6Q6egVvUyEMhbN7OG9y&index=10 A similaqr dance at 25:50.
There are different uploads of these documentaries of varying quality on YouTube.
There are different uploads of these documentaries of varying quality on YouTube.
He worked in two atomic bomb projects
He also wrote the first book on Quantum Mechanics published in India by Osmania University Press in 1938. A review of the book here. Apparently, he influenced the famous Indian mathematician S.Minakshusundaram
Muhammad Raziuddin Siddiqui from Wikipedia and a short obituary here by his nephew.
Muhammad Raziuddin Siddiqui from Wikipedia and a short obituary here by his nephew.
Saturday, May 09, 2015
Strange sentences
Keynes : "It is better that a man should tyrannise over his bank balance than over his fellow-citizens; and whilst the former is sometimes denounced as being but a means to the latter, sometimes at least it is an alternative." I thought that they go together from my observations of village landlords. The quote via Brad DeLong Jm Keynes:Concluding notes on the general philosophy towards which the general theory might lead.
Dietz Vollrath:"My mental null hypothesis here is that higher agricultural productivity, because of low income elasticities for food, means more industrialization/urbanization/non-ag production." This does not jell with my experience of Guntur, Krishna districts. The excess seems to have gone to Madras first and then Hyderabad. From Do agricultural conditions matter for institutions?
Dietz Vollrath:"My mental null hypothesis here is that higher agricultural productivity, because of low income elasticities for food, means more industrialization/urbanization/non-ag production." This does not jell with my experience of Guntur, Krishna districts. The excess seems to have gone to Madras first and then Hyderabad. From Do agricultural conditions matter for institutions?
Materialism
My daughter Lalita bought new walking shoes which turned out to be very comfortable and started jumping around saying ' I am happy'. Her daughter Ava responded 'Mom, you are happy because you are greedy like me'. Getting the essence of materialism by the age of six.
Friday, May 08, 2015
Class struggle in Bollywood films
The full film is available on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zi4vJQC-QJU (the two dances posted by Minai are around 3 and 14:40 minutes and look clearer to me in the film). From a review by Dustedoff, it seems Satyajit Ray saw the film and wanted to be an assistant director to Chetan Anand.
Surprisingly it is omitted from 'a listing of ten top Hindi films on class struggle, workers’ rights and unions' in the article 'Lal Salaam On Screen'. Richard Singer on my wall " I think there are tons of movies from the '40s and '50s that could have been included in this list.....Or if they wanted to seriously pursue the "Laal Salam" theme and talk about real socialist films, they could have started with Dharti Ke Laal, the only Hindi film actually produced by the IPTA.
And so many films by Raj Kapoor... What about Mehboob Khan, whose studio logo was a hammer and sickle? I've seen a whole bunch of his films, and he really did stick the class struggle theme into everything, in sub-plots or dialogues, no matter how blockbuster-ish, swashbuckling, etc., the movie was.
I've noticed that so many people in mainstream Indian journals write mainly about the films of the '70s and Amitabh, etc. I guess that's what a lot of people grew up with and the era that everyone thinks about. Since I didn't grow up with these films and came to classic Indian films from my own strange angle in the 21st century, maybe that's why I wouldn't look to the ''70s first. But wasn't the '50s the Golden Age?"
Thursday, May 07, 2015
Kung Fu nuns
Apparently Buddhist nuns in Nepal who learnt Kung Fu from Vietnamese nuns from 2008 onwards are making a name for themselves by helping with earthquake relief efforts in Nepal.
From 2010 BBC news:
"Kung fu was introduced into the Amitabha Drukpa Nunnery by the leader of the Drukpa spiritual sect, His Holiness The Gyalwang Drukpa....He says that he felt that previous spiritual leaders had not done enough to advance the rights of women.....He says he encouraged the nuns to "take up kung fu when he saw nuns from Vietnam practising it."
From another 2010 article , this one from Time:
"His Holiness took back to Kathmandu not just the idea of introducing martial arts, but also four experienced Vietnamese Drukpa nuns to serve as teachers. The Buddhist leader was keen on keeping the program all female, insisting that bringing in learned monks as instructors would only reinforce gender stereotypes....
The Vietnamese Drukpa nuns only began their own martial-arts training in 1992, when their local religious head, the Most Venerable Thich Vien Thanh, initiated the practice at the Tay Thien nunnery. There were only three nuns then. Now all 80 of the nuns there are said to spend sunup sparring. Many of them are eager to join their four sisters in Nepal, so they can be closer to the Gyalwang Drukpa and also try teaching. Initially, the nuns were trained in combat techniques by soldiers from the Vietnamese military."
