Can India catch up? Can Australia do better?- Freedom works

By Sanjeev Sabhlok, 15 July 2011

Copyright© Sanjeev Sabhlok

• Based on personal research and a talk I gave a few months ago•Related to my book, Breaking Free of Nehru, and draft manuscript, The Discovery of Freedom.•My research is ongoing so this presentation is a sketch.

Structure of the talk1. An explanatory framework

2. India now the world’s largest free market laboratory• Can India catch up?

3. A tsunami of competition unleashedBut opportunities are increasing rapidly

4. How should Australia respond?• Can Australia do better?

1. An explanatory framework

Freedom leads to innovation which leads to growth

“Any restriction on liberty reduces the number of things tried and so reduces the rate of progress”

- H.B. Phillips (mathematician)

Key messageInnovation is not driven by central planners or bureaucrats who “pick winners”. Such interference:

• reduces the number of things that people can try

• destroys wealth by wasting tax revenues in “projects” that impose no personal consequences for ‘central planners’ (since they don’t lose their house if their Keynesian “stimulus” fails)

1

2

3

n

Two obstacles to freedom

Opportunity(technical

frontier)

Government’s key role: to enable liberty

(social reform is outside government control)

Ideasdon’t

come fromgovernments

Explanatory frameworkGrowth = f (freedom, opportunity)

Innovationpushesout the frontier 2) Primitive society

• interfering religious beliefs• insufficient value placed onscience and critical thinking

People innovate better if the

government getsout of their way

1) Bad governanceNanny, paternalistic state:• interfering policies • interfering regulationInjustice• contracts not enforced

Freedom in the West1947 1991

The story of the West: decreasing freedom

High levels of freedom

Keynesiansocialism

Hayekian fight back

Keynesiansocialism

•By 1970s most major businesses in the world (including the West) had been nationalised (goal: to control society’s investment and reduce private savings)

•Hayekians fought back (Road to Serfdom underpinned Thatcher’s work) and prevented the West going from bankrupt in the 1980s

Bigger and bigger government,

“fine tuning”, “Keynesian stimulus”,

paternalistic regulation

= inability to compete (e.g. Detroit)

•Keynesians actively at work•Huge welfare state has been created•Currencies successfully degraded•Borrowings at untenable levels without productive capacity to repay•Results flowing in : Greece, Spain, Portugal, Iceland (next UK and US?)

Take over of the academia•Few economists know about Adam Smith’s system of natural liberty•Language of “equity” (Fabian socialist version of “equality”)•Language of “promotion of health” (subtle way of introducing paternalism)

Freedom in India

Colonialism Keynesian socialism Some freedom

1947 1991

India’s story: increasing freedom

•Colonialism till 1947 – almost zero growth•Fabian socialism till early 1990s – poor growth

•Keynes and Nehru were “card-carrying” Fabian socialists (linked through Laski)•The Keynesians successfully achieved “commanding heights” in India and duly bankrupted it in 1991

-India borrowed $5 billion from IMF to prevent default

•India learnt its lesson and has liberalised (albeit partially)

2. India now the world’s largest free market laboratoryCan India catch up?

India is now a test case for the theory of freedom

Freedom increasing rapidly since 1990s in India•Most sectors liberalised (some not yet)•Some sectors are free because the government doesn’t work•But still very low levels of freedom

• significant opportunity to increase liberty

India’s output is responding rapidly to increased freedom

Recall that India was the world’s largest economy for most of human history

•In 12 out of the last 20 centuries it was the largest•In 6 (of 20) it was the second largest (after China)•Its share of world GDP was between 30 to 33% (comparable with its share of world population)

Its poor performance between 1750 and 1990 was not due to any innate or “genetic” reasons

•Just the lack of liberty

Evidence that liberty works

Source: IMF’s World Economic and Financial Surveys: World Economic Outlook Database, April 2011

