How Kerala got rich

3/28/2025 at 4:45:23 PM

I was born in the US but my parents are from Kerala and I still have family there that I visit.

One thing I found interesting was the pride in literacy and education. Kerala has a 96% literacy rate which is the highest in India [1].

It's one of my favorite places to visit. Unlike other parts of India such as Bengaluru, Mumbai and Hyderbad -- it's tropical and lush with much less pollution than what you might see in those other parts of India.

My parents have a home in a rural community which hasn't changed much in the past few decades compared to somewhere like Bengaluru. It's quiet and slow with a high important on family relationships. No doubt it's westernizing, albeit slower than other parts of India - but for now it still holds much of the charm I've known since I was a kid.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_India

by jmathai

3/29/2025 at 3:01:21 PM

I think the focus on literacy is laudable. However, as the article points out the wealth isn’t locally generated, it is basically folks going out to gulf states sending back remittances. So while literacy has helped that there is not much to be said for local industry.

I don’t see any startup tech or manufacturing in India falling over themselves to start in Kerala.

by orochimaaru

3/28/2025 at 7:33:58 PM

Like many in the diaspora, you may have a romantic view of your roots.

> much less pollution

Comparatively? Perhaps. One look at the Vembanad Lake and you'll know what I'm talking about: https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Kochi/high-levels-of-fa... It stinks these days.

> Kerala has a 96% literacy rate

Lieracy surveys aren't as rigorous; likely 5% to 20% drop from reported numbers: https://www.dataforindia.com/measuring-literacy/

> still holds much of the charm

As someone who visited Kerala multiple times a year, things have gotten worse both climate wise & pollution wise. Though, the monsoon gods still bless Kerala, it isn't as green as it used to be. I've found (under similar climatic conditions) the Sri Lankan lowlands (West coast) to be more greener. Ditto for rainforests of NE India & SE Asia.

by ignoramous

3/28/2025 at 8:28:42 PM

> Lieracy surveys aren't as rigorous; likely 5% to 20% drop from reported numbers: https://www.dataforindia.com/measuring-literacy/

This is very well studied in sociology and anthropology and has been for many decades. Kerala is a major case study in many fields because of this.

by guerrilla

3/28/2025 at 10:52:59 PM

To add to this: the most recent "96.2% literacy" estimate is based on a 2017 survey (not the 2011 census) where they interviewed a little over 2500 households in Kerala, though there are 7.7 million households there. I'm not a statistician, but this feels like too small of a sample size to make a definitive estimation.

In addition, other states got very close to that literacy rate, but are probably managed quite differently to Kerala. Worth considering if people want to try to replicate Kerala's efforts without considering the wider context

by 0xbadcafebee

3/29/2025 at 1:52:59 AM

Most of the literacy education efforts started in the 1800s in Kerala. For example,

> Education in Kerala has deep historical roots, dating back to the rule of local dynasties and the influence of colonial missionaries. The rulers of Travancore and Cochin played a crucial role in establishing schools and promoting learning, especially among marginalized communities. The British and Christian missionaries also made significant contributions by setting up institutions that emphasized modern education.

> In 1817, the Travancore government issued a royal decree stating that education should be provided to all, including women and lower castes. By the early 20th century, Kerala had already built a strong foundation for literacy, ensuring that access to education was widespread.

https://livekerala.com/blog/how-kerala-became-indias-most-li...

by kelipso

3/29/2025 at 12:06:45 PM

You're right. You're not a statistician. My point was against yours. The consensus by experts in myltiple fields, who study specifically this, is that literacy in Kerela is exceptionally high. That is one study among many, one that only confirms what they way they already know.

by guerrilla

3/28/2025 at 9:17:50 PM

The connection between education and wealth is very strong. Very sad that the US has decided to pursue a trajectory towards poverty in this area.

by not_kurt_godel

3/29/2025 at 2:37:17 AM

It may be strong to a point, but many countries are beyond that point. Look at how many countries there are that are better educated than the USA but have lower incomes. Japan, Germany, Canada, probably dozens more.

by WorkerBee28474

3/29/2025 at 2:27:38 PM

Three points on that:

1. Secondary and tertiary education is not all there is to education. A self-learned software engineer might lack a capital-E education, but has still spent significant time and effort on learning.

2. Education is one of many aspects of a successful life, at least as important is conscientiousness, diligence, intelligence and luck.

3. The US benefits from many virtuous cycles. In regards to the labor force it is able to attract a lot of the best talent in the world.

Given the current political climate in the US, it seems prudent to point out that point 3 isn't just true for business-men, doctors and other nerds, undocumented immigrants are some of the hardest-working people out there. They contribute almost 100b in taxes alone, and get almost no services in return.

by bakuninsbart

3/29/2025 at 5:20:21 AM

Higher income does not equal higher quality of life. Which is, arguably, what really matters to people.

by zoul

3/29/2025 at 6:46:50 AM

QoL is a relative metric though. If you see people around you living better than you, your QoL becomes poor even though you live better than 99% of people in the world

by aprilthird2021

3/29/2025 at 11:02:53 AM

I think that with TikTok and such channels squeezing out the ability to read, the entire humanity is embarking on a massive de-literatization experiment.

by inglor_cz

3/29/2025 at 8:54:17 AM

Questionable. There is defiantly some connection, but in what direction is open for debate. But its also the case that the Soviet block countries had lots of educated people, but couldn't make the economy work out.

And given for how many years the US has had sub-optimal results in international education comparison, while the overall economy has done well also doesn't fit.

by panick21_

3/29/2025 at 4:34:14 PM

Education is tricky. The wrong education can really stunt your economic competitiveness. I'm sure the Soviet world had plenty of classroom time devoted to the glory of Communism. Each classroom probably had a politruk available to help out.

Too many kids go to other universities and study similar things. It's fine to explore these ideas, but at the end of the day you've got to make someone happy or they won't pay you.

by xhkkffbf

3/29/2025 at 5:27:48 PM

They also had really good maths and other useful things. They actually did what many in the West many wanted. Their education wasn't bad, learning wrong history isn't really that economically relevant.

But yeah, if the economy can't use those people its just not effective.

by panick21_

3/29/2025 at 5:49:27 PM

Learning wrong history can be economically relevant. So much of history is about learning patterns of human behavior. Patterns that often repeat. If you learn wrong or untrue history your understanding of and expectations for human behavior will be incorrect which will certainly cause economic issues.

by human_person

3/29/2025 at 7:53:32 PM

Maybe if you are in top level government. But for 99% of workers it doesn't matter much.

Also, much of typical school history most people learn is incredibly shallow and the waste majority of people barley remember anything. Research show this pretty clearly. So teaching something wrong, is not gone matter much.

by panick21_

3/30/2025 at 3:26:04 PM

No one does fake history better than the CCCP.

by xhkkffbf

3/28/2025 at 9:51:17 PM

In popular US culture the pursuit of wealth, is framed as crass. Movies that some see as promoting wealth accumulation are often actually critiques against wealth.

Also, since the mid 60s pop culture has embraced the slacker as being hip and cool.

They guy and gal trying to get ahead are portrayed as greedy or at best blindly joining a rat-race forgoing more noble pursuits. Not so for many other cultures.

by mc32

3/29/2025 at 4:23:55 AM

I don't think this is true anymore. "Selling out" is now seen as a goal. Kids post fake ads on their instagrams to convince each other that they have brand sponsorship deals. Every celebrity, from reality-show nobody to AAA-lister shills for their own signature alcohol or cell phone carrier. The culture celebrates grindset mindset crypto-scam rugpulls and denigrates anyone who toils at a 9-5 as a wage-slave who'll never make it.

by evan_

3/28/2025 at 10:05:30 PM

I think that in almost all western countries, a life spent entirely on hoarding wealth for the sake of wealth, is considered a sad life. Especially if you don't even have any loved ones to share your wealth with.

I think the same it true for most of Latin america, where many of my friends and colleagues are from. And when I was in Nepal they thought that, if anything, western people are way too much focused on gathering wealth.

Islam specifically rejects hoarding wealth, so I think that pretty much takes out most of the middle east and northern africa.

So I'm curious which other cultures you are referring to. Perhaps specifically Indian and Chinese culture?

by paulluuk

3/29/2025 at 2:22:35 AM

  Islam specifically rejects hoarding wealth, so I think that pretty much takes out most of the middle east

I don't know much about religions but I don't believe it is that clearly delineated. How would you explain Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Bahrain, from my limited vantage point they seem pretty much all in on their religion. Are they practicing a perverse form of Islam like the Christian who practice prosperity gospel?

by nick__m

3/29/2025 at 6:54:00 AM

There's no such thing as prosperity gospel in Islam. I researched all the major religions when I decided to become religious in my 20s. The prosperity gospel even in Christianity has very loose / 0 underpinnings in any actual theological study.

The Gulf countries became wealthy because of oil. They don't really hoard that wealth though. They are pretty famous around the world for investing that money, no? They fund universities (with many Gulf countries having their own outpost of NYU or other such prestigious colleges), arts and arts museums (there is a Louvre in the Middle East), tech startups, and of course invest in tourism to diversify their country.

They also have many horrible qualities, which are 100% not condoned in Islam like employing slaves in deadly conditions even though all nations agreed to abolish slavery years ago. Or confiscating the passports of foreign workers. Or their ethnostate mentality (similar to Israel where citizens must be of a specific blood lineage even though the majority of people living in their nation are not of that lineage). I could go on and on.

