Who’s talking cock about India and China?
UPPERCAISE
MAHATHIR TALKING COCK, PART 4
Is democracy bad for economic development? Is there such a thing as “too much” democracy? Does it slow down economic development? Mahathir (I am not a dictator) Mohamad says so.
Last week in India, he sneered at democracy as the cause of India’s growth being slower than China’s (a communist country). His people used to say that back in the 1990s too: NST group editor A Kadir Jasin wrote a Sunday column saying that democracy was not good for development, just look at China.
Here’s my very simplistic explanation of why India has been slower than China. Simplistic explanations are Mahathir’s favourite tool: the more simplistic, the more clever he sounds.
Why China is ahead of India in development
1. China started earlier — economic reforms 13 years before India. 2. They switched from a Soviet-style command economy to a free market economy. With a 13-year head start, of course they would be ahead of India (all things being equal).
But Mahathir (I am not a dictator) Mohamad did not take the trouble to tell you that. Instead he told India they had “too much” democracy, and that they should have more power at the centre and less power in the state so that they could develop faster.
