> India has been crippled by decades of socialist government overreach.

It baffles me that country still has strong anti-capitalist views. I guess lack of education does that to people.

Also, BJP is slightly right of Congress (post 1991) when it comes to economics.

Gangway0829 an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Being to the right of the current INC is not an achievement. The only people not in that position are Maoists.

Anyway, I think it's reasonable to be suspicious of the wealthy and powerful. For instance, I personally quite dislike our new AI ruling class. But unfortunately, in India there was an attitude since independence that it is impossible to generate wealth in a legitimate manner. Which is going way too far! And has predictably bad outcomes for the country.

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bell-cot an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> It baffles me that...

While the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company was, as a broad generality, not nearly so vile as (say) the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_colonization_of_the_Am..., it certainly didn't leave many Indians with a favorable impression of European-style capitalism.

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philipallstar an hour ago | parent [-]

Definitely not nearly as vile. It certainly wasn't perfect, particularly things like the awful penal colonies, but jump-starting a giant civilisation, say, 1000+ years into the future is not straightforward either. India is experiencing a rise in nationalism, but would do well to imagine the counterfactual of what India would be like had Europe never visited.

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triceratops 10 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

> jump-starting a giant civilisation, say, 1000+ years into the future is not straightforward either

The various East India companies went to India (and the other east Indies) because those places had things rich Europeans desired - spices yes, but also high-end, high-quality textiles and handcrafted items. They were the height of civilization and had high economic productivity.

> would do well to imagine the counterfactual of what India would be like had Europe never visited

It would probably not be one country. Best case scenario: like a South Asian EU. Why do you think they wouldn't have copied European industrialization and developed themselves? Japan did it.

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ivell 25 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

> jump-starting a giant civilisation, say, 1000+ years into the future is not straightforward either.

Not sure what you are suggesting here.

	▲	Gangway0829 14 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		It's pretty clear lol. OP definitely thinks we were living in mud huts before the British gifted us railroads.

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collabs an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

> It baffles me that country still has strong anti-capitalist views.

I wouldn't call the "license raj" of India as anti-capitalist. India arguably has the strongest of institutions of all the countries in South Asia. However, even its institutions and regulations are pathetically weak.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster

You probably also saw a previous post right here on this orange website when someone tried to repatriate their business money outside of India. It was painful just to read that they had to get approvals from iirc sixteen different government agencies to get their own money that they brought in from outside of India back. Not profits, not proceeds, a fraction of what they put in.

Neither of these two cases is due to "anti-capitalist" views of India. If you look at what was India before Moghul rule and British rule, you could argue India has never been socialist before.

I think workers everywhere should have "strong anti-capitalist views", because unrestrained capitalism is just anarchy.

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Gangway0829 an hour ago | parent [-]

I think that's a bad read of Indian institutions. They are incredibly powerful - in fact, they are far too powerful. That's the problem. The license raj is the epitome of authoritarian, centralized political and economic power. I suppose it was justified on socialist grounds, but it would be fair to say that saying so doesn't make it so! Before 91, nothing, and I mean nothing, could happen without government say-so.

The problem with Indian institutions is that they are far too powerful, centralized and bureaucratic. Just read the article - the problem was created by a lazy, corrupt, powerful and centralized bureaucratic system. The solution was to dismantle it and decentralize power.

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collabs 38 minutes ago | parent [-]

I apologize I am not very good at expressing myself. Could India be better? Of course! Anyone can be better than what they are. Like a fish that lives in water doesn't ever think about water, an Indian living in India does not think about the absurdity of how powerful a District Collector / District Magistrate (DM) / Deputy Commissioner (DC) is in contemporary India.

> I think that's a bad read of Indian institutions. They are incredibly powerful - in fact, they are far too powerful. That's the problem. The license raj is the epitome of authoritarian, centralized political and economic power. I suppose it was justified on socialist grounds, but it would be fair to say that saying so doesn't make it so! Before 91, nothing, and I mean nothing, could happen without government say-so. > The problem with Indian institutions is that they are far too powerful, centralized and bureaucratic. Just read the article - the problem was created by a lazy, corrupt, powerful and centralized bureaucratic system. The solution was to dismantle it and decentralize power.

What you are saying is absolutely true. the bureaucracy in India is absolutely lazy, corrupt, powerful, and centralized. It is also arguably one of the biggest reasons why India has never had a (successful) military coup. You could even argue the inefficiency and the sluggishness of the bureaucracy is a feature and not a defect.

	▲	Gangway0829 19 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I think this is a self-deprecating canard that's oft-repeated, but I think fails the credibility test and encourages a kind of fatalistic resigned attitude among Indians. Are we to take from this that efficient bureaucracies lead inevitably to coups? Is the pathetic state of most African countries a result of their stellar bureaucracies?