Two Powder Kegs Ready to Blow: China & India

CHARLES HUGH SMITH
CharlesHughsmith.blogspot.com
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 22, 2014

China and India are both powder kegs awaiting a spark for the same reason: systemic corruption.

The conventional view of China and India sports not one but two pair of rose-colored glasses: Chindia (even the portmanteau word is chirpy) is the world’s engine of growth, and this rapid economic growth is chipping away at structural political and social problems.

Nice, especially from a distance. But on the ground, China and India (not Chindia–there is no such entity) are both powder kegs awaiting a spark for the same reason: systemic corruption in every nook and cranny of both nations. The conventional rose-colored view is that corruption will inevitably decline with modernization and economic growth.

This is simply wrong on multiple levels: as the opportunities for crony/neofeudal skimming increase, so does corruption. As the scale of the economy increases, so does the scale of corruption.

The Rest…HERE

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 23rd, 2014 at 6:24 pm and is filed under China, Corruption, Economics, Government Evil, World Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.