Anyways, Tl;Dr, I don't think they really hoard wealth. They do spend and invest in the world around them and find lots of charitable things (they have rebuilt Palestine a few times now, a very costly endeavor). Also, being Muslim doesn't mean they don't do anything morally wrong by that religion's standard. Same as the many charlatan "priests" of various religions in the world.

by aprilthird2021

3/29/2025 at 5:25:44 AM

Islam is probably the most economically savvy major religion (Mohammed was a merchant after all). Unlike other religions which issue blanket prohibitions on things like charging interest or having wealth Islam is more pragmatic. Hoarding wealth is considered sinful when it means that others are going without but it is not a sin to make money, have money or be rich. The gulf states could all broadly be described as socialist. Yes they have a lot of money but pretty much everyone lives on welfare and enjoys a high quality of life (nobody is going hungry or falling ill from easily treated diseases). In a country where everyone has attained a high standard of living there is no issue with someone having a huge pile of cash. We could throw out labor issues from guest workers, but that is a bigger topic.

by blululu

3/29/2025 at 7:27:36 AM

Sorry but they cannot be described as socialist because workers rights are non existent. Just because there is some protection for the native Arabs doesn't mean it can be "broadly described as socialist". There is no protection for the Bangladeshis, Filipinos, Indians, etc, who are doing the work. Protecting the working class is pretty much the point of socialism. This is a ludicrous statement.

by Gud

3/29/2025 at 8:12:16 AM

They’re welfare states, with three classes of residents. A slave-like underclass, disenfranchised expats, and citizens who get paid off by their royal families with generous benefits. Maybe the closest analogy is Ancient Rome?

by ern

3/29/2025 at 8:24:04 AM

I don't think the underclass is living under slave like conditions though.

Full disclosure, I worked in Dubai for 2 years(as a disenfranchised expat), working closely with guys from above mentioned countries. I install heavy machinery.

It's true some are treated poorly, but most are there genuinely there out of free will, because they make buckets of money to send back home. One Pakistani foreman I worked with had stashed away 250k Dirhams and was going back home to start his own business.

The gulf states can/could be an opportunity for the poor, see Bin Laden family for a famous example.

More than criticizing the gulf states for using these people as cheap labor, the criticism should be aimed at their corrupt governments not giving opportunities to their own population. Ironically they are not even allowed inside Europe and the US.

FWIW my experience in Dubai changed my views on the region to a much more nuanced one.

by Gud

3/29/2025 at 10:04:41 AM

Islam is a very practical religion. And that applies to how it treats wealth and socialism.

Like many religion it emphasises the importance of being good, and doing good, to enjoy the rewards of that in the after life (i.e. it teaches delayed gratification). But it also recognizes that advocating its adherent to forego all wordly attachment and live like a saint is also not practical for society. Thus, it also pragmatically says that a muslims doesn't have to wait for the afterlife to enjoy the rewards of good deeds - God has given humans the ability to enjoy certain pleasures in life, and achieve a higher sense of spiritual enlightenment, and that too depends on the good deeds you do in this life:

    Whoever does good, whether male or female, and is a believer, We will surely bless them with a good life, and We will certainly reward them according to the best of their deeds. (Quran 16:97)

Islamic scholars interpret this as a promise from God to the Children of Adam, who do righteous deeds - deeds in accordance with the Book of God and the teachings of His Prophet, with a heart that believes in God and His Messenger. God promises that He will give them a good life in this world and that He will reward them according to the best of their deeds in the Hereafter. Some scholars say this means a life with feelings of tranquillity in all aspects of life, while some suggest it means contentment and / or happiness in this life.

More here: https://islamqa.info/en/answers/12702/is-there-reward-for-go...

That is why no muslim needs to feel guilty about the wealth they have inherited or earned provided it is done through honest means, without hurting others, and they also follow the Islamic obligations of Zakat (charity). This charity is how socialism works in Islam. Islam says that the wealth of the world doesn't belong to anyone but God. And wealthy muslims (and rulers) are just custodians of his wealth. And God commands the wealthy to share their wealth with the poor, and prescribes how this should be done (annually 2.5% of your wealth should be given to the poor and needy). Even here, Islam is very practical - it recognizes how human nature is often suspicious of helping strangers, and thus says to look for people within your own family, your own friends, your own neighbourhood, your own muslim community etc. (i.e. your own social circles) to do this kind of charity.

More on this: https://thequranrecital.com/zakat-obligatory-charity-explain...

And this kind of wealth creation, with charity, is seen in the middle-east, amongst all these middle-eastern countries you mentioned.

by thisislife2

3/29/2025 at 6:01:36 AM

It's also commonplace in traditional Buddhist and Hindu cultures, especially a lot of the older upper class in India are obsessed with following Gandhi-like living too. You still find it in many Buddhist countries like Sri Lanka and South East Asia too.

by YouAreRONGS

3/29/2025 at 6:55:21 AM

The world would be a great place if the older upper classes learned from and tried to emulate Gandhi

by aprilthird2021

3/29/2025 at 6:59:47 AM

A lot of the older upper class Hindus in India do actually act like that. And it's also quite common in Sri Lanka and South East Asia for the upper class to do that.

by YouAreRONGS

3/29/2025 at 3:05:52 AM

That's because America is fundamentally a Christian country. I know no one wants to hear this. But this zeitgeist is unmistakenly Christian.

Interestingly enough the same forces are at work in kerala, which is one of the most Christian states in India (and the ruling communists are associated with them)

by anon291

3/29/2025 at 3:19:23 AM

Can you expound on this idea? What does anti-wealth have to do with Christianity and how does Communism enter the frame in India?

Prior to the mid 60s seeking betterment and wealth was one of the main reasons people migrated to the US replacing religious persecution back home as the main reason to come.

by mc32

3/29/2025 at 4:05:24 PM

Christianity in India is often framed against the prevailing religion Hinduism, for better or worse. The Indian church emphasizes things like social equality, income equality, etc. Some of the earliest labor activists and trade unionists in India were Catholic (actually Catholics in general are generally pro union across the world, see the Catholic vote here in America).

Secondly, Catholics are often setting up schools for everyone. India has always had a history of education, especially Kerala, but universal education of even the lower classes is extremely protestant. The church ended up adopting this around the time colonialism started and thus brought universal education to a widespread base in India.

Finally, the idea of touching everyone and treating them equally was against the general zeitgeist of the prevailing feudalistic highly hierarchical indian society. The first conversion attempts of the Portuguese for the south indian brahmins actually were incredibly successful (Nicholas of Tolentino). The Vatican even allows (and still allows as far as I'm aware, although no one does it) vedic rites for Catholics (malabar rites controversy).

However, no one wanted to give up untouchability. The Vatican eventually forced the missionaries to not have separate missions for touchables and untouchables, which basically ended Brahmanic conversions (and is one of the reasons indian Catholics no longer really care to do the vedic rites, since most are now from the lower class. As far as I know, some still do in Mangalore). Caste is still a problem in some christian communities in India but the bishops work to end it and it is officially condemned.

Which is to say, catholicism is associated with labor movement, equal social treatment, and universal education.

Which is also what the communists want.

It's no surprise that Kerala, being way more christian (and Catholic particularly) with a rich and prominent Christian history is thus the center of socialism.

Keep in mind also that communism in feudal countries has basically no relation to the communism you find on university campuses of america.

Now to the west. In the west, the church is seen as conservative, but the church is actually radically left wing in most parts of the world. It's only because leftism (in a global sense) is fundamentally a part of western culture that the church seems right wing because the church does not go as far as some leftist parties in the west.

by anon291

3/29/2025 at 3:13:07 PM

I was raised by a catholic system in Kerala christian heartland. For decades every Roman Catholic church required to have a school associated with it mostly primary but often secondary - managed by priests and nuns. These priests are heavily connected to Rome often visiting or getting their degree from there. I often hear Matthew 19:23-24 preached during sunday mass and many people have become content with what they have even though its barely enough.

If you ask me about communism, I would say its effects were kind of bad - overseas remittence came in as gulf nations flourished but for others from 60s till end of 90's economic opportunities were bleak. It came in power around 1956 in Kerala and a lot of privileged christians migrated to US in the following decades - with the christian cultural background they have, they integrated really well in that society.

by SandraBucky

3/29/2025 at 6:57:56 AM

Christianity (esp. Catholicism) and socialism have a long connection, especially in South America, which did not have the economic miracle Kerala did.

Kerala did not become wealthy from socialism, it became literate and land reform lifted many out of poverty. The actual wealth started accumulating when Keralites took advantage of opportunities to work abroad and send remittances home. That has been a major economic driver for the state and India as a whole, but they did it long before others did, largely because land reform gave people a safety net to fall back on so they could risk going abroad to earn more

by aprilthird2021

3/30/2025 at 12:09:05 PM

Socialism maybe the but the Roman Catholic church has a strong history of opposition to communism.

I would suggest God's Bankers: A History of Money and Power at the Vatican as for a pop-culture introduction of how the Catholic church aligned itself with fascist states including Mussolini's PNF, the Nazis and the Ustaše.

The Ustaše were particularly closely associated with the Catholic church.

by Lio

3/30/2025 at 3:57:25 PM

> Roman Catholic church has a strong history of opposition to communism

India is so far removed from Europe that things work a bit differently.

