Do you think India’s democracy is a problem to its success?
Jim Rogers : I can only make some observations. Japan, Korea,
Singapore, China were all one-party states and, in some cases, were very
vicious one-party states, but, as they became more prosperous, their
people wanted more, demanded more and got more democratic, and they say
this is the Asian way.
Greek philosopher Plato in The Republic, says that
societies develop from dictatorship to oligarchy to democracy to chaos
and then back to dictatorship. Chaos develops out of democracy. This
seems to be what is happening in some of the Asian countries.
In the Soviet Union, they did the opposite—they said we
will open up and let all people complain and they did. The people there
were poor and they complained about being poor and hated the government.
When South Korea opened up, the people were rich and they decided to
get rid of the government without ruining the place. Taiwan did the
same. Democracy being a problem may have credence in some Asian
countries. But, I am not sure if India has been really a democracy in
the true terms—from 1947 onwards, the opposition has had just one full
term at the centre. The first five decades of its democracy, the centre
has only seen a government led by a single party.
Power corrupts. Singapore was lucky. There has been
plenty of criticism of Singapore’s (founding father) Lee Kuan Yew, and
some of them are probably valid, but look at the results. Congo had a
dictatorship for a long time, but has nothing to show for it. Singapore
had a strong central government and look around you—I did not move to
Congo, but I moved to Singapore. So it can go both ways.
In 1947, India was one of the most successful countries
in the world relative to others. Even as recently as 1980, India was
more successful than China, but then you know how that story turned. It
was more successful than South Korea, more successful than most places
in Asia—but, for me, it is unfortunate that you have failed to take
advantage of some of your most valuable assets. India has some of the
smartest people in the world, but it does not have an education system
to support it. Infrastructure is equally poor. So, I don’t know if India
would have been better without a democracy, and some of the greatest
periods in history have been without democracy. But these are just my
observations, and it is the Indians who must decide what they want.
Jim Rogers started trading the stock market with $600 in 1968.In 1973 he formed the Quantum Fund with the legendary investor George Soros before retiring, a multi millionaire at the age of 37. Rogers and Soros helped steer the fund to a miraculous 4,200% return over the 10 year span of the fund while the S&P 500 returned just 47%.
Jim Rogers : Problems always come no matter what governments say and we have always had slowdowns in America after every six or seven years even in good times. Be very worried because the next time around, things are going to be much worse, especially in countries where the debt is much higher. In the 1920s and 1930s, the centre of the world moved from the UK to the US, primarily due to financial problems and mistakes made by the politicians. The same thing is happening now, and the centre of the world is moving from the US to Asia, exasperated due to the financial crisis and mistakes made by politicians. In the 1930s, US was a creditor nation, but it suffered badly, but not as badly as some of the European nations. Asia will suffer the next time around, but the West will suffer even more. I would rather be with the creditors than with the countries (that) have huge debts.