A video from Nepal and one from Ladakh.
One of their dances https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jn6_rKls9bY
From 2010 BBC news:
"Kung fu was introduced into the Amitabha Drukpa Nunnery by the leader of the Drukpa spiritual sect, His Holiness The Gyalwang Drukpa....He says that he felt that previous spiritual leaders had not done enough to advance the rights of women.....He says he encouraged the nuns to "take up kung fu when he saw nuns from Vietnam practising it."
From another 2010 article , this one from Time:
"His Holiness took back to Kathmandu not just the idea of introducing martial arts, but also four experienced Vietnamese Drukpa nuns to serve as teachers. The Buddhist leader was keen on keeping the program all female, insisting that bringing in learned monks as instructors would only reinforce gender stereotypes....
The Vietnamese Drukpa nuns only began their own martial-arts training in 1992, when their local religious head, the Most Venerable Thich Vien Thanh, initiated the practice at the Tay Thien nunnery. There were only three nuns then. Now all 80 of the nuns there are said to spend sunup sparring. Many of them are eager to join their four sisters in Nepal, so they can be closer to the Gyalwang Drukpa and also try teaching. Initially, the nuns were trained in combat techniques by soldiers from the Vietnamese military."
A video from Nepal and one from Ladakh.
One of their dances https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jn6_rKls9bY
Modi's model for development
I suspect that Modi's model for development is China and hence the idea of smart cities. Some new cities have been built for different purposes and there have been failures. Shenzhen seems to be one of the most successful. The connection between cities and growth is not too clear and since India is undertaking a massive undertaking, it may be good to get some information on the topic. Yesterday I browsed through this survey article 'Urbanization without growth in historical perspective' and am going to read it again.
See also the blog post 'The connection of urbanization with growth' by Dietrich Vollrath.
But as far as I can see, there is not much discussion about the role of specially constructing new cities for development which seems to be the concern pf Paul Romer, mentioned in an earlier post. A crucial example seems to be ShenZhen. about which he says
"To an overwhelming degree, the measures implemented in Shenzhen pass my two tests for reform: they have been adopted as permanent policies and they have spread to the rest of China."
The propsed changes in the land acquisition act seem to be for the purpose of constructing smart cities. But Scroll.in article says that only 8 percent are affected.
See also the blog post 'The connection of urbanization with growth' by Dietrich Vollrath.
But as far as I can see, there is not much discussion about the role of specially constructing new cities for development which seems to be the concern pf Paul Romer, mentioned in an earlier post. A crucial example seems to be ShenZhen. about which he says
"To an overwhelming degree, the measures implemented in Shenzhen pass my two tests for reform: they have been adopted as permanent policies and they have spread to the rest of China."
The propsed changes in the land acquisition act seem to be for the purpose of constructing smart cities. But Scroll.in article says that only 8 percent are affected.
Wednesday, May 06, 2015
Karl Marx birthday
Though I am not a Marxist or communist, I am an admirer of Marx for many of his insights. He saw many problems of capitalism but I do not think he saw financialization. See also the essay 'Why I became an erratic Marxist' by Yanis Varoufakis.
Cities, engines of innovation
says Edward Glaeser. Another version which may need subscription is in Scientific American. Paul Romer has been talking about charter cities. He recently ties it up with Pritchett criteria discussed here by Tyler Cowen. Romer's post Urbanization passes the Pritchett Test actually muddies the issues, I think. He first belittles micro-initiatives:
But Todd's idea of progress is more general than that of Pritchett. He is not explicit about what he means by progress. In "The explanation of ideology", he hints "...urbanization, industrialization and the spread of literacy, in short by modernization...". In "The Causes of progress""This is a cultural development, beyond the realm of the material. Cultural development first shows up as a rise in the rate of literacy....In the second stage, a fall in the rates of mortality and fertility follows the rise of literacy. Man thus takes control of his immediate biological environment. Only in the third stage does development appear as an increase in the production of industrial goods or, more generally, material wealth". "
"In a characteristically incisive blog post, Lant expresses skepticism about the value of micro-initiatives that are being tried as strategies for encouraging economic development because they are easy to evaluate rather than because experience suggests that they have worked at a scale that is comparable to the problem that policy should address.
