This reads as rather naive. You think India’s governance is “no good”? It is literally the most culturally complex place on earth, so you might need to recalibrate your metrics and criteria.

Additionally, if you believe Nigeria has a near zero chance at good governance, then I suspect you have not read very much history or anthropology. Every instance of civilizational development looks pretty much impossible, and yet “good governance” emerges over and over again. The story of humanity is one of surprising social innovation, and I would never count Nigeria out.

> India has big population but has no good governance.

As an Indian, I would dispute that. When I look back at what we were as a country, when we became independent, to what we are today, our achievements are really astounding.

The parent has no clue what they are talking about, so I wouldn't take it to heart. Its pretty hard to deny that India is a global powerhouse.

No offense but in what non commodity industries is India a powerhouse? Here in the US I never see things made in India, and was just yesterday wondering how India compares to China. I could do some research, but I'm wondering why you think of India as a powerhouse?

Well, pharmaceutical manufacturing for one:

> India is the world's largest provider of generic medicines by volume, with a 20% share of total global pharmaceutical exports. It is also the largest vaccine supplier in the world by volume, accounting for more than 60% of all vaccines manufactured in the world.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmaceutical_industry_in_I...

This I am less certain on, but I believe there is a fairly robust space program (not many countries have that). I’m sure there is more.

Being an economic powerhouse doesn't mean being visible on shop shelves.

In Europe you very rarely see consumer goods labelled "Made in USA" (although we will frequently see products that are "Made in India"), yet the US is still an economic powerhouse because its strengths are in services, tech, finance, aerospace, and defence rather than mass-market manufacturing.

India is similar with most of its global impact through IT, software, generic pharmaceuticals, and space tech. Its the 4th largest economy in the world, and among the fastest growing - potentially surpassing Germany for 3rd place by 2030.

India is also the 2nd largest exporter of food in the world, and among the largest textile exporters (clothing, etc) - but for some reason you wanted to exclude commodities.

A country of 1.4 billion maybe potentially surpassing a country of 80 million strongly implies it's not quite a powerhouse yet.

I'm hopeful for India's future and they're on the right track, but currently, they're punching well below their weight. Germany is punching well above theirs. But investment from companies like Apple shows that India has what it needs to become the next China (or at the very least, next Vietnam). Nigeria seems to lack similar investment.

India is not a country that needs to “punch above its weight”. It is already a heavyweight. With one of the highest absolute GDPs in the world (third by PPP, fourth by nominal terms), it is a global leader across multiple sectors: IT, industry, pharmaceuticals, agriculture, and renewable energy. Its domestic market of more than 1.4 billion people gives it unmatched scale, representing nearly a quarter of the world’s population. India’s policy choices and growth trajectory directly influence global markets. That scale, diversity, and systemic impact are what make it a true economic powerhouse. Saying otherwise is naive, and seems a common rhetoric from a certain demographic...

Impressive. Very nice.

Let's see India's GDP per capita.

GDP per capita doesn’t make a powerhouse, otherwise Monaco would be the most powerful country in the world, the US would be lucky to be in the top 10, and China would be considered “somewhat average”. Next?

"Leader" means other countries are following India's example and looking up to it. I'm not so sure that's happening.

There are many countries that view India as a leader for various reasons - economically, culturally, technologically and/or geopolitically. You really should go and read about India if you are truly this uninformed.

Which countries? I can't find any info and would appreciate some guidance.

Do you really not know how to use a search engine? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_relations_of_India

That doesn't at all say what you think. Every country has foreign relations. That doesn't mean it leads.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_relations_of_North_Kor...

Is it safe to say North Korea is a world leader? If your method is anything to go by, yes. Does North Korea dominate India in its world leadership? Quite likely!

> As an Indian, I would dispute that.

Don't. It's good for us that they overestimate China and underestimate us. For the next couple decades, we need breathing room to develop; why would you destroy that space by drawing attention to yourself?

I've spent a lot of time in various parts of India backpacking around in the past. No luxury bubble somewhere on beach of Goa, rather travelling around cramped public transport, sleeping in cheap or free places, interacting only with commoners.

Everybody and everything is growing, even North Korea in some aspects is. Thats called a progress and nobody interacting with rest of the world can escape that.

What is unfortunately true about India, and many other similar places is the potential of the country and the people and reality where they got and how far they can reach, given their own limitations.

From what I've seen, the gap (potential vs reality) is huge compared to western standards, and I don't see an easy way to push through that ceiling. Society isn't fair, its everybody for themselves. Castes are very much a thing still, absolutely horrible and deplorable thing (while this will be read mostly by brahmins or rich merchant castes who rarely see an issue there, so I don't expect much sympathy here). Corruption is abysmal. Women and minority rights are questionable at best.

