I am from India and this post is very good. So what you are trying to say in this and your other articles is that to reduce casteism, sexism and other forms of discrimination, india needs labor intensive economic growth which will give financial independence and power to those oppressed groups to fight against discrimination.
As per Daron Acemoglu in the book “Why Nations Fail”, long term economic growth requires inclusive institutions and for that india has to improve its institutions and make them more inclusive.
Just being a Democracy doesn’t mean the institutions are inclusive.
What do you think india should do to make it’s institutions more inclusive such that it will spur labor intensive economic growth like east asia?
You mentioned working on reducing informal sector in your other post and how the labor laws lead to a lot higher costs for firms to grow beyond 8-10 employees. I really agree with that, but reforming labor laws is very difficult. In india, unions are very politicised and not in a good way, they don’t necessarily have the labor’s best interests in mind.
They are instead used as a political tool. Both the current political party and the Indian national congress have large labor unions and whenever someone tries to reform the archaic laws, they use those labor unions to shut out the reforms to gain short term political capital. Both the parties are guilty of this.
There is also the case where the industrial sector is very crony. Governments and businesses tie up and create laws and situations which are stalling growth, there are also special interest groups who benefit from existing laws and work against any change in those laws.
This seems like an uphill battle, My question is, what are possible solutions for this? How can india make its institutions more inclusive when there are powerful people benefiting from the current institutions and laws?
I am from India and this post is very good. So what you are trying to say in this and your other articles is that to reduce casteism, sexism and other forms of discrimination, india needs labor intensive economic growth which will give financial independence and power to those oppressed groups to fight against discrimination.
As per Daron Acemoglu in the book “Why Nations Fail”, long term economic growth requires inclusive institutions and for that india has to improve its institutions and make them more inclusive.
Just being a Democracy doesn’t mean the institutions are inclusive.
What do you think india should do to make it’s institutions more inclusive such that it will spur labor intensive economic growth like east asia?
You mentioned working on reducing informal sector in your other post and how the labor laws lead to a lot higher costs for firms to grow beyond 8-10 employees. I really agree with that, but reforming labor laws is very difficult. In india, unions are very politicised and not in a good way, they don’t necessarily have the labor’s best interests in mind.
They are instead used as a political tool. Both the current political party and the Indian national congress have large labor unions and whenever someone tries to reform the archaic laws, they use those labor unions to shut out the reforms to gain short term political capital. Both the parties are guilty of this.
There is also the case where the industrial sector is very crony. Governments and businesses tie up and create laws and situations which are stalling growth, there are also special interest groups who benefit from existing laws and work against any change in those laws.
This seems like an uphill battle, My question is, what are possible solutions for this? How can india make its institutions more inclusive when there are powerful people benefiting from the current institutions and laws?
Another reason to support Robert Lucas' famous quip, "Once you start thinking about economic growth, it is hard to think about anything else."
May you succeed in getting mainstream academia and mainstream NGOs to support improved business environments as a means of improving gender equality.