Sunday, March 30, 2008

India buys England

Historical time

We had a discussion last semester in an economic theory seminar on how long is long in economic time. I proposed 30 years as 30 years ago India and China were seen as economic laggards and today are leading the world adding 2-3% to annual per person worldwide income growth, e.g India and China are bringing up the world averages with their phenomenal expansions.

Now there has been a recent announcement that Tata Motors in India, a colony of England until 1947, is closing on its purchase of what once where two of England's major brands, Jaguar and Land Rover. This shows that 60 years is a nice period in which to evaluate history....from colony to economic superpower in 60 years. The whole social relations of power have shifted showing that economic power trumps coercive empire.