He recalls his experience as a member of a team with members from many developed countries that was evaluating a program in India that financed women’s self-help groups. A woman from West Bengal who had answered their questions said to the team, “You all are from countries that are much richer and doing much better than our country so your country’s women’s self-help groups must also be much better, tell us how women’s self-help groups work in your country.” Quoting now from Lant’s account:
There are many criticisms of this in the comments of the discussion in Economist's View . From my comment there: "In "The causes of progress" by Todd: There are two maps of Europe on pages 32-33; the first about countries with national product per capita exceeding $10,000 in 1979 and age at marriage of women over 27 around 1840.The two are essentially identical.We all looked at each other blankly as none of us had any idea whether there even were at any time in our countries’ history such a thing as “women’s self-help groups” … (much less government program for promoting them). We also had no idea how to explain that, yes, all of our countries are now developed but no, all of our countries did this without a major role from women’s self-help groups at any time (or if there were a role we development experts were collectively ignorant of it), but yes, women’s self-help groups promote development.'
But Todd's idea of progress is more general than that of Pritchett. He is not explicit about what he means by progress. In "The explanation of ideology", he hints "...urbanization, industrialization and the spread of literacy, in short by modernization...". In "The Causes of progress""This is a cultural development, beyond the realm of the material. Cultural development first shows up as a rise in the rate of literacy....In the second stage, a fall in the rates of mortality and fertility follows the rise of literacy. Man thus takes control of his immediate biological environment. Only in the third stage does development appear as an increase in the production of industrial goods or, more generally, material wealth". "
I think Paul Romer's point is about quick economic development and in one of his earlier posts, he talks of Shenzhen "But it seems clear to me that the fundamental motivation in establishing the four initial special zones, of which Shenzhen was the most successful, was to achieve local reform quickly in hopes that this would induce reform throughout China. To an overwhelming degree, the measures implemented in Shenzhen pass my two tests for reform: they have been adopted as permanent policies and they have spread to the rest of China."
Tuesday, May 05, 2015
Hegemony trends
via Naked Capitalism and The Saker.
What does Putin want? A major analysis by Rostislav Ishchenko. Yves Smith says " From last month, still important. I think it paints the picture in overly bright colors (as in it assumes a deliberate strategy in the US, as opposed to a noxious mix of inertia, bad ideology, and bad incentives) but is still directionally correct."
The Haunt of History in Eurasia by Andrew Korbyko
What does Putin want? A major analysis by Rostislav Ishchenko. Yves Smith says " From last month, still important. I think it paints the picture in overly bright colors (as in it assumes a deliberate strategy in the US, as opposed to a noxious mix of inertia, bad ideology, and bad incentives) but is still directionally correct."
The Haunt of History in Eurasia by Andrew Korbyko
An unusual dance from a Telugu film
More about Cassidy here http://cinemanrityagharana.blogspot.com.au/p/about-me.html
Interview with Uday Shankar
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjuJsnk3PDY&feature=youtu.be
Kasuvandi (Minai, kvammayi) has several posts on Uday Shankar (search under Uday Shankar, Simkie) in http://cinemanrityagharana.blogspot.com.au/
Jobs in India
Where are the jobs? by Devinder Sharma:
"The question that crops up is where the 140 million who quit agriculture, and the 53 million who were shunted out of the manufacturing sector, finally go to? The only plausible answer is they joined the ever-growing army of daily wage workers in the cities or became landless farm workers. "
How many in India are landless? by Roshan Kishore:
"In his speech, Jaitley said the landless will get employment in India’s industrial corridors after modifications in the land acquisition law.
"The question that crops up is where the 140 million who quit agriculture, and the 53 million who were shunted out of the manufacturing sector, finally go to? The only plausible answer is they joined the ever-growing army of daily wage workers in the cities or became landless farm workers. "
How many in India are landless? by Roshan Kishore:
"In his speech, Jaitley said the landless will get employment in India’s industrial corridors after modifications in the land acquisition law.
“I want to make a special mention of poor, dalits, tribals, backwards, those who are landless,” said Jaitley. “The land acquisition bill we are bringing, as per that, the industrial corridors which would be set up in the country, those backward people, the 300 million landless people would get employment opportunities.”
It looks like a tall order. It will take nothing short of a miracle to generate 300 million factory jobs in the proposed industrial corridors, going by India’s recent industrial history.
The country’s total workforce in 2012 was 473 million, about half of whom were employed in agriculture... industry’s share in employment increased by only 1.7 percentage points between 1999-2000 and 2011-12. There were roughly 64 million industrial workers in 2011-12, who accounted for 13.6% of the workforce..."
Monday, May 04, 2015
Cuba's medical magicians
"Mora's story of physician ingenuity and self-sacrifice is repeated time and again on this Caribbean island of 11.3 million people.
While the US trade embargo imposed in 1961 has restricted life-saving equipment and medicine, it has only made medical professionals more imaginative in their work - and more determined to provide the best care possible. " from Al Jazeera.