Table: Share of world output measured in terms of PPP

Country 1980 1990 2000 2010 2016

China 2.2 3.9 7.1 13.6 18.0

United States 24.7 24.7 23.6 19.7 17.8

India 2.5 3.2 3.7 5.4 6.6

Japan 8.7 9.9 7.6 5.8 5.0

Germany 6.7 6.1 5.1 4.0 3.4

Russia 0.0 0.0 2.7 3.0 2.9

Brazil 3.9 3.3 2.9 2.9 2.9

United Kingdom

4.3 4.1 3.6 2.9 2.6

Australia 1.3 1.3 1.3 1.2 1.1 China will overtake US (at current exchange rates) by 2020

But can (and will) India catch up? Positives• Westminster model of liberal democracy and legal framework• Indians take to science and maths as a duck takes to water• Rapid social change under way • Total factor productivity rising rapidly• Urbanisation increasing dramatically

Negatives• Significant misgovernance in education• High levels of corruption in government• Lot of red tape: difficulty in setting up a business• Poor infrastructure and continuing poverty in villages

Total economic size, assuming unchanged governance

1. India will overtake USA by 2030 (10 year lag to China’s)2. India could overtake China by 2050 (consistent with Citibank’s

forecast) and remain the world’s largest economy thereafter

Three reasons why this will happen• 1. Democracy

-India’s democracy makes it resilient– democracy as “shock absorber”

-China’s authoritarianism makes it brittle

• 2. Private sector driven-Led by Indian private companies

– Many are now multinational– Significant number of billionaires

Third reason why India will become larger than China by 2050: Young population

By 2050, nearly 40 per cent of China’s population will be older than 65

But catch-up is not about GDP. It is about per capita GDP• Indian per capita income still 10 times less than that of the West• India could achieve 30-40 per cent of Western per capita income by

2050• But it can’t catch up – ever, with current governance.

• With good governance India could catch up by 2050 (or at least in the early second half of this century)

• However, no current political party is capable of delivering improved governance.

• That is where the work I’ve been doing since 1998 comes in:-India Policy Institute-Freedom Team of India

• I hope that leaders can be found to lead India to freedom

3. A tsunami of competition unleashedBut opportunities are increasing rapidly

Catch-up hypothesis has its limitationsIt assumes that followers copy

•But that’s not true-myth that the West is “safe” at the “high end”/ “design” end-“design” space being taken over by India and China

Intense innovation occurring in India (and China)•Cut-throat price competition within the huge Indian market

-goods now often nearly 90% cheaper•Huge reversal of ‘brain drain’ as we speak

-the best Indians aren’t leaving – they now get plenty of opportunities at home-Indian experts settled abroad are returning (given strong perceptions of racial discrimination, as well)-many best Western managers now working as expats in India

•Many multinational companies have an R&D base in India•Many good Western universities have establshed branches in India•World class Indian universities fast coming up

Examples where India is already a leaderIT

•$50 billion worth of IT outsourcing to India•Microsoft’s major development centre in India•Hollywood has outsourced much animation to India

Mobile phones •600 million mobile phone subscribers•Lowest charges in the world

Drugs •Half the world’s vaccines produced in India, and significant share of generic drugs)

Hospitals (of world-class standard) and medical equipment •Cost of heart surgery = $2000•Cost of delivering a baby = $40

Finance•Major Wall St companies now conduct backoffice operations from India.

Steel•Indian firm now owns large share of world steel plants. •Rapid growth of Indian multinational companies

Hundreds of examples

documented in many recent books

Mammoth competitive pressures building up in the West

Creative destruction is underway on an unprecedented scale

1. Competition from India and China is just one of many pressures

2. Advanced technology is making thousands of jobs redundant • Customer as producer (supermarket checkouts, airport baggage check-in)• Robotics will at least partially replace teachers, personal assistants, surgeons,

and others

A business or society that does not anticipate and adapt will die – quickly! • e.g. Detroit lost 25% of its population in the last ten years

But the expanding pie is creating huge new opportunities•Economic growth is not a zero-sum game!

