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Culture & Politics » soc.culture.china » Indian feedback on Lee Kuan Yew Speech
| Indian feedback on Lee Kuan Yew Speech [message #225041] |
Fr, 14 Juli 2006 06:13 |
|
I had googled "china lee kuan yew" and there are quite a lot of very
interesting articles there. Here's one on Mr. Lee's analysis of
India. Mr. Lee seems to have won over quite a few fans.
======================================================
Reality of Indian Realty!
http://indianeconomy.org/2006/01/13/lee-kuan-yew-on-india-pa rt-4/
Hitching Our Wagon To A Star… »
Lee Kuan Yew on India - Part 4
January 13th, 2006 by Atanu Dey
Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four
sharpening the axe, said Abe Lincoln. Astonishing how much profoundly
practical wisdom is packaged into that simple declaration. Time spent
in sharpening the tool is time well-spent; so is time spent in
thinking through a problem and thoroughly understanding the problem
before rushing off to solve it. And in most cases, since there is
almost nothing new under the sun, there are already known solutions to
many problem. So the most efficient method to solve a problem is to
first seek the solution that someone may have figured out already.
The problem of economic development is multifaceted and complex, taken
as a whole. But the problem can be effectively partitioned into
simpler subunits that are more tractable. Then solutions for these can
be sought—right out of the grab-bag of existing solutions or if
needed, solved for the first time.
There are important lessons in Singapore’s development experience, if
one cares to but observe very carefully. To learn from the person who
engineered Singapore’s transformation from a backward poor city-state
to a vibrant developed economy is a blessing. It fills my heart with
hope that transformation is indeed possible, and it restores my faith
in the conviction that powerful individuals are the only agents of
deep transformation—both for good as well as ill—of society.
I read Lee Kuan Yew’s address to the 37th Jawaharlal Memorial Lecture
on 21st Nov 2005 in New Delhi very carefully and with deep interest. I
found that his wide ranging analysis of India’s economy incisively
accurate. I annotated his speech in parts (parts one, two, and three)
and this one is the concluding summary of what I gather from his talk.
In a sense, I did not find anything that he said even remotely
surprising. I had pretty much reached the same conclusions
independently. Why, one may wonder, don’t the leaders of India see
what LKY so easily sees? Are they merely incapable of clear thought,
or is it that they think but are prevented from acting due to
circumstances, or is it a combination of both? Surely, one would
think, that if the Indian leaders are not competent thinkers, they
would at least have the intelligence to hire intelligent advisors to
figure out the problems. So that is the problem?
I think the answer lies in what economists call the objective
function. Individuals have a certain goal which can be stated as the
maximization of a function given a set of constraints. For instance,
for someone maximizing the amount of money given the constraints of
time and effort may be the objective function; for another it could be
to maximize leisure given the constraint of a reasonable income and
time; for another, it could be to do social work subject to leisure,
time and money constraints.
LKY’s objective function, I believe, was to rapidly develop Singapore.
He was not looking to win elections, or to maximize his personal
wealth, or to be a mahatma, etc. Given that he is a man of amazing
practical genius, he figured out the sequence of interventions and
implemented them. Under his autocratic rule, he did what India’s
autocrats have been either unwilling or unable to do.
India’s autocrats have had different objective functions. I suspect
that to a first approximation, their objective function have been to
maximize personal wealth, not the development of the economy, through
corruption, nepotism and bribery. Of course there was the matter of
elections every so often and funding this costly farce required even
more corruption.
Different objective functions lead to different perceptions which in
turn lead to different understandings, and so on to different actions
and ultimately to different outcomes.
My objective function is to figure out what exactly is wrong and how
to solve the problem of India’s economic growth and development. I am
not trying to win elections and therefore am not forced to bribe some
voting block or the other with hare-brained schemes that ultimately
harm not just the economy but even harm those vote blocks. I am not
trying to fatten my numbered Swiss bank account and so I don’t have to
implement any asinine license-control-quota-permit industrial policy.
I am not trying to promote the members of my family as the only
enlightened beings on the planet capable of ruling India, and so I
don’t have to ruthlessly eliminate any opposition. I am not wedded to
any ideology such as monotheism or communism, and so I can advocate
the use of any idea as long as it makes sense.
