Inflection Point
In this interesting podcast , Alex Tabarrok repeatedly points out there is no one answer on what works, and there’s no certainty on what comes next. Nah, he wasn’t talking of life in general; he was making those comments on the topic of what it takes to sustain economic growth: Traditional wisdom says the must-have’s for economic growth include strong institutions, rule of law, free markets and democracy. But then, he says, there’s the elephant in the room: China. It used to be fashionable to point at India and China’s populations as problems not just for those countries, but increasingly for the world as they get richer, and consume and pollute more. Then again, both countries will invest more in R&D as they get richer, and having more people would increase the odds of new ideas and solutions to today’s problems. “People as stomachs” or “People as brains”, he calls the two views. Which is right? Today, China’s growth looks unstoppable. But he points out, a couple of...