•As the pie expands, new opportunities arise•New goods, better goods, cheaper goods

•Opportunities for Australia include:•significantly increased exports

-India is already Australia’s third largest export market (@$19.8 billion worth of exports in 2009-10)

•cheaper imports (including outsourcing of high-end services)•huge investment opportunities in India (education, e.g. TAFEs)•increased tourism to Australia

4. How should Australia respond?

Can Australia do better?

Australia remains well inside the technical frontierPositives•Relatively better managed than most other nations

•E.g. relatively deregulated and flexible financial system

But huge restrictions on freedom, and significant inefficiencies

•Heavily padded bureaucracy, and a big government that directly operates schools and hospitals (and buses!), invariably inefficiently

•Paternalistic policies and onerous regulation of most activities

•Redistributive welfare state with significant wastage (churn)

•Old, ailing infrastructure

•Taxpayer funds increasingly being dumped into Keynesian black holes

•Well-entrenched habits of “picking winners”, “fine tuning”, and crowding out of R&D investment by government (education, “green” energy) – always based on false assumptions

How can Australia do better?Blocking freedom was fine with a less competitive world. It won’t cut it now:

1. Increase freedom: Get out of the way• All padding and Keynesian policies should come to an end

-Many suggestions in Breaking Free of Nehru are applicable to Australia as well• Step back from the abyss of the super-nanny (granny?) state

2. Be strategic: Shape the future • Inform but don’t spoon-feed businesses! (let them do their homework)

-business associations do better than DBI, for instance• Build policy partnerships with India

-be seen to be India’s friend (support its growth for mutual benefit), e.g.free trade agreement-build strategic networks with India’s governance system to influence the right kind of change

– e.g. Australia could develop an exchange program for policy staff and executives to work in the Indian government for 12 months in one rotation, and vice versa

Note: I’ve not highlighted geo-strategic imperatives that clearly support stronger ties with India - that is a very significant issue as well.

The end!Should you wish to discuss, please write to me at sabhlok@yahoo.com

EXTRA SLIDES – IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER

More info about the framework used in these slides:•My book, Breaking Free of Nehru

•also freely available on the internet

•Draft manuscript, The Discovery of Freedom •available on the internet – comments appreciated

Quick historical overview

Hunter-gather: till appx.10,000 years ago• Secret of success: muscle power, local knowledge• Outcome: small groups, low per capita “income”, high mortality

(Malthusian laws applied)

Settled agriculture: circa 8000 BC-1750• Secret of success: animal power, local division of labour, some trade

-Caste system of India led to well-oiled agricultural machine, hence successful• Outcome: some agricultural surplus, small tows and civilisation, low per

capita income, high mortality (Malthusian laws applied)

Modern Economic Growth: Industrial: circa 1750+• Secret of success: brain power, global division of labour, global trade

-Different rules of the game to the agriculture epoch• Outcome: growth without end, Malthusian laws no longer apply

Hunter gathererSettled

agricultureIndustrial

The result: Modern economic growth

Key characteristicsRelatively slow till 1820 (10s of times the pre-1000 growh rate)Rapid increase after that (100s of times the pre-1000 growth rate)

•Effectively, the industrial revolution is less than 200 years old

1-1000 1000-1500 1500-1820 1820-70 1870-1913 1913-50 1950-73 1973-2003

France 0.02 0.28 0.37 1.43 1.63 1.15 5.05 2.20

UK 0.09 0.25 0.80 2.05 1.90 1.19 2.93 2.15

USA 0.06 0.09 0.86 4.20 3.94 2.84 3.93 2.94

Other westernoffshoots

0.03 0.07 0.34 5.39 3.81 2.76 4.75 3.03

Japan 0.10 0.18 0.31 0.41 2.44 2.21 9.29 2.62

China 0.00 0.17 0.41 -0.37 0.56 -0.02 4.92 7.34

India 0.00 0.12 0.19 0.38 0.97 0.23 3.54 5.20

World 0.01 0.15 0.32 0.94 2.12 1.82 4.90 3.17

Source: Madison

>> The Western economies started growing: an unprecedented phenomenon!