The keralites were not communist the way European countries were

by anon291

3/28/2025 at 10:06:00 PM

A lot depends on how exactly you pursue wealth. You could say that Donald Trump and Elon Musk have both striven to "pursue wealth" in their business careers, but nonetheless they did so in very different ways. And plenty of people will likely find Donald's approach somewhat "crass" compared to Elon's.

by zozbot234

3/29/2025 at 3:17:53 AM

but US have many top ranking universities in the world, how can you believe that US is behind in education?

by tonyhart7

3/29/2025 at 2:17:09 PM

Universities accept international students, and hire faculty educated outside the US

More relevant would be K-12

by SJC_Hacker

3/29/2025 at 3:37:01 PM

It’s all relevant, but there is zero doubt that the US has the best higher education in the world (although this administration seems hell bent on attacking it). There’s a reason more international students come to the US than anywhere else for higher education.

by azinman2

3/29/2025 at 4:35:26 PM

They hire foreigners largely because they're much cheaper than Americans. The schools have little trouble getting visas for foreign professors so, of course, they maximize their profits by hiring the cheapest they can get.

by xhkkffbf

3/29/2025 at 6:01:06 PM

I don't think thats the case at all

At least in STEM, its all about the ability to get grants. A professor who consistently gets grants is worth their weight in gold in "indirect" costs. Foreigner or otherwise

by SJC_Hacker

3/30/2025 at 3:24:26 PM

Look at any department. It's rare for all of the professors to get big grants. Usually a substantial fraction are essentially paid by either undergraduate or graduate tuition. In these cases of the non-constellation professors, it's better to get someone who is both good enough and cheap.

by xhkkffbf

3/29/2025 at 8:54:25 AM

I honestly can't tell if you're referring to the current administration or the previous one with this comment.

(Fun SNL video with similar confusion: https://youtu.be/8h_N80qKYOM)

by sporkland

3/29/2025 at 5:56:25 AM

Literacy is a by-product of raising living standards. It's not inherintly something that will alone lead to higher living standards.

by YouAreRONGS

3/29/2025 at 6:46:04 AM

While I agree, countries like the US where everyone was pretty much already literate decades ago, can and do backslide into anti-intellectualism even when living standards are rising. I have seen it myself.

by aprilthird2021

3/29/2025 at 6:50:11 AM

Is that really anti-intellectualism? Do you have any examples?

by YouAreRONGS

3/29/2025 at 1:08:36 PM

Europe had really high literacy long before it reached the living standard of most of current Africa. Living standards do not have to be high for near universal literacy.

by peterfirefly

3/29/2025 at 12:33:25 PM

That's patently not true. The connection exists only as far as if you're uneducated (and/or have subnormal IQ), you're likely to be poor, I suspect because you're not smart enough to master the basic skills to function in society, so it might be because of the latter.

Outside of the US there are very few countries where being highly educated (as in having an in-demand degree from a prestigious university) nets you anything beyond a small earnings bump over the middle class, and the people who have this are a small elite (no more than a few percent) everywhere.

by torginus

3/28/2025 at 7:10:43 PM

> Unlike other parts of India such as Bengaluru, Mumbai and Hyderbad -- it's tropical and lush with much less pollution than what you might see in those other parts of India.

Somewhat ironically these are relatively low pollution as large cities in India go. There is still a good amount of greenery in Bengaluru (it is famous for it) but obviously far less than a few decades ago, as many residents lament.

by vinay427

3/28/2025 at 8:37:03 PM

Bangalore today is a shadow compared to the Garden City it once was.

For outsiders not in the know, Bangalore was famous for its beautiful lakes and the lush greenery around them. It was absolutely something else, finding these beautiful water bodies smack in the middle of what is supposed to be a major city. The weather was cool, almost like a warm European summer (which is extremely cool by Indian standards).

Then they got greedy, drained the lakes, built real estate and office properties on them and now Bangalore is an unbearable cesspit just like any other Indian city. Bad weather, bad traffic and a shit scenery.

I still have some photos of my visits to Bangalore in my childhood a couple of decades back, and the visual contrast between past and present is so stark. Of course, locals love to resent the regression of the city, but they also love their coin.

by fakedang

3/28/2025 at 9:41:37 PM

Hey, Mumbai folks will fight you for supremacy on bad scenery. Course we concede the actual crown to our dearest friends in Delhi.

by intended

3/29/2025 at 8:15:15 AM

I'll be honest, Mumbai is still very scenic, and I say that as someone from Kerala. Marine Drive and the Colaba area really have a very Bombay-days vibe even after all the changes in the area. While Sealink does ruin the sea views a bit, it's still not a grotesque mark on the scenery.

To be honest, my only relatively poor experience in Bombay in terms of scenery was in the Four Seasons hotel in Worli, when I could get a nice view of couples going at it on the rooftops of the chawl nearby, somehow appropriately from my bathroom window.

Delhi does have its own charms too. Assuming you're a strong enough male, it's worth exploring South Delhi on foot solo over autumns, winters and spring, just immersing in the city. Obviously face mask recommended and not recommended for ladies.

by fakedang

3/28/2025 at 10:34:40 PM

My family is part of the indigenous people of Mumbai, and my mom and dad's pictures of their childhood homes and stories are almost unbelievable if you visit now. My grandparents old bungalow is still on google maps, now surrounded by skyscrapers, but in the pictures, it's all fields and trees.

by anon291

3/28/2025 at 10:01:33 PM

I'm not usually not the type to be preoccupied with green policy, but this was heart wrenching to hear.

by Sammi

3/29/2025 at 3:16:13 AM

"Then they got greedy, drained the lakes, built real estate and office properties on them and now Bangalore is an unbearable cesspit just like any other Indian city. Bad weather, bad traffic and a shit scenery."

hope indian government turn around, because china back then has a smoke problem even in its capital too

its hard to fought stigma but its not impossible

by tonyhart7

3/28/2025 at 10:39:10 PM

I had no idea and thank you for sharing. Why did it fall apart?

by hammock

3/29/2025 at 7:13:50 AM

If you want an alternative view, the state government has to largely spend money on infrastructure and welfare for non-Bengaluru voters who comprise the majority of the population and the vast majority of the land area, so often all the money that flows into Bengaluru doesn't get spent in Bengaluru itself but instead the wider state.

I also think that there's a strong overcurrent of people wanting to emulate US living standards in a city that's simply designed for a different way of living, more similar to other dense cities in East Asia or maybe even Europe. You need to have skyscrapers and not large low rise estates for example.

by YouAreRONGS

3/29/2025 at 2:05:50 PM

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39712811

by rramadass

3/28/2025 at 11:47:47 PM

Source: Grad student from Bengalaru I got lunch with.

It became India's Silicon Valley. Acecnture. Infosys. Western IT money came pouring in and never stopped.

https://www.businessinsider.com/india-silicon-valley-bengalu...

by momojo

3/28/2025 at 11:56:06 PM

Fittingly, I’ve heard [0] a similar transformation happened to Silicon Valley itself. Apparently it used to be a bunch of orchards.

[0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/bayarea/comments/10672gn/til_before...

by skavi

3/29/2025 at 6:04:53 AM

I blame a lot of the cesspoll nature of Bengaluru on over-obsession with living a Silicon Valley lifestlye in the middle of a very dense city. Bengalurians should have been copying East Asian lifestyles where cities which have ancient dense cores rather than the suburban sprawl lifestyles that the US offers. A lot of the architectural and socio-cultural concepts are also much more similar to East Asia than they are to the US.

by YouAreRONGS

3/29/2025 at 8:16:27 AM

Perhaps there will be a return to the roots. The new redesign of Bangalore airport is very much in line with an East Asian vision and I hope that carries over into the rest of the city. That being said, I'll still bemoan the loss of the lakes.

by fakedang

3/29/2025 at 8:22:43 AM

It surprised me that tech companies opted for Silicon Valley style campuses rather than Chinese stytle skyscrapers. It's not feisable to live a Bay Area lifestyle in a city surrounded by mountains like Bengaluru. You would not have to build over lakes if you built up.

by YouAreRONGS

3/28/2025 at 7:24:19 PM

[flagged]

by p3rls

3/28/2025 at 9:11:46 PM

[dead]

by totalkikedeath

3/28/2025 at 6:27:01 PM

I was born in the second southernmost district of Kerala, Quilon (now Kollam). I am now a U.S. citizen in the Bay Area. Growing up in Quilon, I attended an Anglo-Indian boy's school called Infant Jesus - in a small strip of land called Thangassery, people predominantly spoke English. I was taught British dialects emphasizing pronunciations that mimicked the world stage. I didn't really understand it until much later in life.

In my 20s, the contrast hit when I traveled across other parts of India.

Kerala has a mix of Western population that decided to stay back after the Indian Independence that brought with them Christianity, education, hospitals, and the Catholic culture. Kerala is also one of the few places in India where you can eat beef without inhibitions.

The writer hasn't emphasized this enough, but when oil struck the Middle East in the 1960s, the massive influx of blue and white-collar labor (who had the English language and engineering skills) that helped set up what's now Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Oman, and many other countries was built by Malayalees. My father-in-law was one of the earlier engineers at Aramco in Saudi. The Middle Eastern money has flown back to Kerala thanks to high bank interest rates (nearly 10%) and landlocked real estate that helped raise the state's GDP.

by Cherian

3/28/2025 at 10:32:03 PM

> Kerala has a mix of Western population that decided to stay back after the Indian Independence that brought with them Christianity, education, hospitals, and the Catholic culture. Kerala is also one of the few places in India where you can eat beef without inhibitions.

Christianity in Kerala is much older than European Christianity. Literally the land of the Apostles

by anon291

3/28/2025 at 11:05:16 PM

Agree. The Christians that came with the Apostles mainly were Syrians who were traders and kept to themselves for 13-14 centuries.

