About the highlighted part, some Americans are so naive that they described President Obomba as a socialist.
I am sometimes told on PDF that India was socialist.
I ask, when was India ever socialist ??
Yes, there were elements of socialism, inspired by USSR, like the five year plans of the Planning Commission, or the milk co-operative, Amul.
But compare, say Cuba, with India, and you will find many things absent in India that would have made it a full socialist state. Or there are things present in India that would have been abolished in a socialist state.
1. 300,000+ Indian farmers committed suicide between 1995 and 2005. 1995 was after the 1991 Liberalization system you mentioned.
2. Is the massive Indian middle class at present - I believe equal to the population of USA - concerned about those farmers or the rest of the have-nots ??
3. The vulgarity of Mukesh Ambani's 27-storey home or Subrato Roy's sons' 552 crore wedding does not translate into prosperity for the rest of the population.
True Socialism brings harmony.
Even Elon Musk wants Direct Democracy as the political system for near-future Mars settlements.
India was never fully socialist. I agree. But it lacked capitalist institutions in the initial phase of its existence.
The farmers' plight is largely the farmers ' fault. They haven't realised that they can't keep having children and dividing the land between them for an infinite period.
Other reasons - the average Indian doesn't make a personal effort to better himself. The lowest quality students become teachers, and impart the lowest quality of education. People want jobs instead of starting businesses. People in government jobs are largely corrupt despite getting a good remuneration.
Glad you mentioned Mukesh Ambani. I'm a big fan. Guys like him have built India into what we are today. He supports millions of jobs via his companies. He made the average Indian richer when he brought down call and data prices to almost zero. I haven't seen any village household without a smartphone, even in the worst states after the drop in data prices.
I would like to repeat this again. Since the average Indian refuses to work /be creative /innovate /start industries - the country needs people who are willing to do all that in charge.
The middle class may or may not directly help others. But just their existence proves the success of capitalism. It is not 1 percent ruling the 99 percent.
It is 1%elites +30%middle class doing better than the rest. (rough numbers)
Note that the percentage of middle class is rapidly increasing every year.
The richer people help those lower down by employing them in whatever industries or businesses they own. They help by buying things from the poor. The middle class buys from roadside shops. It pays for labour.
The growth in the world, the innovation is all powered by capitalist economies. Countries which tried socialist economies largely failed or switched.
USSR failed. East Germany failed. You will hard-pressed to find contributions to the development of humanity from socialist countries (there was a brief period of good research in USSR though).
I think you feel that all the poverty should vanish in an instant. It doesn't work like that, unless you force everyone to be equally poor.
No society advances by paying its unproductive population the same as its productive population.
