On a related point, the government of India (GOI) has been trying since independence to include the Dalits (scheduled castes) and other underprivileged groups through its reservation system (for government jobs and public university slots). It has made a small dent because the structures of power limit state-mandated inclusive policies. Who can get government jobs or enter the university system begs the question as to how social and economic discrimination operates at the household, primary and secondary school levels. If Dalits cannot access schools how will they ever qualify for formal employment and university seats? Some do but the empirical evidence for upward mobility is problematic, made worse by social discrimination even if opportunities for some economic mobility are increasing.
Further, Hernando de Soto much earlier used the argument of transparency in property rights (clear titles) as an effective way to make the informal sector work better, taking advantage of market dynamics. On the surface, this is clearly an inclusive policy (witness the corruption in getting clear land titles in India). Yet, we all know this is no panacea since formalization of titles could lead to individual titling and thus monopoly control of the more powerful segments of the informal sector (including the mafia). As an aside, I had challenged him in 2004 in Helsinki but did not receive a satisfactory response for obvious reasons. So institutions are warts and all, some you can change, others you learn to live with, still others are reformed and resurrected in new ways, but trying to engineer them in favor of simple market mechanisms are unlikely to yield intended results because fundamentally the structural power dimension is not addressed. Cheers, Anthony On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 10:42 AM, Lakshmi Rhone <[email protected]>wrote: > Lots of different points... > > From Charles Ferguson to Luigi Zingales there is recognition that the > ruling class has become increasingly predatory and criminal. > It raises interesting questions about the nature of the rule of law. For > Acemoglu and Robinson it is the foundation of inclusive institutions. > Extractive institutions are, for them, extractive by virtue of both > economic and political means. Yet cannot institutions that are inclusive > and consistent with the rule of law facilitate exploitation if not > extraction by extra-economic or openly coercive means? > Is not the rule of law only formal once economic power is concentrated > and labor power commodified? Is it no surprise that > common moral notions are not upset by the fact of exploitation as common > moral notions are themselves only idealisations > of the extant relations of production? > I also wonder what we are to make of democratic bodies running up against > personifications of the rule of law, namely judges. > I think here of the reactionary role played by the S.Ct during the New > Deal, and in the present. If inclusive institutions include > the rule of law and respect for the judiciary, then inclusive institutions > are not necessarily democratic, i.e. inclusive? > > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > > -- xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Anthony P. D'Costa Professor of Indian Studies and Research Director Asia Research Centre Copenhagen Business School Porcelænshavens 24B, 3.78 DK-2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark Ph: +45 3815 2572 *GLOBALIZATION AND ECONOMIC NATIONALISM IN ASIA** http://tinyurl.com/6r4g7ld* * **A NEW INDIA?* <http://www.anthempress.com/index.php/a-new-india-1.html>* http://www.anthempress.com/pdf/9780857285041.pdf* http://uk.cbs.dk/arc http://www.thisismodernindia.com/this_is_modern_india_about_us.html xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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