However, I believe that Indian economic development is threatened.

Not only is India involved in two wars (people die every day in fighting both with the Islamists and with the Maoists) – which are very real even though the West ignores them, there are also other factors.

The “Permit Raj” (the regulations that crippled the Indian economy) were torn up a couple of decades ago – but the job was never fully done.

Manufacturing industry in India is still subject to many regualations – especially in the labour market.

People know about illegal operations with child labour and so on – but they do not know the reason for them.

Let us say you try and play it straight in India – and hire adult men with legal contracts.

You are in terrible trouble – for if the man has a legal contract (in the form that the law code insists upon) it is almost impossible to get rid of him (if there is a downturn in business – or someone better comes along), and he is entitled to………

So many manufacturing operations (not all by any means) stay corrupt hole in the wall operations – employing people who will not be too much trouble (even if their work is actually not good at all) and getting by via paying endless bribes to inspectors, local politicians and so on.

But this is not even the main problem.

The main problem is that the Congress party has introduced welfare schemes over the last few years.

“Quite right to – good for the poor”.

The economic collapse will not be – and sooner or later these schemes (free this and that, and a basic income for hundreds of millions of people) must bankrupt India.

China:

I know nothing of China – and the more I try and find out the more convinced of my own ignorance I am.

Maybe not; but historically speaking, it’s the safer bet.

Why is the success of another nation something to be feared? It is not a zero sum game. China’s rise has been spectacularly good for America, it has greatly raised our standard of living. Of course there were a few loosers, but there always are, and unfortunately they are usually louder than then winners.

The Anglosphere has always been the primary source of innovation in the world, and that innovation comes from a libertarian culture and the core cultural values. If we want to save America and Britain the last thing we need is trade barriers. The last thing we need is “becoming more like the rest of the world”. We need to celebrate who we are, free people of the burdens of government and let the anglosphere do what it has always done: lead the world in innovation.

(Oh, and we need to stop screwing up the schools, but that is another topic.)

Russia is a joke. The population is falling dramatically.

I suppose the Indians might start copying the evil Chinese policy of selling American’s too cheaply and buying their debt at inflated prices.

We could only hope. Selling to Americans at too cheap prices hurts Chinese, not Americans. The Americans (and Europeans) benefit.

Though I don’t think we can be complacent about CFhina, India is actually a greater threat economically.

Oh good grief.

Exactly who is India ‘threatening’ economically? This is just another version of the preposterous fixed wealth fallacy: if India gets richer, the ‘West’ somehow get poorer? No, what the rest of the world gets is an increasingly wealthy producer and consumer of goods and services that makes the global economy BIGGER.

But until very recently this wasn’t possible. It wasn’t possible for many peasants to travel hundreds or thousands of miles to the coast to join the urban working class. Nor was it possible for manufacturers to move far inland before it became too difficult to get raw materials in and finished goods out. The wealth that could be made at the coast could not spread inland, leading to escalating tensions between the coast and the interior.

Modern transport and communication technologies solve these problems and make a different outcome possible. China could become like Australia, with the vast majority of the population living in coastal cities that encircle a huge but largely uninhabited interior.

The biggest threat to China’s stability is not the natural tensions between the coast and the interior, because technology has finally taken care of that. The biggest threat is the gender imbalance mentioned by Michael Jennings above. Tens of millions of frustrated young men who can’t even find a date let alone a bride could cause an awful lot of trouble.

And ‘economic threat’?! I suppose the Indians might start copying the evil Chinese policy of selling American’s too cheaply and buying their debt at inflated prices.