No doubt great and important things will improve in upcoming decades. But in 21st century India will not resemble ie western Europe in any meaningful way, I just don't see a way. Real India is not some Bangalore or Pune bubble, its very opposite of it.

Yes, I agree. Which is why you should convince your politicians to forget about puny worthless India and focus all their antagonism towards the great mighty China only. Thank you.

Nobody in Europe considers India an antagonist, unless they will align hard themselves with russia, which would be a tremendously stupid move from any logical angle.

And China... its doing its own superpower things. I get why US is scared of prospect of having an actually worthy peer for a change with very different values, but thats not a main concern for Europe. putin and his FUBAR russia is and will be, all focus and energy goes there as it should. Unless US is going to properly help with that instead of licking various orifices of your own sworn enemy while it spits on you, we leave China to you guys (which just wants to sell their cheap EVs and other stuff here, hardly an evil plan we should lose sleep about right now).

"India used to be developing at a rapid pace, but then this person on Hacker News gave it all away."

India's economic development is centred on a narrow cone of progress around IT services/outsourcing/migration and the spending power that creates a set for consumers and government projects.

It's not comparable to the broad based productivity gains which happened in China or the UK across every industry as they developed, from agriculture to manufacturing to services. Instead it's much more like the Norwegian or Saudi hydrocarbon economies but with human capital exports.

I can buy the argument for Saudi, but the Norwegian economy is surprisingly diversified, oil makes up only around 4% of it. (Although it's proportionally a much larger share of exports and government revenue.)

> India's economic development is centred on a narrow cone of progress around IT services/outsourcing/migration and the spending power that creates a set for consumers and government projects.

That's simply not true.

India is making steel, pharmaceuticals, textiles, cars, movies, you name it.

North Korea also produces all of those things. Merely producing something doesn’t mean much.

That is such a naive view. IT/outsourcing makes up less than 8% of the GDP. Compared to that, industrial sector make up almost 30% and agriculture 20%. Just because IT services catch the news cycle does not mean that is the only thing India does.

Industry makes up 46% of Saudi Arabian GDP. Such figures can be a misleading way to characterise an economy.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Saudi_Arabia

Thought it'd be interesting to compare some indexes.. Thailand seems to be doing better than India on some measures, with China quite a bit further ahead.

    India
    * Productive Capacities Index (PCI, 2022): 45.3 (108th out of 194)
    * Economic Complexity Index (ECI, 2023): 0.60 (41st out of 132)
    * Global Economic Diversification Index (EDI, latest): 111.51
    * Human Development Index (HDI, 2023): 0.685 (130th out of 193)

    Thailand
    * Productive Capacities Index (PCI, 2022): 51.6 (66th out of 194)
    * Economic Complexity Index (ECI, 2023): 0.96 (29th out of 132)
    * Global Economic Diversification Index (EDI, latest): 108.99 (~27th out of 115)
    * Human Development Index (HDI, 2023): 0.798 (77th out of 193)

    China
    * Productive Capacities Index (PCI, 2022): 60.7 (26th out of 194)
    * Economic Complexity Index (ECI, 2023): 1.14 (22nd out of 132)
    * Global Economic Diversification Index (EDI, latest): 146.20 (top 3)
    * Human Development Index (HDI, 2023): 0.797 (78th out of 193)

What you have achieved is astounding. However I agree that you don't have good governance, it isn't the worst by any means, but it is still pretty bad in ways. It has been getting better, and that is something I hope you keep working on - the world needs more good governance.

BTW, while I would call the US or EU better, both have very significant governance issues that they need to work on. This shouldn't be seen as a game of who is better it should be seen as a game of how can I improve, looking at others only to see what areas they are better you can copy, and what areas they are worse you can avoid.

Since I live in the US that is where I focus most of my efforts, and I'm constantly stopped by people who have their heart in the right place but are doing something that because of complex factors they refuse to acknowledge is worse than what we have now. I'm also constantly being informed of something I didn't think of and having to readjust what I advocate for. If you are not in the same situation you are making things worse!

Normalize that to global and it won’t look quite so stark. Not saying India’s development is unimpressive but let’s put things in a real context

As an Indian I have to agree with this assessment. But India has gone through the socialist phase, it still maintains a liberal democracy and is now rapidly building out its industry. Socialism is completely dead in the cities, my opinion is it will eventually fall once the rural areas also develop.

I grew up in the USA and the changes in India even in the last 10 years has been completely astounding. For example I’m from Hyderabad and some of things changes I see: A national freeway that didn’t exist 10 years ago, a metro that covers most of the core of the city, skyscrapers, trains that now ship containers instead of boxcars, massive power plants that have recently been built.

Is India perfect? No. It still has a hierarchical society, sectarianism is still pretty acute, like everywhere else in the world India’s fertility rate has dropped off a cliff, and traffic in Hyderabad proper is a nightmare.

