[From the Berkeley blog June 2003 archives.]
Why is India poor? As some have argued, India is poor by choice. I will explore that idea a bit here.
Of course, that does not mean that every poor Indian has chosen to be poor. Someone else in a position of power made choices whose consequences are evident. India’s leaders – past and present – have consistently made choices that have had, and are having, a disastrous effect on the lives of hundreds of millions of human beings. What motivates these people is a …