Thursday, December 21, 2006

Amartya Sen applauds China's land reforms

Do not rely on market economy for development, says Amartya Sen

He further added that the miracle of Chinese growth after they adopted market economy could only be explained by the fact that they had implemented land reforms in the 1980s.

The communists just cant avoid looking at China for inspiration. Here, this Nobel Laurate attributes China's success to land reforms, which swelled the migrant population to 200 million. The 700 million rural population is under constant pressure to find alternate sources of income or join the ranks of the 200 million. I wonder how the land reforms improved the conditions of the poor peasents.

Thankfully, we have Pallavi Aiyar's article today to give us an idea about how the poor peasents have benefited from the land reforms - by joining the industrial revolution.

Several small towns in Guangdong, Zhejiang, and Jiangsu provinces have gone from rags to riches all thanks to Christmas. For example, according to Xinhua news agency, more than 7,000 farmers in Xiaoguanzhuang town of Jiangsu province collectively manufactured some 100 million Christmas decorations for exports in 2004, earning close to $48.3 million.


Oh, btw, this is not the first time Amartya Sen is spouting off nonsense.

A Nobel Prize-winning economist spouts off, and a Chinese survivor sets him straight.

1 comment:

Vijayalaxmi Hegde said...

Many thanks for the opinion journal article. In the TOI Kolkata edition today, there's a lil box item about how Sen approves Buddha's Singur moves. Some shit about having to move with market forces.

And I suddenly remembered what he said a couple of years on the 'Walk the talk' show with Shekhar Gupta. Sen said that compared to other states, WB and Kerala's growth rates were high and the development indices were also better. If I remember right, he was quoting from the same 'Human development Index'.

At that time, Sen's statements hadnt sunk in. ANd his 'development as freedom' book seemed quite sound. But I now realise this guy has been total crap right from the beginning.