But culturally the submissive Indian mindset of my youth is largely gone. The millennial India is entrepreneurial and everyone is looking to get ahead. The next 20 years of India will be amazing at which point a lot of the issues of low fertility rates will start affecting India as well. Lastly, I think India really only has capacity to send a sizable amount of its citizens overseas only for the next 5 years or so at which point migration out of India will largely subside.

> like everywhere else in the world India’s fertility rate has dropped off a cliff

It's amazing when people flag this as a bad thing when it's undoubtedly a key component of getting places to prosperity in the first place. Got to get people away from being starvation-limited.

> I think India really only has capacity to send a sizable amount of its citizens overseas only for the next 5 years or so at which point migration out of India will largely subside.

That's how you can tell a country is ""winning"" in the international rankings, when more people want to move in than move out.

> It's amazing when people flag this as a bad thing when it's undoubtedly a key component of getting places to prosperity in the first place. Got to get people away from being starvation-limited.

Exponentially falling fertility rates can create dynamics which can be destructive in its own right. As with other complex phenomena it would be for example foolish to rapidly cool the earth's climate. Stability is the key, here. Right now India is just below replacement which short to mid-term looks very promising but will it stabilize? Looking at worldwide trends I very much doubt that. A growing economy needs some demographical stability so coming from a long-term view fertility dropping off a cliff, now, could be bad news later (in one, two generations).

Turning some knobs one way or the other does not produce linear results, quite the opposite, there are thresholds, there is criticality. To draw on another more time compressed analogy here: I guess some operators thought back then: What could go possibly wrong by running a nuclear reactor (RBMK) at safer lower powers?

No society today got to prosperity on the back of falling birth rates. And nor did any of the western countries that went through population booms have food-production created famines.

> it's undoubtedly a key component of getting places to prosperity in the first place

The baby boom and a couple previous generations in the US is also associated with getting to high prosperity and high fertility. This part of your thesis is debunked and thus your whole argument falls apart.

I agree about Nigeria but not about India. My understanding is that they have some very able people in government.

There are large countries in Africa that are undergoing fast development though, Kenya for example.

There are 80 some countries in Africa (it has changed since I was in school as borders change). Some of them are doing really good, but most are doing bad. Many of them have seemed to be on the right track for a while and then fallen off again. I wish Kenya the best, but history on that continent hasn't been kind to anyone in my the last few hundred years (but go back farther...)

Yes. Although Kenya is apparently well-functioning enough that some Swedes are happy to do business there and actually operate factories there etc.

You always are taking risks. Sweden could have a revolution tommorow and turn corrupt - seems unlikely but it could happen.

Certainly, and I don't think I'd move to Kenya to start a factory, but obviously some people think the people there are sensible enough that it looks okay.

It's worth noting that China is investing heavily in Nigeria and it is also its biggest lender, it might turn out Nigeria's gov is not that far from CCP.

China's third world investment adventures are questionable at best. And it would take extraordinary evidence for me to believe in Nigeria's government being competent.

That invokes the ship of theseus. China could terraform Nigeria. Megabridges, super housing projects, surveillance, etc.

(Wait this is still the rodney brooks discussion!?)

Agreed. Uganda has also received significant investment from China, but the lifespan of the infrastructure apparently leaves some to be desired. The new road to the airport in Kampala is a major improvement, but after a year or two of use is already cracking in some places so may not last as long as one would expect.

Well since you, of all people, find it hilarious, and honored us with your iron clad, deeply reasoned opinion, it must be immutable truism

Time is not a linear function; creation and decay are not a normalized process. A large number of people can change inductive truism.

To be fair China has a top down control that India and the like don't

The reason Nigeria (and India) won't quite reproduce the success China has had has very little to do with the efficient governance, and everything else with factors that are left for the reader to deduce.

I read here genetics, because you're avoiding a sensitive topic.

I actually think that it is culture. Often people attribute to melanin what is very obviously an issue with values and cosmovision, as part of the culture that someone breathes since childbirth. Which is solvable with education but only on generational timescales, unfortunately. Similar to Planck's principle, "Science progresses one funeral at a time".

Till the 1700s India was the largest economy in the world, with China being a close second, based on the chart below, which in turn cites British economist Angus Maddison as the source.

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/2000-years-economic-history...

So why wouldn't India be able to reproduce China's success? Maybe not in the next 20-30 years, but it sure isn't a foregone conclusion that India will always remain poor.

What kind of insane racist dog whistle is this?

If you’re gonna come on here and make a crazy insinuation like that you better actually have some educational foundation. Do you know anything about the history of West Africa? Ever read a single book about it or watched a documentary?

Why is it very close to zero? Nigerians in the United States are the most educated immigrant group in the country.