There comes a time in every endeavour when it becomes imperative that one does a bit of arithmetic. As the late John McCarthy used to say, “Those who refuse to do arithmetic are doomed to speak nonsense.” Doing a bit of arithmetic is important not only to avoid nonsense but also to get a feel for what we normally would miss since our brains are not naturally attuned to figuring out the state of the world without the help of numbers. In this piece I lean upon a few sums to help me understand the broad implications one factor of economies – namely their growth rates.
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Different parts of the world have different degrees of prosperity, as is clearly evident if you look around even cursorily. Indeed that fact is so obvious, persistent and ubiquitous that it is not the least surprising to us. It is almost as if it is an unalterable feature of nature and therefore there’s nothing we can do about it. But why is it so? Why do some groups of people do better than other groups? What are possible factors that determine the fate and fortunes of various groups?
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Economic prosperity is neither impossible nor inevitable. There are scores of examples on either side of the prosperity divide. That should tell us a lot about what it takes to be economically successful. Prosperity eludes some countries not randomly but because of well-understood reasons. Our understanding of the causes of economic growth and development is not exactly like our understanding of the mysterious dark energy and dark matter. Economists know what works and why. Here I present some basic bits related to the subject from a personal perspective.
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Why are some countries poor while others rich? That’s a more complex question than the question why is some particular person rich as opposed to another person who is poor. It is fairly easy to recognize that the difficulty arises because an individual is at the mercy of factors out of its control, while in the case of a collective, the collective determines its destiny through the choices it collectively makes. There’s the problem of endogeneity when one considers the collective: society determines the environment, which in turn determines how the society functions. In this series, I will explore one simple idea, and it is this. Societies that steal are less able to produce the good society in contrast with societies that are in some sense honest. The good society, I believe, is one which is, minimally speaking, not materially impoverished. If indeed it is so that stealing is at least one of the more important factors implicated in the poverty of nations, then it is possible for us to figure a way out of the problem. That we will see in the end. A word of warning: I will explore this idea at length and it is not likely to make much sense (if any at all) until it reaches its logical end. It appears that it will be a long journey in — hold your breath — 17 parts. This is part 1.
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So if you have been wondering why I have not posted anything on this blog for so long, wonder no more. I’ve been busy thinking. Unlike most people, I cannot think and write at the same time. Now that the thinking is over, time to start writing. Expect deep thoughts expressed elegantly and at length. Like King Lear, “I shall do such things,–what they are, yet I know not; but they shall be the terror of the Earth.”
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There is a distinction between information and knowledge, which is worth keeping in mind.

As had been reported, Wiki (English language version) has done dark. This is the landing page image.

Sometimes looking at the way the government does things one wonders whether the lunatics are running the loony bin. But perhaps the truth is not funny at all, and more horrifying: the people running the country are not crazy but rather they are terrifyingly smart and know exactly what they are doing and why. Their game involves controlling the masses through lies and misdirection.
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Narendranath Dutta was born in 1863 on this day Jan 12th. As a disciple of Sri Ramakrishna Pramahansa, he became the sanyasi known as Swami Vivekananda.
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Scientific American Mind (dated Jan 10th) has a piece titled, “Voter Turnout Is Tied to Sense of Identity.” Unfortunately it is behind a subscription wall and therefore unavailable to me. But the short summary (reproduced here below the fold) is sufficient for us to get the general idea.
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Who you are determines what you do. That’s not the most incisive of observations but one’s identity is inextricably mixed up with what motivates one. Consequently identity does have predictive and explanatory power regarding the behavior of people. Naturally political parties – who must understand crowd psychology to be successful – understand that. Particularly in India, identity based politics has been refined to an impossible degree.
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End of 2011. It’s been a mixed year for me personally. I would give it a 7 out of 10. Today I am moving home. Not too far away, just moving from Santa Clara to San Jose. Nothing brings home the reality that we are material beings more than when you are moving — the stuff one accumulates! I will not have internet access for the next couple of days because of the move. New year resolution: deal with all emails within 24 hours of receipt. Best wishes for a happy new year.

The UPA has done quite a lot in the last seven years or so. Around 2004, India was at the take-off stage of a developing country. We could see a tiny light shining at what appeared to be the end of the tunnel. It looked like the country was finally out of the clutches of the Nehruvian socialist regime and had broken free of the 2-3% “Nehru rate of growth.” The NDA (led by the so-called “Hindu nationalist” BJP) had done a few things right and given India the 10% “Hindu rate of growth.” But then the UPA took over. They extinguished the light and the hope, and are doing everything to drag India back to Nehruvian poverty. Let’s do a quick review.
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I think it can be very persuasively argued that ignorance lies at the root of all evil that we suffer in this material world. Avidya is the source of all dukkha. Collective ignorance indeed leads to all kinds of poverty, not just material poverty of which India has in truckloads. If we were not so collectively ignorant of the misdeeds of the political parties and their bosses, we would not have ever had the sorry bunch of thugs running the country. Allow me to share with you what I learned today.
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The Congress is the enemy. Their goal is to destroy the country to enrich themselves. They are true to their goal and cannot be faulted for it. Indians who support the Congress are traitors since treason lies in aiding the enemy. Some of the biggest names in the BJP have aided the Congress in the past, and continue to do so. They are traitors. Let’s distinguish between the enemy and the traitors. While I may grudgingly respect the enemy, I have nothing but contempt for traitors.

But that’s too generic a description. Besides being too general a description, democracy is hardly a comprehensive description of the Indian government. Surely, the democracy found in say Switzerland is quite different from what’s in India. We need better descriptors of Indian governance. Here’s a partial list, offered in the hope that you will add your own favorite.
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Observing what’s going on in India these days, I am filled with loathing and fear. What kind of monsters occupy India’s highest public offices! I stand with H. L. Mencken when he wrote, “It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.” It appears that the primary requirements for holding political power in India are a lack of common sense, common honesty and common decency.

Goodbye Christopher. I am glad that you lived and I have had the pleasure of meeting you a couple of times — once at the Berkeley Repertoire Theater in the 1997 and once at a book release in 1999. I am certainly going to miss your incisive writing. The world is going to be a poorer place for your departure.

I support Dr Subramanian Swamy’s right to express his views and I support Harvard University’s right to remove Dr Swamy’s economics courses from Harvard’s summer teaching roster. Academic freedom — which includes the freedom to choose whom you allow to teach in your institution — is as important as freedom of expression. We, the third party, have the freedom to decide whether or not we wish to support Harvard. Given a choice, I will not support Harvard University. Note the distinction between “supporting Harvard” and “supporting the rights of Harvard.”
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