The British Christians were engaged in evangelism and, consequently, set up colleges, schools, hospitals, and other such institutions. They were also involved in conversions that led to the penetration of Christianity from a minor fraction (during the time from the early AD till 18th century) to double digits. This was obviously instrumental for English language inculcation.

by Cherian

3/29/2025 at 9:02:04 AM

> Literally the land of the Apostles

That's literally just a nice story that people claim with very, very, very little to back it up. But I guess they literally claim that.

by panick21_

3/29/2025 at 4:11:48 PM

Meh. That's most stories attributed to the apostles. The story of st Thomas is ancient and even before colonization, the prevailing attitude in Europe was that st Thomas and st Bartholomew both proselytized India. You'll find references to this in many books and manuscripts.

In fact many European maps contained the belief that there was a Christian kingdom in Kerala. They even had saints from there whose stories made their way over and were recorded.

Thus Kerala is as holy to christians as Rome, Constantinople, Spain, Armenia, Ethiopia, etc.

This talking point is often used by Hindu nationalists who claim that India is not holy to christians and thus christians are foreigners. I'll point out that (1) Kerala is holy and (2) there is more evidence of st Thomas in Kerala than of Parasurama parting the seas to reveal Kerala.

by anon291

3/29/2025 at 4:55:36 PM

> That's most stories attributed to the apostles.

... all

> The story of st Thomas is ancient and even before colonization

So? All Christian communities made up a bunch of nonsense about themselves, often linking themselves to the early church.

> the prevailing attitude in Europe was that st Thomas and st Bartholomew both proselytized India.

Yes and if you actually look up why that is the 'prevailing attitude' you will find that it is at best based on some 3rd century stories that Thomas might have been in Partia. But even those claims are completely baseless of anything before it.

> You'll find references to this in many books and manuscripts.

No you can't. There is one reference in Origen about Thomas maybe having gone to Parthia but that is just as much a story likely based on all the fake gospels people were writting at that time. We know well that by Origen time there were tons and tons of made up stories about all the (supposed) apostles, including about Thomas.

And then Eusebius later claimed he went to India (and India doesn't even mean necessarily mean India as we understand it). And Eusebius is basically the 'myth maker extraordinaire' of the early Christianity, and his claims is basically what almost everything later is based on. Basically anything the Christian believe about their history comes from this 4th century 'source'. So basically anything Eusebius claims is basically accepted by later church tradition as 'the truth'.

Its quite typical of early christian source to grow the story and add increasingly more and more stuff to them. You can see this even in the bible, compare Paul letters to Paul in Acts. Basically just a random wandering preacher, getting transformed into a magical superhero. Pretty typical of all early Christian figures. You start out with few people doing not so amazing things (likely as there is little evidence they existed at all), and 300 years later, every one of those people is basically the hero of their own expanding story. Characters that are not mentioned anywhere, get inserted into a later versions of the text, and then all of a sudden more text show up mentioning them, and couple 100 years later three is a whole textual tradition about all the things that person supposedly did. Basically its the Marval Cinematic Universe. Thomas is basically Hawkeye.

A much more likely story is that Eusebius book (or other gospels about Thomas) arrived in India and then expand on by the locals.

> In fact many European maps contained the belief that there was a Christian kingdom in Kerala.

There are tons of claims about all kinds of Christian kingdoms in the East threw-out the middle ages.

By the time firm knowledge of Kerla existed it was, much much later and is completely irrelevant to the question of Thomas.

I am not denying Christianity came to India pretty early on. That said, I think the claim that it arrived in the first century are not based on much, neither textual nor archeological evidence has ever been found to my knowledge.

> (2) there is more evidence of st Thomas in Kerala than of Parasurama parting the seas to reveal Kerala.

Sure but that's not how history works.

I am not sticking my finger into whatever Indian ideological drama I seem have stepped into.

Clearly I don't agree with whatever nationalist faction you are talking about. I am just point out what we actually know historically.

by panick21_

3/29/2025 at 9:18:23 PM

There is really nothing written about Christianity until fairly late. At the time certain Christian writing originates in Europe, Christianity is well established in India. The various other stories attributed to the apostles are variously assumed to be partially true. For example, St Peters martyrdom at the Vatican hill, which was later found to be true.

There are two factions vying to de-link India from early Christianity, the white nationalists and the hindutvas. You've stepped into this mess because in a thread where I pointed out Christianity in India is native to India and as old or older than Europe you butted in to point out that may be the story of the apostles is not true

We can have a debate on the veracity of early Christian claims, but this is really not the place for it. The Syriac church has existed in Kerala for as long as Christianity and they do things their own way

> Christian kingdoms in the East threw-out the middle ages.

Indeed. The difference of course is that, the Syriacs have existed the entire time and are not a story

by anon291

3/29/2025 at 3:49:07 AM

>Christianity in Kerala is much older than European Christianity.

Yes:

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

See the History section.

by vram22

3/29/2025 at 7:53:31 AM

Catholic churches are quite conservative in their own ways, primarily set up by Christian missionaries with the mandate to convert.

The english language helped, sure, but it's the lack of opportunities in their own state and the higher education levels that created the conditions for the immigration to Middle East. Kerala also had a long history of trade with Arabs.

Yes, there is restriction on beef consumption in India but nobody protests for pork while in the middle east - it's all about which side the bread is buttered.

by gilfoyle

3/28/2025 at 5:50:09 PM

Kerala has extremely aggressive out-migration (including my entire family): it is a bad place to be ambitious, particularly with the France-like union culture. If India is to become China-rich or Mexico-rich, my prediction is Kerala will regress to the mean of India states. Its model seems geared towards being an extremely good place to be poor (which is a huge achievement to be clear: they dealt with COVID better than the US, universal literacy is amazing etc) but not towards getting richer.

by benced

3/28/2025 at 8:14:28 PM

I noticed this in Taiwan between 2018-2020 when I was staying there. A highly educated population but with little to no opportunities. Most of very ambitious talent found jobs in China or Singapore.

A strong business environment, or strong investment opportunities, or a large consumer base is very much needed to have attractive jobs. A strongly educated workforce does little to enable such an environment. Intuitively, it is just very hard to make money off of a small, low income population, and it is even harder to export services built for a local market to a non local market. So the ambitious talent just find opportunities elsewhere.

It also depends how hard it is to migrate out of the region. If there are strong family ties and good standard of living, you'd be surprised at how much talent is willing to stay.

Interestingly enough, Taiwan in 2024/2025 has seen huge growth in wages, for many reasons, but the biggest IMO being the highly educated workforce.

by spyckie2

3/29/2025 at 9:09:59 AM

I think its just perception. A place that is smaller will appear to have more movement because its across country, while in China or the US you would just move internally. Taiwan had amazing economic growth for 50+ years.

The reality is that in all places the most ambitious people are likely going to move, as such talents usually depend on specific environments.

And with things like TSMC in Taiwan, claiming anything close to 'no opportunities' is a bit ridiculous.

by panick21_

3/29/2025 at 10:45:34 PM

I worked in a recruitment company in SEA for software devs and management/exec layers.

Just sharing my perspective, Taiwan's Software Devs were paid 1/3 of what devs in SG or HK are paid, the biggest reason being there aren't any software companies headquartered in Taiwan that are big/growing fast enough to offer competitive salaries to SG / HK. In SG/HK you have banks, hedgefunds and tech companies all competing for talent—Grab, Amazon, Google, Shopee, DBS, HSBC, etc, pushing up prices to be competitive globally. Taiwan's local companies have to make enough money to pay global salaries for strong talent, or they just get their best talent poached by SG/HK or China (which has plenty of strong tech giants of their own).

But... a tiny 23 million population island where the average wage is low and people are generally happy and content... is not a great business environment for startups. I think some local startups saturated the Taiwan market with like 70% of the island's population in their database... and like $2-5m US revenue/yr? Great achievement but not a large base for continued rev growth.

As a Taiwanese company, you are not winning against bigger tech companies in China. Neither are you building for english speaking audiences of SEA because Taiwan's english is not native... in short, the local market conditions is just unable to pay for global level talent, who leave.

This is a software dev focused view of Taiwan, but it applies to all or most other industries not named TSMC.

by spyckie2

3/29/2025 at 3:43:24 AM

Interesting view of Taiwan. What is the Taiwanese view of China. Do a lot not mind migrating to China or do they hate China, and want to be independent?

by sashank_1509

3/28/2025 at 7:07:03 PM

> it is a bad place to be ambitious

Ambition doesn't imply exploitation. I think you mean "predatory".

by facile3232

3/28/2025 at 7:14:58 PM

Typically "a bad place to be ambitious" implies that others will try to exploit you instead. Keep in mind that a mismanaged government can be a lot more predatory than any private actor.

by zozbot234

3/28/2025 at 9:06:13 PM

[dead]

by facile3232

3/28/2025 at 8:45:57 PM

> Keep in mind that a mismanaged government can be a lot more predatory than any private actor.

What's the basis for this claim? What is a "mismanaged government" but one that is controlled by narrow private interests? Or is this coming from a "all tax is exploitation" angle?

by pphysch

3/28/2025 at 9:47:15 PM

Is there a government that's not ultimately controlled by narrow private interests? A well-managed government is merely one where inbuilt norms and traditions (including the Western traditions of constitutional human rights and separation of powers, but not only!) manage to limit the extent to which the narrow private interest of government actors can lead to predatory exploitation of the broader public.

by zozbot234

3/29/2025 at 8:14:43 AM

> including the Western traditions of constitutional human rights

I never really got why the west is so proud of not establishing basic rights of access to food, shelter, healthcare, and education. I don't quite understand the point of them otherwise.

by facile3232

3/29/2025 at 8:04:42 PM

> Is there a government that's not ultimately controlled by narrow private interests?

