[slothtrop]

Check this out: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/book-review-how-asia-works

The odd one out in this assessment is India, because it did some similar things (land reform) without success. A difference might be that India sheltered businesses from foreign competition and didn't encourage and invest as much. Another, is that you need caste connections to do business. Culturally I intuit that the upper-castes that controlled government were less interested in rapid nationwide progress, unlike the ideologues that led South Korea and China. They lived comfortable lives and hung their hats on that.

[alephnerd]

India has similar barriers for foreign manufacturing businesses to enter as those that China has.

And the caste aspect doesn't make sense, as caste is hyperlocal and there isn't solidarity between caste groups of different ethnicities. Furthermore, caste ranking doesn't fully translate to business ownership, as traditionally, merchant and moneylending castes like Banias were towards the lower end.

The main difference between China and India is China makes it's urban centers de facto independent of rural hinterlands within the same prefecture, while in India, urban and rural are both under the same state government.

[kelipso]

I think the caste aspect makes sense in terms of who a politician feels responsible for when they are in power. For example, typical upper caste politician might feel that they only need to improve the conditions of upper caste people while not feeling responsible for people in lower castes, or just people who are poor in general. I think sentiments like that is prevalent across politics in India, though I agree about there being no solidarity between caste groups of different ethnicities.

A prime example is the state of government schools in India, which are almost exclusively used by the very poor. State funded schools in east Asian countries are of significantly higher quality.

[marcosdumay]

> And the caste aspect doesn't make sense, as caste is hyperlocal and there isn't solidarity between caste groups of different ethnicities.

Hyperlocal corruption/nobility is the worst kind of corruption/nobility.

Non-local ones will at least create systems that work, supporting infrastructure, and will try to maintain some amount of material wealth that they can prey upon.

[slothtrop]

> The main difference between China and India is China makes it's urban centers de facto independent of rural hinterlands within the same prefecture, while in India, urban and rural are both under the same state government.

I don't see the significance of this.