And "While most American physicians take home six-figure salaries each year, doctors working in Cuba are paid about $30 per month.
"Our salaries are very low," Gonzalez told Al Jazeera. "When you study medicine here it's for love, not money. You become a doctor because you want to help people - that's all."
Exporting health workers
Cuba has about 69,000 doctors - 6.7 physicians for every 1,000 citizens, according to the World Bank. More than 20 percent are currently on medical missions in 66 countries."
Now that the sanctions are lifted, what will happen? The article suggests medical tourism from USA.
Housing
1.2 crore vacant homes-This tells you what is wrong with Indian real estate April 30, 2015
Scandal of Europes 11 million empty homes February 24, 2014 (crore-10 million)
18,600,000 empty homes in the United States February 27, 2014 (discussion)
Scandal of Europes 11 million empty homes February 24, 2014 (crore-10 million)
18,600,000 empty homes in the United States February 27, 2014 (discussion)
A review of 'The Bubble and Beyond' by Michael Hudson
I have not read books for a while and trying to think of some of the economics stuff that I have read. Finally found a book which has views similar to mine, may be because I have read Michael Hudson articles before. I could not find reviews from the main stream. Here is one from an unconventional thinker who once worked for Reagan.
Latest from Illargi posted in Naked Capitalism:
Sucking Spoilt Milk from a Bloated Dead Sow
Latest from Illargi posted in Naked Capitalism:
Sucking Spoilt Milk from a Bloated Dead Sow
From Madhukar Shukla's wall
who says "it was somewhat surreal taking this pic from inside of a moving airconditioned car on a raod-less road, when outside temp must have been about 40C... the vessels in the right corner perhaps contained "mahua/handiya" waiting for customers in the evening...."
Saturday, May 02, 2015
Links, May 2, 2015
Indian women chase away defecators with sticks
Modi government's boost for entrepreneurship : Fill just one form to start business today
May Day: Inside Delhi's unique left wing bookstore
Wired on Telsa's new battery
What would happen if the EU opened its borders to everyone? by Chris Blattman :
"His[Michael Clemens] best guess is population would rise 10% and this would have more benefits than costs, even to lower-income EU residents."
Agriculture of the future by Susanne Dambeck :
"In its final report “Agriculture at a Crossroads”, the IAASTD (“International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development”), initiated by the World Bank and including organizations like the FAO and WHO, declared that for sufficient and sustainable food production, ecological farming methods and smallholder farms had to be promoted, not mainly GM crops or large-scale farming. Consequently, the agrochemical companies stopped cooperating with IAASTD......Most of the projected world population growth, reaching about 10 billion in 2050, will take place in sub-Saharan Africa and other developing countries. For local food production, these countries need solutions tailored to their specific needs. Many experts agree that more than one approach is required to feed the billions – but the sole focus on large monocultures of GM crops seems outdated today."
Steve Waldman on Baltimore riots There is a name for this
Modi government's boost for entrepreneurship : Fill just one form to start business today
May Day: Inside Delhi's unique left wing bookstore
Wired on Telsa's new battery
What would happen if the EU opened its borders to everyone? by Chris Blattman :
"His[Michael Clemens] best guess is population would rise 10% and this would have more benefits than costs, even to lower-income EU residents."
Agriculture of the future by Susanne Dambeck :
"In its final report “Agriculture at a Crossroads”, the IAASTD (“International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development”), initiated by the World Bank and including organizations like the FAO and WHO, declared that for sufficient and sustainable food production, ecological farming methods and smallholder farms had to be promoted, not mainly GM crops or large-scale farming. Consequently, the agrochemical companies stopped cooperating with IAASTD......Most of the projected world population growth, reaching about 10 billion in 2050, will take place in sub-Saharan Africa and other developing countries. For local food production, these countries need solutions tailored to their specific needs. Many experts agree that more than one approach is required to feed the billions – but the sole focus on large monocultures of GM crops seems outdated today."
Steve Waldman on Baltimore riots There is a name for this
Narendra Modi's 100 smart cities
From Scroll.in "Every thing you wanted to know about Narendra Modi's 100 smart cities": "On Wednesday, the Union Cabinet finally took the bull by the horns. It cleared an approval for Rs 48,000 crore to be allocated to the Smart Cities Mission, with Rs 100 crore to be given to each city per year for the next five years." More in the article but it is not clear what smart cities are going to be like. Modi's inspiration seems to be China fro earlier reports. Here, in an interview, Paul Romer discusses about Charter cities, China's efforts and in passing about Modi and India. Some excerpts:
"Q: The idea of Charter Cities originated from Hong Kong and Shenzhen, am I right?