Without deep knowledge, I'd suggest Switzerland, simply because of the directness of its democracy

by psd1

3/28/2025 at 9:13:00 PM

[dead]

by totalkikedeath

3/28/2025 at 6:10:39 PM

I'm curious, how does their "aggressive out-migration" play out? Extremely high, progressive tax system? No funding infrastructure for new business? I can imagine many ways but my thoughts lean toward financial reasons due to your last sentence.

by eikenberry

3/28/2025 at 6:49:50 PM

Inability to build a business easily nor allow others to build one. The union culture is way too strong. There is a joke that the Kerala model of development requires a rich oil state nearby.

by inapis

3/28/2025 at 8:57:01 PM

Ambitious Keralites move out of the state to set up businesses. The ones who remain usually get rich through a mix of unethical businesses, political party connections and corruption, or the gold and money-lending businesses (which were inherently shady). Keralites are either highly ambitious, in which case they go to more welcoming cities such as Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai, or extremely lazy, in which case they stay at home and abuse the welfare state. The welfare state is so abused by lazy government employees who will do anything to block you from setting up your business. And if it isn't them stopping you, it's the pesky political parties who will send their goons after you to charge for every task.

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

For instance, the richest Keralite, Yussufali MA, made his fortune in the Middle East. His sons-in-law, both billionaires, as well as KP Basheer, Ravi Pillai, PMC Menon and Mohammed Ali of Gulfar made their fortune in the Middle East, all of whom are silent billionaires even most Indians barely know of. Vivek Ramaswamy's parents were from Kerala too, as is Thomas Kurian (head of GCP).

If you look at the West, Keralites are increasingly taking spots in the medical and healthcare sectors, especially nursing, and now even the education sector. There are Keralite teachers in the oilfields of Midland, Texas, because most people are otherwise not ready to work there. Some of my neighbours relatives from back home were even working in Afghanistan for the USG, making bank for working in a warzone. The only groups that are more or equally as prominent as Keralites worldwide might be the Gujaratis (the Patel motel guys and diamond merchants) and the Jews.

by fakedang

3/28/2025 at 8:07:52 PM

Kerala is Finland of India.

by miohtama

3/28/2025 at 9:46:44 PM

The article specifically talks about how Kerala has some of the highest concentrations of startups in India.

Also, the Communist party in power has not stopped themselves from adapting to the new times and dumping older views.

The most recent Econ Nobel showed how institutions create wealthy nations, and Kerala is building those.

Perhaps the statement “not a place to be ambitious” can be seen in a narrower sense, while seeing that it leaves much more space for the median individual.

by intended

3/28/2025 at 6:27:24 PM

poor is a measure of many things, not just money. The stable cultures are looking very good compared to others IMHO

by mistrial9

3/28/2025 at 6:33:41 PM

This is what happens when literal communists run your government.

by Der_Einzige

3/28/2025 at 7:13:03 PM

Actually, when literal communists run your government, you become China-rich, as OP put it. Contrast China's economic development with that of India's post 1950.

by RUnconcerned

3/28/2025 at 7:17:25 PM

Compare the policies and results of Deng to Mao, the latter is more "literally communist." Their embracing of capitalist principles is what enabled their boom, same with Vietnam with their Đổi Mới policies.

by satvikpendem

3/28/2025 at 7:19:44 PM

Deng famously said "white cat, black cat, as long as it catches mice it's a good cat". His policy choices were not driven by 'embracing' of any principles but pure pragmatism.

by zozbot234

3/28/2025 at 7:53:07 PM

It's hilarious how uncomfortable certain internet posters are about getting the specific of what policies Deng embraced to get that economic growth.

They know exactly what it is, but they don't wanna say it out loud.

by TulliusCicero

3/29/2025 at 3:08:00 PM

Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality will have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence.

by ever1337

3/29/2025 at 3:05:47 PM

It is the Communists who are flexible and pragmatic. It is the Communists who can free the market. It is capitalists who shoot themselves in the foot over pride in 'principles' and 'ideals', a great irony when no country on this earth today is 'purely' capitalist. They misunderstand Marxism, which is the doctrine that capitalism itself is revolutionary as it develops into its own opposite, that communism and capitalism are two stages of the same course of development.

by ever1337

3/29/2025 at 9:13:34 AM

He can say whatever he likes, but in reality, what he did is literally throw in the garbage the complete intellectual baggage of the European socialist/communist movement and basically copied what Western allied South East Asian nations were already doing.

If it makes him feel good not to call that 'capitalism' then that's fine. I guess it wouldn't have played well with the base back then.

But in reality and operations, its is how capitalism has worked in practice.

by panick21_

3/29/2025 at 3:01:02 PM

The state that one-sidedly 'threw away' the baggage of communism was the USSR, and we all know how that went. Any China scholar could tell you that China was already implementing market reforms before Deng, and that their controlled transition, managed by a strong party-state, is the grounds for their success. China is still a country operated on the basis of five-year plans. China is still a country governed by a Communist party adhering to democratic centralism. China is still a country where the state owns all land. China is still a country where capital is not allowed to usurp the public interest. And the judge of that is not any logical syllogism of 'definitions' of capitalism or socialism that exist in your head but do not premise the actual world. It is outcomes, observations of material reality. In this, the reforms of Deng and the continued path of Xi are simply the highest synthesis of communism, in the Chinese context. They are the most faithful to Marxism, which has never preached any kind of static dogma, especially as it relates to economic policy.

by ever1337

3/29/2025 at 4:27:12 PM

> The state that one-sidedly 'threw away' the baggage of communism was the USSR, and we all know how that went.

That's not actually what happened, you should look up some history.

The USSR didn't throw away, communism, the member states just simply left.

And many of those states were then free of the communist party actually did quite well. Russia didn't, Ukraine didn't, but that's the reality when a country splits apart, some parts do well others don't.

> Any China scholar could tell you that China was already implementing market reforms before Deng

Part of it wasn't even voluntary on the party front, they simply accepted what was already happening instead of reversing it again.

> China is still a country operated on the basis of five-year plans.

hose plans are mostly projects of what they hope they can encourage private business to do and some public investment. Guess what many countries do, planning and public investment.

Lots of things they plan don't happen, lots of things that happen aren't planned. The planning is constantly adjust to what actually happens in the economy, including the global context.

> China is still a country where the state owns all land.

Legally maybe, but if you hand out control for 100 years the relevance of that isn't all that great. And that land can be freely traded between people. So in practical terms it works far more like private land ownership then anything the socialist thinkers of the late 19 and early 20th century.

> China is still a country where capital is not allowed to usurp the public interest.

That is just factually false, large companies in China regularly do things that hurt public interest. Unless you mean 'interest of the party leadership' and even then its only mostly true.

> In this, the reforms of Deng and the continued path of Xi are simply the highest synthesis of communism

Lol, they literally copied other East Asian economic models almost 1 to 1. They are just a log bigger and have more people. But I guess copying other successful clearly capitalist countries can be resold as 'highest synthesis of communism' to people who have irrational hate for capitalism.

And China economic growth or wealth isn't all that magically, its simply that China is much bigger then most others who have done it.

> They are the most faithful to Marxism, which has never preached any kind of static dogma, especially as it relates to economic policy.

I love Marxism, since he didn't actually define any outcome beyond maybe 'stateless and moneyless' you can just make up whatever the fuck you want as long as you are claiming to 'get there'. And China doesn't seem to go into a stateless moneyless direction.

Marx's "Historical materialism" is wrong for Western Europe and laudably false for China.

His critic of capitalism seems to be mostly ignored in China. As is his theory of class struggle as in China there is an ever growing Bourgeoisie.

But I guess copying what Taiwan and friends did and calling it 'Marxism' is one way to go.

by panick21_

3/28/2025 at 7:21:45 PM

Yes, capitalist principles are indeed pragmatic, hence why he chose them.

by satvikpendem

3/28/2025 at 7:27:05 PM

"Capitalism" is a very confusing word that should be avoided in a serious discussion one way or the other, society is a lot more complex than that. For instance "crony capitalism" is also seemingly capitalism but is directly opposed to the broad principles of a market economy that people think of as good.

by zozbot234

3/29/2025 at 9:23:07 AM

"Crony Capitalism" is just a term socialists came up with to shit on capitalism. The reality is every society is going to have some amount of corruption and cronyism. But "Crony Capitalism" isn't an actual coherent concepts, it doesn't have 'principles', its just highlighting something negative that happens in countries, including capitalist ones.

Socialists love to add some negative word 'X' to capitalism to highlight that all bad things in the world are connected to capitalism, and if they could finally defeat capitalism, then the world would be perfect. Instead of actually trying to fix 'X' they will tell you that what we really need to change is 'capitalism'. Surveillance Capitalism, Crony Capitalism, Disaster Capitalism and so on.

Trying to fix corruption, to hard, lets just destroy property rights and money instead. Great idea!

by panick21_

3/29/2025 at 9:32:24 PM

Can you smell straw?

Let me give you a tool for your mental toolkit. When you find yourself saying this:

> <some group> loves to

...it's a smell. What follows may be perfectly reasonable, but in my experience it's more commonly unexamined twaddle.

If you happen to be American, see where you get with these:

- many Americans fetishise America - J Edgar Hoover spent 20 years programming Americans to consider socialism to be "un-American"

In this case, I think a little reflection would reveal a J Edgar Hoover homonculus in your head, pulling your levers.

I'm all for emotional arguments. Ultimately, we all have core values, and I like to lead an argument by stating mine.

But hating socialism isn't a core value, it's _at best_ a reaction. Which is to say, if you're from, ooh, Bulgaria or Cuba, then I can indulge you. You may not be logical but you do have cause.