The reason I arrive at similar conclusions as does LKY is that our
objective functions are similar, we are sufficiently intelligent, have
learnt from others’ experiences, and we have thought sufficiently long
about the problem. I am sure that LKY has spent a lot of time
polishing the ax before he struck the first blow.
There are differences, of course, between a LKY and me. For instance,
I am as lazy as they come and he is a hard-working achiever. But the
most significant is this: he is a dispassionate observer of India’s
development while I am not. I sincerely care about what happens to
India personally; LKY cares to the extent that India’s economic
performance has a bearing on Singapore’s welfare, but he does not have
a personal stake in India’s successes or failures. If what LKY tells
India is just a lot of water off a duck’s back, he would sleep
soundly. And that is why I believe that what he says should be taken
very seriously. He has no reasons to sugar-coat his conclusions or
misrepresent his recommendations.
Dispassionate observers must be trusted more than those who have a
stake in the game. I would trust LKY more than I would trust someone
like Dr Manmohan Singh when it comes to an honest assessment of
India’s strengths, weaknesses, prospects and possibilities. Dr Singh
has a boss and various constituencies that he has to please; LKY has
to please no one. (The same holds for me: I don’t have to please
anyone. I don’t have to please an editor and if the reader does not
like what I scribble, it just takes one click and I am history.)
So with that preamble, let me try to summarize what LKY said.
1. India has missed the bus too many times and this time around, it
should look sharp and get on the bus.
It could not jump on the bus because it was tied hand and foot by
those with different objective functions than economic growth and
development. Now we need to unshackle the economy. They call it
liberalization. Of course, you can only liberalize a shackled economy.
I think it is time to enquire why the economy was chained in the first
place. Will this be done? No, because it may turn out the holy cows
being worshipped were in fact asses. Best to keep quite and move on.
But then of course we run the risk of chanting the same old mantra in
worship of the old “holy cows” and end up precisely where we are.
Insanity, it is said, is doing the same thing and expecting different
results. Let’s stop this insanity.
2. Production precedes distribution. If you don’t produce, even after
equitable distribution, you would still be dirt poor.
LKY put is thus: Before distributing a pie, I had to first bake it.
Simple isn’t it? But this simple truth eludes the communists and
socialists. They want to distribute first and then perhaps maybe
produce some stuff if they feel like it. They have not figured out
that poverty is lack of what I call “stuff.” If you don’t have stuff,
you are poor. Producing sufficient amounts of stuff is a necessary
condition; the sufficient condition is to distribute it equitably.
When production is insufficient, then there is a mad scramble for the
limited production. The powerful get hold of this stuff, and the
majority of the people have to eat dirt. That is, a very lop-sided
economy develops when there is insufficient production of stuff: a few
very rich people lording it over hoards of abjectly poor people.
So the lesson is simple: make the production of stuff the first
priority. Therefore
3. Manufacturing has to be the base upon which India’s growth must be
based.
Which means that all this talk about a service economy is a lot of
stuff and nonsense. India is a large economy (in terms of population
numbers) and like any other large economy, it has to be largely
self-sufficient in that what is consumes, it has to produce itself.
Small economies can specialize and import the other stuff they need,
but India cannot. In other words, India has to grow its own food (and
therefore must have a large agricultural sector), must manufacture its
own stuff (and therefore have large manufacturing sector), and provide
its own services. “Large” here means production capacity, not
necessarily employment capacity.
I am not in favor of employment; I am in favor of producing stuff. If
you produce enough stuff, you can give stuff away to “unemployed”
people. On the other hand, if the obsession is with employment, and if
this employed population produces zilch, then all can be employed and
yet all can be dirt poor.
4. To produce stuff, you have to have infrastructure. Build
infrastructure first.
You cannot produce much with your bare hands. So you need factories,
You need power to run those factories. You have to have roads and
ports and airports to bring inputs to the factory and take the output
out. Invest in infrastructure.
And you don’t need to bring out the excuse that the government does
not have the capacity to fund the infrastructure. The private sector
at home and abroad is more than eager to build them, provided the
asinine policies blocking this investment were discarded.
5. Learn from you mistakes.
Of course, to do so, one has to admit that one has made mistakes.
Flatly denying that would not accomplish much. China learnt from its
mistakes and has changed course.
I have my doubts whether we can learn from our mistakes because it is
not politically correct to point out that mistakes were made. Goring
of holy cows is not taken very lightly by the worshippers of holy
cows.
