Dictators & one party states have their benefits

Today’s news includes a note about Cameron’s visit to China and the possibility that China might contribute to HS2. They’ve built rather a lot of high speed rail links over the last few years.

Good infrastructure is one of the key requirements to attract investment and build an economy.

I remember watching the building of the convention centre in Hong Kong on land reclaimed from the harbour. From my office you could see the chain of barges coming in from the New Territories, unloading & returning for more. That and the building of the new airport (they demolished a mountain for that) were completed at an amazing pace.

At the same time, I was travelling at least twice a month to Sydney, where a new road seemed to take forever.

India, the world’s largest democracy, has made far less progress with infrastructure projects than China, who have a one party state.

Russian railways were built by the Tsars and the communists.

Mussolini made the trains run on time.

Perhaps a few emerging market economies would benefit (economically, of course) from a dictator for a few years?

Command & control at least gets things done.

 

 

 

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.