If you merely have a little J Edgar Hoover homonculus in your head, pulling your levers, then refrain from posting, because a J Edgar Hoover homonculus is not an interesting conversationalist.

by psd1

3/31/2025 at 7:53:09 PM

> ...it's a smell.

Just like anything else that can't be back up with solid empirical research in a discussion forum. With is 99% of what we are dissing. (And most books written by intellectuals of both the socialist and capitalist variety).

Communism is originally a utopian social movement, and there is a strong tendency and a very well document intellectual history of communism that asserts that pretty much most problems at its root are an issue with capitalism and that they can only be solved in the absence of capitalism. So much so that it was pretty normal for communist to oppose working with social democrats on any reform of existing systems.

> Americans to consider socialism to be "un-American"

I'm not american and I couldn't care less if something is 'American' or not. And I have no idea what 'americanness' has to do with our discussion. So far as I can tell, nothing what so ever. And I don't hate 'socialism' either.

> But hating socialism isn't a core value, it's _at best_ a reaction. Which is to say, if you're from, ooh, Bulgaria or Cuba, then I can indulge you. You may not be logical but you do have cause.

So unless you are the victim of rape, being against rapist isn't a 'core value'? That's a outright crazy line of argument.

P.S: I really think you are waste overestimate the importance of Hoover.

by panick21_

3/30/2025 at 11:34:48 PM

I wish I could delete that comment. Time to log off.

by psd1

3/28/2025 at 7:17:17 PM

China is the best case, yes. But "literal communists" also ran Cambodia, North Korea, Cuba etc. Not so good!

by zozbot234

3/28/2025 at 8:14:24 PM

Cuba is doing pretty well for a country under one of the biggest and longest blockades in history.

by RobotToaster

3/28/2025 at 7:35:03 PM

Haiti is capitalist but people don't use it an example for capitalism as a whole. More important than a stated ideology is whether a government is corrupt

by ryoshoe

3/28/2025 at 8:53:54 PM

It's only fair to compare them to other victims of unprovoked Western aggression, like Libya. In that arena, they are actually doing relatively well, and imagine how successful they could be without the "global policeman's" boot on their neck.

by pphysch

3/28/2025 at 8:59:06 PM

Seems like the secret to prosperity is actually nuclear weapons. Rush to get those first, then focus on whatever shit you actually want to do.

by fakedang

3/29/2025 at 5:27:14 AM

Cuba is doing much better than its neighbors

by insane_dreamer

3/28/2025 at 6:36:41 PM

Honestly, reading this article, it's not making Kerala-style communism sound bad. What's more, they appear to have pivoted when they'd achieved their aims into making people richer. It's a classic "invest, then profit" story, only for an entire state.

by moomin

3/28/2025 at 6:45:38 PM

The article is co-written by a member of Kerala's Planning Board and heavily oversells the state. I'd say Kerala is nowhere near rich so even the title is technically incorrect.

by rakejake

3/28/2025 at 7:04:36 PM

When COVID was spreading around china the state govt was putting out public announcements about this disease and what symptoms to watch out for. I remember that even in the month of Feb 2020 there were public announcements in train stations. There is a lot of emphasis on education and health in the state. Granted it may not be rich as other states but it leads other states in a lot of other markers

by rdedev

3/28/2025 at 7:34:46 PM

Kerala is rich by Indian standards, but its GDP per capital is still only around $3500/year, making it nowhere near rich by world standards.

by decimalenough

3/29/2025 at 3:46:33 AM

Even by Indian standards, it’s #11 by GDP per capita among 27 Indian states. I guess top third is not bad, but not exceptional either.

by sashank_1509

3/28/2025 at 7:39:10 PM

That may be but the topic of the thread is how rich Kerala supposedly is, not how super awesome their public train announcements are. The claim is not just false, the article is outright propaganda given how one of the co-authors works for the state government.

by trompetenaccoun

3/28/2025 at 7:57:19 PM

I guess my main point is that a communist type govt was not exclusively bad for Kerala since they took a lot of effort to improve education and public health.

You can look at other sources to see how good kerala is doing wrt other states but I do agree the article over emphasised the good parts without any hint to it's bad parts

by rdedev

3/28/2025 at 8:17:58 PM

To put this in context, during Covid, hundreds of bodies were being dumped in the Ganges river, buried in shallow graves on the sandbars in states like Uttar Pradesh. The state govt took an active role to remove the grave markers so that an accurate estimate of the numbers could not be ascertained. These were covered by local bloggers, vloggers and news channels.

Kerala is one of the few states that managed medical supplies of Oxygen pretty well. In many other states many died because hospitals ran out of it.

by srean

3/29/2025 at 6:15:46 AM

Is that because of the communist government, or simply because the state has a lot of money from the Middle East?

by YouAreRONGS

3/31/2025 at 6:38:07 PM

Spending money to remove grave markers is a choice. It's not about how much money you have, it's whether or not you care about the people in question.

by moomin

3/29/2025 at 10:15:08 AM

In India atleast, 'communism' or 'Marxism' in the names of political parties that actually run a state is just a name that has stuck. These entities and people have to be a lot more pragmatic. This is in contrast to those who are arm chair think tanks that you would find in advisory boards, universities etc. These would be people who do not run for elections.

Now, as for Kerala's handling of Covid, that was funded by state govt coffers. So Middle East money had a negligible contribution. What made a difference though is a history of preference for investing in social safety nets and basic infrastructure for people, such as schools, nutrition, hospitals.

by srean

3/29/2025 at 2:37:32 PM

What really happened was that the health authorities in Kerala were prepared for an outbreak because Kerala has had a history of past outbreaks and a health system with very well trained doctors and health professionals to handle it. See the 2018 Nipah virus outbreak in Kerala that was handled really well, there was even a popular movie about it (Virus) that came out the year after.

It's the same story in east Asian countries where they had the SARS outbreak in early 2000s and so they were prepared for new outbreaks.

by kelipso

3/29/2025 at 1:29:37 AM

To be clear I'm not saying Kerala is particularly bad by regional standards, it's not. But compare Kerala and India as a whole with other parts of Asia, they're not doing well. Look at China vs India in the 1970s vs 50 years later. Compare India/Kerala and Thailand in the same time frame. Kerala and Korea, etc etc. South Asia as a whole is doing worse than many other parts of Asia. Kerala government excels at what many socialist governments are good at: Praising themselves. In reality is has made little difference.

India has a lot of other issues, I grant you that the socialist ideology probably had a positive influence in some ways other than economics, particularly socially. But no offense, if you've ever walked the streets Trivandrum and other cities you know there are much more pressing issues.

by trompetenaccoun

3/28/2025 at 7:06:59 PM

Socialism with Kerala characteristics? I'm a bit skeptical of that, people often point to the Scandinavian model as especially successful but when you look into the data, that actually combines redistribution (funded by higher taxes) with a lot of economic freedom and a light-touch attitude from government that are all ideologically counter to "communism" or "socialism" of any kind.

by zozbot234

3/31/2025 at 6:39:55 PM

This is a no true Scotsman argument. If you define socialism as purely being policies that don't work, of course socialism doesn't work. If you accept that you can stick to your principles whilst being flexible about the implementation strategy, socialism seems to work out pretty well in some places.

by moomin

3/28/2025 at 11:54:44 PM

Portugal also has a similarly active communist party. I think what distinguishes Portugal and Kerala's communist parties from other communist parties is that they were (and are) first, and foremost, democrats.

A capitalist dictatorship will be every bit as horrible as a communist dictatorship.

by jyounker

3/28/2025 at 7:22:45 PM

That's how "communism" is in India. Two states (West Bengal and Kerala) are run by "Communist" parties. But these parties are quite different from what people typically mean by "Communists".

by 1024core

3/28/2025 at 7:34:07 PM

Have you read the Communist Manifesto? It also makes Communism sound like a good idea. Nevermind that Kerala doesn't have a particularly high GDP per capita even by southern Indian standards. It's not rich by any rational measure, not in median income or otherwise. There is a lot of poverty, slightly better compared to some of the northern states but then South India in general does a bit better than the north so there isn't anything particularly noteworthy.

Btw, for some historic context this part of India used to be extremely rich in the past by global standards, centuries ago. They became rich with international trade. Modern India is nowhere close to its wealthy past, the subcontinent as a whole produced the largest percentage of the world's GDP during Late Antiquity, surpassing China and all others!

by trompetenaccoun

3/28/2025 at 6:05:26 PM

The subject of Kerala resulted in one of the most memorable conversations I've had with a doctor that wasn't about medical stuff. My late wife had to have an emergency procedure and her regular doctor was not available, and so she got a wonderful Indian doctor (Context: This was near Seattle WA). Having worked with many Indians, I felt comfortable asking him which part of India he was from and he said "Kerala" and at the same time we both said "God's own country" and his face LIT UP. "OOOhh, you know Kerela!?"

"Kerala is Hawaii at a tenth the price! You must go. The people there love three things: Alcohol, Food, and side to side head bob Alcohol!"

