I have just been listening to a Radio 4 programme on India. One person, perhaps the finance minister, asserted that one in four primary school teachers in India does not turn up for work. This is an extreme measure of just how bad and corrupt the state can be in providing education. James Tooley, of course, has done much research in this area in developing countries before, but to hear the words said on Radio 4, which is traditionally so much in favour of state welfare provision, was interesting. The fact that this is evidence, to put it mildly, that the state has been incompetent in providing education in India was not, of course, drawn out or developed.

It was definitely the current Finance Minister who said on the programme that, on the basis of improvements over the past 10 to 15 years, it was likely that "abject poverty" in India would be "wiped out" by 2020 or 2025. In these past years, of course, India finally turned away from the socialism it had adopted since the Second World War and moved towards the market economy.

It seems likely that it will be capitalism that saves the abject poor in India, not socialism. It was good to hear a man in such a powerful position politely asserting this.

Posted by James Bartholomew • Indexed in General

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