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  3. Why India Is Poor and Corrupt While Japan Is Rich and CleanA)In the

Why India Is Poor and Corrupt While Japan Is Rich and CleanA)In the

游客2024-04-22  12
问题             Why India Is Poor and Corrupt While Japan Is Rich and Clean
A)In the Far East, Malaysia, Singapore, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Japan— all relying extensively on private markets—are thriving. Their people are full of hope. By contrast, India, Indonesia, and Communist China, all relying heavily on central planning, have experienced economic stagnation and political repression.
B)An especially illuminating example, worth examining in greater detail, is the contrast between the experiences of India and Japan—India during the first 30 years after it achieved independence in 1947, and Japan during the first 30 years after the Meiji Restoration in 1867. Economists and social scientists in general can seldom conduct controlled experiments of the kind that are so important in testing hypotheses in the physical sciences. However, experience has here produced something very close to a controlled experiment that we can use to test the importance of the difference in methods of economic organization.
C)Both were countries with ancient civilizations and a sophisticated culture. Each had a highly structured population. Japan had a feudal structure; India had a rigid caste system. Both countries experienced a major political, economic and social change. In both countries a group of able, dedicated leaders took power. They were imbued with national pride and determined to convert economic stagnation into rapid growth, to transform their countries into great powers.
D)Almost all differences favoured India rather than Japan. The prior rules of Japan had enforced almost complete isolation from the rest of the world. International trade and contact was limited to one visit from one Dutch ship a year. Three or more centuries of enforced isolation had left Japan ignorant of the outside world, far behind the West in science and technology.
E)India was much more fortunate. It had enjoyed substantial economic growth before World War I. That growth was converted into stagnation between the two world wars, but was not reversed. Improvements in transportation had ended the famines that had earlier been a recurrent curse. Many of its leaders had been educated in advanced countries, particularly in Great Britain. British rule left it with a highly skilled and trained civil service, modern factories, and an excellent railroad system. None of these existed in Japan in 1867. India’s physical resources, too, were far superior to Japan’s. India is nearly nine times as large as Japan, and a much larger percentage of its area consists of relatively level and accessible land. Japan is mostly mountainous.
F)Finally, Japan was on its own. No foreign capital was invested in Japan. India fared far better. Since it achieved independence in 1947, it has received an enormous volume of resources from the rest of the world, mostly as gifts. The flow continues today.
G)Despite the similar circumstances of Japan in 1867 and India in 1947, the outcome was vastly different. Japan dismantled its feudal structure and extended social and economic opportunity to all its citizens. The lot of the ordinary man improved rapidly. Japan became a power to be reckoned with.
H)India paid lip service to the elimination of caste barriers yet made little progress in practice. Differences in income and wealth grew wider. Population exploded, as it did in Japan, but economic output per capita did not. India prided itself on being the largest democracy in the world, but it lapsed for a time into a dictatorship that restricted freedom of speech and press.
I)What explains the difference in results? Many observers point to different social institutions and human characteristics. Religious taboos, the caste system, a fatalistic philosophy—all these are said to imprison the inhabitants of India. By contrast, the Japanese are lauded as hardworking, energetic, eager to respond to influences from abroad, and incredibly ingenious at adapting what they learn from outside to their own needs.
J)This description of the Japanese may be accurate today. It was not in 1867. An early foreign resident in Japan wrote: "Wealthy we do not think it[Japan]will ever become. The advantages conferred by Nature, with exception of the climate, and the love of indolence and pleasure of the people themselves forbid it."
K)Similarly, the description of the Indians may be accurate today for some Indians, but it certainly is not accurate for Indians who have migrated elsewhere. In many continents, Indians are successful entrepreneurs, sometimes constituting the mainstay of the entrepreneurial class. They have often been the dynamo initiating and promoting economic progress.
L)In any event, economic and social progress does not depend on the attributes or behaviour of the masses. In every country a tiny minority sets the pace, determines the course of events. In the countries that have developed most rapidly and successfully, a minority of enterprising and risk-taking individuals have forged ahead, created opportunities for imitators to follow, have enabled the majority to increase their productivity.
M)The characteristics of the Indians that so many outside observers deplore reflect rather than cause the lack of progress. Sloth and lack of enterprise flourish when hard work and the taking of risks are not rewarded. A fatalistic philosophy is an accommodation to stagnation. India has no shortage of people with the qualities that could spark and fuel the same kind of economic development that Japan experienced after 1867, or even that Germany and Japan did after World War II. Indeed, the real tragedy of India is that it remains a subcontinent teeming with desperately poor people when it could, we believe, be a flourishing, vigorous, increasingly prosperous and free society.
N)What then accounts for the different experiences of Japan from 1867 to 1897 and of India from 1947 to date? We believe that the explanation is the same as for the difference between West and East Germany, Israel and Egypt, Taiwan and Red China.
O)Japan relied primarily on voluntary cooperation and free markets—on the model of the Britain of its laissez-faire time. India relied on central economic planning—on the model of the Britain of post-WWII. The Meiji government at no time did it try to control the total amount or direction of investment or the structure of output.
P)India is following a very different policy. Its leaders regard capitalism as synonymous with imperialism, to be avoided at all costs. They embarked on a series of Soviet-type five-year plans that outlined detailed programs of investment. Some areas of production are reserved to government; in others private firms are permitted to operate, but only in conformity with The Plan.
Q)Tariffs and quotas control imports, subsidies control exports. Needless to say, these measures produce shortages of foreign exchange. These are met by detailed and extensive foreign exchange control—a major source both of inefficiency and of special privilege. Wages and prices are controlled. A government permit is required to build a factory or to make any other investment. Taxes are ubiquitous, highly graduated on paper, evaded in practice. Smuggling, black markets, illegal transactions of all kinds are every bit as ubiquitous as taxes.
R)Reliance on the market in Japan released hidden and unsuspected resources of energy and ingenuity. It prevented vested interests from blocking change. It forced development to conform to the harsh test of efficiency. Reliance on government controls in India frustrates initiative or diverts it into wasteful channels. It protects vested interests from the forces of change. It substitutes bureaucratic approval for market efficiency as the criterion of survival. [br] India imposed itself as the largest democratic country in the world, but the reality is to the contrary for a time.
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答案 H
解析 题干意为印度自认为它是世界上最大的民主国家，但一段时期却与之相反。根据题干中的“the largest democratic country”可定位至H段末句“India prideditself on being the largest democracy in the world．but it lapsed for a time into adictatorship that restricted freedom of speech and press．”，题干是对该句的同义改写。
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