He was delightful, and he took great care of my wife. I fully intend to visit Kerala at some point.

by geocrasher

3/28/2025 at 6:38:56 PM

> side to side head bob

Does this have a name? I know exactly what it looks like, and I think I get some of the connotations of emphasis and agreement...

by shermantanktop

3/28/2025 at 8:27:12 PM

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

by pepve

3/28/2025 at 6:48:53 PM

Namaste!!! Kerala and all India states are very beautifull places of the India. I’d traveling there 3 months in 2017-2018 and only one seroius problem is everywhere, pollution of plastic and all kind of rubbish! Then people burn rubbish in fire! They vsn send space craft to out of the planet but not manage to recycle bio compost, glass bottles and metal cans ext.. people throw to nature all rubbish!! So it is time to stand up and start recycling everything and then edugate all peoples to do that in every day but most importat is fix the infra for recycling. Come to see that procedure in scandinavia!! Compost material is super hood soil for growing yes oy is very easy when goverment is make a infra for ready. I have living all together 1.5 year in India 1990’s and 2017-2018 so have a good understund of Indian way to live and one part of my body and soul is always living and love mama India and humans of every hierarcy andcö relious parts… sorry typo ext.. greetings from Finland!! Dhanyavaad!!

by rehupaa

3/28/2025 at 6:58:33 PM

I'll have what he's having

by sva_

3/28/2025 at 7:10:45 PM

Joy?

by sowhat25

3/28/2025 at 11:24:42 PM

Well, anyone that says "all India states are very beautifull places" must be on something. Not denying India has some beautiful places, but it also has some of the most post-apocalyptic places I've ever seen. Gurugram reminded me exactly of the city in Blade Runner.

by hn_throwaway_99

3/29/2025 at 7:20:14 AM

India has plenty of beautiful places, in all its states. It’s a big country. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t also have dystopian nightmares too.

by saagarjha

3/28/2025 at 6:29:13 PM

A funny anecdote from my grandfather (I was raised in California but family's from Kerala) related to the migration of Keralite workers to Gulf was from when he went to Bahrain to supposedly build a magnificent church as the lead engineer (he was a civil engineer).

It was supposed to be his life's work and he said he left with grandiose aspirations.

Only to get caught in the Kuwait War and barely make it back in a bus of refugees.

He always used this as a reminder of "pride goes before a fall", but I personally just found it a fascinating reminder of the sheer random horrificness that life can bestow out of nowhere.

by shw1n

3/28/2025 at 4:54:25 PM

In the 1980s, many Keralites were courageous enough to leave the land for better prospects abroad, many in the Middle East and the UK. I remember going to my friends place and find their houses were modern and it was the first time I saw a glass door. Not to mention some of my Keralite friends are the most sincere and hard working and they have risen to very high ranks regardless of their grad scores and academics.

by srameshc

3/28/2025 at 4:58:20 PM

There's a lot of brain drain in Kerala with people getting educated and leaving. Those that leave do, however, send money back to their families and I know many who return to live in India after 5-10 years. This was the case a decade or two ago and I'm not sure if it's still the case.

I had many aunts or uncles who would leave their family behind in India and work in the middle east for many years before returning to India. This practice helped them shore up savings and build houses.

by jmathai

3/28/2025 at 5:11:39 PM

Remittanced only contribute to 15% of GDSP. 65% is from tertiary sectors of IT, Healthcare and Tourism. Kerala gets substantial investments from private companies instead as opposed to large corporations in Gujarat for example. Investments in Kerala rarely grab news headlines as it’s mostly private investments.

by harichinnan

3/28/2025 at 7:07:46 PM

"Only"? That's more than 4x as high as the overall Indian average: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/BX.TRF.PWKR.DT.GD.ZS?na...

by TulliusCicero

3/28/2025 at 6:19:47 PM

The guys I knew from Guatemala doing yardwork/construction in the US had the same setup. They’d sleep in shifts in bunk beds and then go home to their new ranch after a few years.

by gopher_space

3/28/2025 at 5:51:53 PM

Kerala is a very empty place. People emigrate parmanently or stay outside for decades. Elderlies live on their own. Schools and home remain empty. It is just intuitively sad. One should read this interesting piece- "Kerala: A ghost town in the world's most populated country" [0].

Many laborers from my state- West Bengal travel to ameliorate the labor shortage of Kerala. Because their laborers are in the Gulf. The unskilled labor wage in Kerala is almost twice of my state.

There is a common phrase in Bengal- "Kerala money" to explain big, well-made houses in villages mired with poverty. Many people, mainly Muslims migrate en masse to Kerala to earn a relatively much higher income and save the money to build big houses and buy motorbikes. We call that "Kerala money".

[0]: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-64936519

by __rito__

3/29/2025 at 2:17:50 AM

I wasn't planning to respond to this topic, since I'm a Keralite living and earning in Kerala. But this seems a little odd:

> Kerala is a very empty place. People emigrate parmanently or stay outside for decades. Elderlies live on their own. Schools and home remain empty. It is just intuitively sad. One should read this interesting piece...

I'm writing this from my home here in Kerala. Empty is not how I would describe the place. It's very crowded around here compared just a decade here. My house was surrounded by farm land from 3 sides. Now it's all houses in close proximity. Even remote places were developed into commercial or residential areas. The biggest indicator is that the road traffic is way more than what it was 15 years ago. Schools aren't that empty either - my own sister is a teacher. Job situation isn't that great - in line with the global situation, but the private sector has been growing fast in the past few years - driven especially by a startup boom. We do have problems with some anti-corporate sentiments like 'nokku-kooli' (supervision fees). But it seems to be less of a problem to businesses these days. (Not sure what happened. There is less news about it too)

To add in more context, I lived in a western country for several years before returning to take up a job with a decent pay. I can't say that Kerala is too bad in comparison, considering the cost of living and the general law and order situation.

by goku12

3/29/2025 at 7:09:46 AM

Many Keralian small towns and villages seemed empty to me. That's what I meant.

I am sure what you are saying is true.

by __rito__

3/29/2025 at 8:44:49 AM

What you call empty, many would call spacious. Not everywhere has to be crowded.

by Gud

3/29/2025 at 1:40:32 PM

When I say empty, I mean, houses are there, and they are unoccupied. Schools are there, but there aren't students. Etc.

Did you even read what I linked? And it was not the only reason I wrote the comment. There are other points in the comment as well.

by __rito__

3/29/2025 at 6:49:42 PM

Point taken.

by Gud

3/29/2025 at 5:02:31 AM

Kerala is the seventh highest in terms of population density. https://datacommons.iitm.ac.in/ranking/Count_Person_PerArea/...

by yangikan

3/28/2025 at 5:54:57 PM

[dead]

by AlgorithmicTime

3/28/2025 at 5:21:19 PM

India has a vast variation of cultures. A few states in India look like they are quite detached from mainstream India, in terms of issues, economy, norms, politics etc. This is true for north-eastern states as well and probably J&K too. It's like a colorful patch-work of different cultures.

However, there is nothing good or bad with these variations. Tourism also adds to its economy. Higher per-capita doesn't always mean a good thing. Sometimes it comes at a cost of family separation etc. Kerala is also known for high levels of alcoholic consumption and unhappiness rates.

by zkmon

3/28/2025 at 5:33:14 PM

This statement

> India has a vast variation of cultures.

isn’t consistent with this.

> mainstream India

by vishnugupta

3/28/2025 at 5:41:27 PM

Is it?

You can have a variety and a single largest.

by dartos

3/28/2025 at 7:02:01 PM

Mean and variance

by sva_

3/28/2025 at 6:10:25 PM

I have visited Kerala a few times and I really loved it as a tourist. However, my company also did some work there and we found local labor unions extremely difficult to deal with. Never acquired any new clients there once we finished initial projects.

by malshe

3/28/2025 at 6:13:18 PM

Turns out investing in your own people returns dividends. Unfortunately, the current administration is divesting from the American people. DOGE, and it's cutting of federal grants is a direct example of this divestment. What's happening now in the US reminds me a lot of a mixture of Gorbachev and Yeltsin, where the Chicago economists came in and their shock therapy and large divestment decimated the wealth and health of ordinary people.

by mempko

3/28/2025 at 6:50:59 PM

>Turns out investing in your own people returns dividends. Unfortunately, the current administration is divesting from the American people.

As we see, in the case of America, these dividends are much larger. So much larger that they are not even comparable to what is described in the article.

>mixture of Gorbachev and Yeltsin, where the Chicago economists came in and their shock therapy and large divestment

But that's not what happened in the USSR. Gorbachev simply make government open and transparent for people, rejected totalitarian oppression, and it immediately became clear that the party had almost zero support.

And since it is impossible to have near-zero support without totalitarian oppression, the tops of the Communist Party (led by Yeltsin) decided to go cash out and simply divided among themselves all the assets under the party's control.

That's it. It had nothing to do with Chicago economist and shock therapy, which was just an excuse for dividing government assets.

And it's not like wealth and health of ordinary people suffered to any significant degree. It's just that before Gorbachev and Yeltsin all the statistics were fake, and people were repressed for contradicting it. But after the coup, no one cared. In fact, the only ones at a loss were middle level party bureaucrats, who did not have any real assets under their control, but occupied an extremely privileged position in the Soviet system and parasitizing on the body of an oppressed society.

by Ray20

3/31/2025 at 4:09:06 PM

Interesting that you suggest they had "almost zero support" when

1. A referendum with the wording

""" Do you consider it necessary to preserve the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as a renewed federation of equal sovereign republics, in which the rights and freedoms of a person of any nationality will be fully guaranteed? """

Got 77.85% of the vote, and the union only collapsed after internal political struggles led to the individual republics pulling out of their own accord.

2. Just five years later, the honest-to-god Communist Party candidate won %40.73 of the votes in an election against the incumbent Yeltsin -- despite such allegations of voter fraud that "At a meeting with opposition leaders in 2012, then-president Dmitry Medvedev was reported to have said, 'There is hardly any doubt who won [the 1996 election]. It was not Boris Nikolaevich Yeltsin.'"

So clearly your statement

> And since it is impossible to have near-zero support without totalitarian oppression

can't be correct, unless you're alleging that Yeltsin was secretly using totalitarian measures to support his opposition in the 1996 election.