Key changes since 1400

1: The use of reason•Critical thinking

-Islam, through Cordoba, helped recover Greek thought•The questioning of authority

-Reformation•Induction and the scientific method – Francis Bacon

2: Constitutionalism and liberty•Origin of democracy

-Magna Carta -> Glorious Revolution•Theory of the modern state: Thomas Hobbes, John Locke

-Society was earlier the centre. Now the individual

3: The secret of wealth creation (free market)•Commercial institutions created

-Modern banks, corporations (e.g. Medici family of Florence)•Invisible hand (Adam Smith)

-(Refinements by F.A.Hayek)

Detailed discussion

in my draft manuscript,

The Discovery of Freedom

(available on the internet)

India was the world superpower till 1750India’s performance in recent centuries is atypical

It was the wealthiest region during the agricultural age• Largest arable area till the USA came to the scene• Remained the world’s wealthiest in 12 out of the last 20 centuries

-First century World GDP share = 33%-11th century World GDP share = 28.9%-1700 world GDP share = 24.4% (similar share of world trade)

Has India been a ‘victim’ of its long-standing success?• Caste system was well-suited to its agricultural society

-It is no longer suitable, but is now very difficult to change

Intellectual stagnation• Major philosophical schools and scientific advance (e.g. number system)• Charvaka’s and Buddha’s ideas transmitted to Greece –> Sophists –> Socrates• The breakthroughs of the modern world arose in Italy (Renaissance)

Why did India struggle even after the end of colonialism?•Cause 1: Socialist ideology

•By quirk of fate, Nehru the Fabian socialists set India’s policies-Rejected Milton Friedman’s specific advice-Rejected von Mises’s views on India’s productivity

•Cause 2: New rules of the game not widely understood•Indian education system flooded with socialists•Economics education extremely poor

•Cause 3: Arrogance about Indian history and culture•False pride that refuses to believe that the West could actually offer any learnings to India•Caste system not suited to dynamic societies.

Per capita income shot up in the West, then Japan, then…

Visual depictionThe rapidly changing world

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5

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15

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1980 1990 2000 2007

Year

Sh

are

of

wo

rld

GD

P (

PP

P)

UnitedStates

China

India

Japan

Germany

UnitedKingdom

Australia

China will become the world’s largest economy by 2016 (Maddison thought 2015, but IMF thinks 2016)

•Per capita in China will still (in 2016) be only a fourth of that of USA•Ultimately China could become four times the size of USA

China

India

Comparative growth of India and China

China, 2.2

China, 3.9

China, 7.1

China, 13.6

China, 18.0

India, 2.5India, 3.2

India, 3.7

India, 5.4

India, 6.6

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2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

20

1980 1990 2000 2010 2016

China

India

China will overtake US in real exchange terms by 2020

Source: The Economist, 25 June 2011

India positives

Total factor productivity is rapidly rising

Wherever the government has privatised (or is absent) significant progress has been achieved• IT sector and private sector IT education• Mobile phone wireless network

Source of the graph: http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/10316/1/MPRA_paper_10316.pdf

India is already Australia’s third largest export market ($19.8 billion) in 2009-10

Source: Composition of Trade, DFAT.

Already fifth largest two-way trading partner

Will become second largest trade partner in the next decade

India key negatives•One of the world’s most corrupt governments Australia India China Transparency international 2010

8 87 78

•Low levels of freedom-Failing institutions e.g. judiciary, press

•Insufficient focus on infrastructure-However, it now has the largest private sector investment in infrastructure

•Difficult in setting up a business

•Labour market inflexibility

Australia India China Heritage Foundation (freedom)

3 124 135

Australia India China World Bank Doing Business (June 2010 report)

10 (with 2 for starting business)

134 79