"Q: The idea of Charter Cities originated from Hong Kong and Shenzhen, am I right?
Romer: The two most interesting precedents for Charter Cities are Hong Kong and Shenzhen, so it does have some origins here. They each played important roles in fostering reform of the Chinese economy. But it is an approach that can be used in any country that wants to implement reforms, even a developed country like the United States. It turns out that this is a unique time in human history when it is possible to start many new cities because there is an enormous, unmet demand for city life.
Q: What are the essential elements of a Charter City?
Romer: In one sense, the essence of the idea is the notion of a Startup City. You have a chance to start a city anew.
Then the question is: “What can you accomplish with that? What are the things that will be required to make it successful?” I think what is unusual about a Startup City, as opposed to an existing city, is that you can propose something new without having to go through a long process of consultation and agreement amongst the people that might be affected by a change, one that would inevitably mean that a change that some people do not want is imposed on them. With a Startup City, you can propose something entirely new and let people choose whether they want to live under its rules, as embodied in its charter, the document that specifies its founding principles. People who want to try the reform can go there, and people who don’t, they don’t have to. With a startup, you can have reform without coercion.
This is part of the insight that Deng Xiaoping had in pursuing Shenzhen. As he explained later, he wanted a way to open the Chinese economy that avoided long argument and contention about what types of change to pursue and how to pursue them.
The idea is also closely related to the idea of a special zone, but it is a specific type of special zone.
.......
Q: But don’t you think Shenzhen is a bit more like a Concession Zone?
Romer: I think there was some risk that it would be used as Concession Zone and who knows what kinds of compromises it took to make sure that it took off. But it seems clear to me that the fundamental motivation in establishing the four initial special zones, of which Shenzhen was the most successful, was to achieve local reform quickly in hopes that this would induce reform throughout China. To an overwhelming degree, the measures implemented in Shenzhen pass my two tests for reform: they have been adopted as permanent policies and they have spread to the rest of China."
Bits about India:
"Q: In recent years, development economists focused on three research areas, namely the effects of international aid as favored by Jeffrey Sachs, the political economy effects on growth as promoted by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, or the experimental economics on growth championed by Esther Dulfo. How do you view the three theories of catch-up growth that are now the hottest in research?
Romer: You know, I actually don’t agree with any of these three. I think urbanization is the thing we’ve got to study. Consider the case of India. If it wants to get better access to the technology that already exists around the world, and make this technology available not just to an elite, but to all workers, even workers who are getting their first formal sector job that pays them a wage, they will have to have gateway cities that invite foreign workers and firms to come operate in India. And gateway cities that invite people from rural areas throughout India to come join them. Unfortunately, India is not building gateway cities that work. If you look at any of the Indian cities right now, they are as polluted as Chinese cities right now. The traffic congestion is horrible. They exclude new residents from rural areas.
In this context, think about what Jeff Sachs has proposed about providing more aid. There is nowhere near enough aid available to bribe Indians into building cities that work if they don’t want them. Change the political economy of India? Great if you can. But how? Where is the evidence that you can change things in a way that raises standards of living? As my friend Edwin Lim has observed, democracy in India has totally failed to provide such elementary basics as child nutrition or education for girls, failed even compared to neighbors like Bangladesh. And experimental economics? Cameras for teachers? Or as Lant Pritchett has put it in a recent blog post, do we really want to devote so much academic effort to experimental analysis of policies like women’s self help groups? [http://www.cgdev.org/blog/your-impact-evaluation-asking-questions-matter-four-part-smell-test] Where is the evidence that you can generate Chinese rates of growth from measures like these?
I think the new prime minister in India understands how important urbanization is to the future of his country. It is the make-or-break issue for India right now. But I think it’s going to be hard for him to do anything about this. They have a proposal for 100 Smart Cities that tries to address the problems they face, but it remains to be seen whether this will make any difference. I wish they were thinking seriously about letting some new jurisdictions enter as startups and compete for residents with all the failing ones that they already have."
Friday, May 01, 2015
Jewellery
Jhansi did not show much interest in gold ornaments in first thirty years of marriage. We did not have money to spare; only thing I remember buying is a pair of earrings for fifty dollars. When children started leaving home, she had money to spare from her earnings and started buying gold jewellery. By that time she was already using costume jewellery and did not find much difference in appearance except some costume jewellery caused allergies. She started giving the ornaments to grandchildren to play. Now some of them seem to be lost and it does not seem to make much difference except for a slight twinge about gold gone missing.
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