Thank you, Mr Lee Kuan Yew, for speaking to the Indian leaders. I am
not sure that you have not wasted your time.
This entry was posted on Friday, January 13th, 2006 at 12:04 pm and is
filed under Miscellaneous, Basic Questions. You can follow any
responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a
response, or trackback from your own site.
7 Comments »
great post atanu. Couldnt agree more…just wanted to mention that your
post has been picked up at SlashIndia.org
Comment by neeraj — January 13, 2006 [at] 4:26 pm
Excellently written.
I share your fandom of LKY.
Comment by AC — January 15, 2006 [at] 10:27 am
Lee Kwan Yew, when asked whether Confucision model can work for India,
repeat his “culture will determin fate” theory.
“It’s more applicable to Vietnam than to India. The Indians haven’t
got the Confucian culture. Without being imbued in a culture that
enjoins you to endure hardship and have the stamina to struggle on in
a cohesive society where the individual subsumes himself for the
benefit of the family and his society, it’s difficult to expect that
degree of sacrifice.”
see “Lee Kwan Yew: Confucian model won’t work for India” in my blog
for comments.
Comment by R-Squared — January 21, 2006 [at] 9:47 am
I like Point (3) very much. Very insightful: what you only need to
care is how much “stuff” you can create for your people, not to get
all people “employed” to do nothing (i.e., not to produce “stuff”)
Comment by R-Squared — January 27, 2006 [at] 11:26 am
Mr. Atanu,
Appropos to:
I am not in favor of employment; I am in favor of producing stuff. If
you produce enough stuff, you can give stuff away to “unemployed”
people. On the other hand, if the obsession is with employment, and if
this employed population produces zilch, then all can be employed and
yet all can be dirt poor.
Could you please elaborate more on why growth in manufacturing has to
preceede services ? We hear all this talk that it is not possible to
become developed economy without having a strong manufacturing base.
But if some fictitious economy is very good at providing services
(comparitive advantage) then i fail to understand why is that not good
? could you pls share additional insights in a column ?
Regards- hemant
Comment by Hemant — January 29, 2006 [at] 9:27 pm
I dont really agree with LKY statements i have been a student in
singapore for quiet some time and if you were there you would also
notice how he chokes the people of the country his visions are
applicable to capsize country with 4 mil population but place like
India no ways .
There are so many issues to be addressed in his own country leave
India alone.Singapore govt is sacred with rise of India and china they
will be sidelined in next 3 -4 years and more so there free trade
treaty with India has failed in many ways than one.economic success is
not all needed it needs a lot more to run a country i would say
singapore is cuba of asia ……
Comment by SOMEONE — January 30, 2006 [at] 9:45 am
Someone
I know singapore is afraid to some extent with the rise of india, but
over all the average singapore(and the elitist singapore chinese more
importantly) is wealthier when compared to india. That makes a huge
difference. The smart ones have chosen to invest in education as well
as the fellow has more cushion to screwup and still live an ok life.
No economist measures this factor. Ie the luxury brought on by having
more than what you can consume allows you to certain flexibility where
you wont go hungry if you make a wrong turn.
Singapore aint the cuba of asia by any longshot!
With that said I dont like singapore, culturaly its dead as a dodo.
I also think(this is very hard to prove so i wont bother trying) that
there are cultural traits(please see thomas sowell on how he defines
culture ie no song dances of food but patterns especialy in business
economic sense that are repeated through generation) which will be a
bit of handicap for the current generation of singapore fellas.
Ie they are never going to act and behave like a really wealthy
society they have a bit of noralgia about money. A lot of them dont
realize that they are wealthy and they should invest in real education
rather than rely on ‘contacts’ for business.
This is why i think there is going to be NO biotech revolution coming
out of singapore no matter what the sg government promotes.
Putting india througth the sowellian culture definations i am not that
much optimistic in the near haul. Also i think atanu has idolized LKY
He should meet some singapore trained fellas on his next trip to US
and see how badly they perform especialy when you compare them to the
relative affluence with which they have grown up with. The human
capital coming out of singapore is good but not that great, despite
having one of the worlds best infrastructure.
This is also an LKY legacy there is not intellectual life in sg.
But i could care less about sg, I am not going to live there.
Comment by Guru Gulab Khatri — January 30, 2006 [at] 10:38 pm
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