> the tops of the Communist Party (led by Yeltsin)

Yeltsin was an anti-Communist, he opposed the leadership of the Communist party. The actual "tops of the Communist Party" were divided between the Gorbachev-led liberalizing faction and the hardline faction, both of whom wanted to preserve the USSR -- but in the wake of the coup attempt by the latter faction, both were discredited and it was Yeltsin and the other regional leaders, not the heads of the central CPUSSR, who came out on top.

> It's just that before Gorbachev and Yeltsin all the statistics were fake, and people were repressed for contradicting it.

This is just conspiratorial thinking. Here, I found the most aggressively western-capitalist source I could think of: https://www.rand.org/pubs/conf_proceedings/CF124.chap4.html -- even Rand Corp. describes a drop of population growth rates from 6-7% to net negative over the course of the liberalization of prices.

by achierius

3/28/2025 at 5:36:40 PM

Kerala is also the only state in India where the rural population lives longer (2-3y on average) than the urban population!!

by dilawar

3/28/2025 at 9:07:39 PM

Funny seeing Kerala here. Just a few days ago I got a post into my timeline where someone wrote about taking a forest road out of Kerala in the evening and what a bad idea that was, because of Google Maps not working right and wild animals in the woods. That lead me to looking it up on google maps and I noticed something curious: It looks like Kerala has border checkpoints to the surrounding states. Complete with turnpikes. Is this normal in India? Or just Kerala? Are these even border checkpoints? (They are labeled as such on Google Maps, but that could be wrong)

by omnibrain

3/28/2025 at 11:12:50 PM

If a check point is in a remote area, it is usually a checkpoint manned by forest officials: illegal logging and other stuff.

by raincom

3/28/2025 at 9:10:34 PM

This is normal for most state border in India. They mostly inspect commercial trucks

by basiccalendar74

3/29/2025 at 6:49:30 AM

One thing I find amusing as a Malayali (aka Keralite) myself is how we tend to get excited seeing other Malayalis. One of the first questions usually is "Where are you from in Kerala?" (or in Romanized Malayalam: naatil evideya?)

by j0e1

3/29/2025 at 7:22:04 AM

The camaraderie is amusing! When they banned beef in Bangalore, the entirety of Malayalis there continued to collectively call beef something else and that system worked wonderfully!

by _thisdot

3/28/2025 at 8:53:16 PM

Coming from Kerala to Europe for a short Erasmus, I feel here you have to visit a huge chain for buying anything on a discount. What I mean is big supermarket, or electronics or transport chains. Kerala's premature strikes against these were the only reason they didn't grow as Kerala grew. Can't fully say if it's a good thing but it does feel safer not being dependent on a private entities for many basic things.

by NoelJacob

3/28/2025 at 9:17:24 PM

Are you saying large chain stores don't exist in Kerala? How are you not dependent upon private entities for basics?

by sriacha

3/28/2025 at 9:45:21 PM

You can still live comfortably without depending on private (I meant large private) entities in Kerala. Also there are supermarket chains but they haven't overtaken normal non-chain grocery supermarkets. Not even close. Of the top of my head I can list three chains near me and most of my household lives without needing to buy from them and just going to regular stores.

Edit: To add to it. In Italy, you eat pasta for lunch. To buy cheap pasta you go to Pam/Conad/Carrefour/Aldi/Lidl supermarket chain and buy Pam/Conad/Adli/Lidl branded ones as usually they are the cheapest buy vary in quality. But here getting cheap Rice, for lunch, is different. In Italy, to buy basic milk you do the same and probably the cheap whole fat one is branded by the supermarket. Here, you go to the diary, which gets from a collection of local farmers. To buy eggs, you don't go buy supermarket branded eggs, you could pay someone in your neighborhood with animals to supply. I've never seen supermarket branded eggs until I reached the west to be honest.

by NoelJacob

3/28/2025 at 10:01:36 PM

The dirty little secret is that mom-and-pop stores are extremely inefficient compared to big chain businesses. A big business is also a lot more likely to actually pay taxes to the government, and it still manages to beat the mom-and-pop store on efficiency even after accounting for that!

by zozbot234

3/28/2025 at 10:36:17 PM

Yes, they are efficient, obviously as economies of scale. Add in consulting and quants and they'll rise in profitability. But the problem is decision making power lies in hands of select few. When you are a too large a corporate, you basically have no oversight over how much you can optimize in exchange for ill social effects. All corporates had humble beginnings, and over time hyper optimization for profits creep in. Maybe in the beginning, the synthetic preservative they add to optimize profits, was below the threshold, but over the years as need for profit and 'growth' grows and, managements and mindsets change, they could very well go above the threshold and, being big now be profitable enough even after they were caught and they had to deal with the repercussions. Well why would a rational actor not squeeze every dollar out of the customer when they can still be profitable even when accounting for the money they could pay as repercussions for fraud? I'm not saying mom-and-pop are defenders of righteousness or smth, but just from watching the news I can say I trust them over corporates, because they are A) are scared of law as they have more to loose as a percentage of what they have than INDIVIDUALS in the corporate B) feel better moral, idk attitude?, towards the customer, mostly and COMPARATIVELY than the corps. Of the top of my head, I think, cooperatives might be the current best solution or some decentralized frameworks/systems for stores considering efficiency vs power concentration.

> pay taxes to the government

Here, at their turnover local stores are exempt from income tax

by NoelJacob

3/28/2025 at 10:56:44 PM

> When you are a too large a corporate, you basically have no oversight over how much you can optimize in exchange for ill social effects

It's actually easier to have meaningful oversight over a single larger firm than a bunch of local stores. The thing is that what people often refer to as "ill social effects" of large businesses are not proven to any meaningful extent. At least the gain in efficiency is quite real and can be readily ascertained.

by zozbot234

3/28/2025 at 11:18:20 PM

So you are saying the individuals (not affiliated to any corporate) in a field are collectively doing/did more harm to people and environment, on purpose, than all the harm corporates in the same field are collectively doing/did, on purpose?

Corporates have power to sway governments/FDA/X in their personal favor (unlike a common individual for his own personal favor). As bigger the power of entity gets to the power of government, more government looses power over it, more at the discretion of its decision makers its users become. Why would a rational actor not do bad for profits if they can get away with it? Why would an entity, with a power, not exercise it, if net benefit to self is positive?

by NoelJacob

3/29/2025 at 1:13:56 AM

Mom and Pop shops likely won't invest in softwares for inventory or payrolls or analytics but big chains will. That means the more big chain markets swallowing mom and pop shops more capitals invested for software and other tertiary services. This boost GDP

by eunos

3/29/2025 at 8:47:32 AM

It may boost GDP, but does that improve the life of the Moms and Pops who are now stacking shelves at the hypermarkets?

by Gud

3/29/2025 at 9:17:30 AM

It'll give a good life for software developers

by eunos

3/29/2025 at 2:44:46 AM

The small shops here are private entities. They're owned by low to mid middle class families - similar to what you might call a 'mom and pop store'. But they're so common around here that we simply call them 'provision stores', 'general stores', etc. There are also small specialty stores like for stationary, agricultural produce, diary and bakery, office work (photocopying, DTP, etc), etc. They usually exist within 5 minutes walking distance of your house. There are even small shops for much rarer stuff like electronics and mechanical components - but they're farther away (my special interest, since I'm an engineer).

They don't have everything - but it's quite possible to live here without having to visit a big chain supermarket. Those chains do exist here and we do use them and online shops like Amazon and Flipkart occasionally for the rare stuff. The point here is that the small shops aren't 'large' private entities. These store owners are in a similar social class as you are and often know you personally. They even help you get the best deals and personally deal with product quality issues. A similar 'middle-class' supply and logistics chain also exists behind them - so it isn't easy for any big player(s) to disrupt and (co-)monopolize the market. They all pay their regular taxes to the local government and spend their earnings in the same local economy. Their economic incentives also align with yours - inflation hurts them as much as it hurts you.

The advantage of this is that multi-billionaire chain owners with their own cartels can't decide when to hoard stuff and drive up profits and inflation. This is very useful in situations like the big-chain-driven post-covid inflation and the current anti-oligarchy protests seen in NA. I was in NA during the post-covid situation. It always felt like a part of that inflation wouldn't have happened if small stores existed everywhere there. Boycotts also work better if you have alternatives. So I made it a point upon return to Kerala to tell everyone how important they are. I shop almost exclusively from them these days.

by goku12

3/28/2025 at 6:12:37 PM

I am not from Kerala but I have spent the last 25 years there. I have family in Kerala. Kerala got rich because of emigration. Sometime during the 80s, Keralites began migrating to gulf in very large numbers. The foreign remittance is the biggest reason why the state is rich. It can be said the proximity to sea and a history of trade with gulf countries enabled Keralites to migrate. And of course, the will and courage of the early emigrants to migrate to a different country.

If we look beyond the foreign remittance, there are quite a few issues in the state. Unemployment is much higher than national average[1] Kerala youth are struggling with the drugs problem, in high numbers.[2] Very little industrial investment because its a state with communist government and not industry friendly. There are towns where every household has someone abroad. Only the elderly are living in those big houses.

[1]https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/education/news/kerala-am... [2] https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/india/kerala-is-in...

by 2511

3/28/2025 at 4:57:38 PM

Kerala reminds me of California when it comes to natural landscapes. I really love that place.

Coming literacy, what does that mean? They all know how to read & write in a particular language? OR they have passed minimum undergrad?

by the_arun

3/28/2025 at 5:17:41 PM

The definition of literally rate is the ratio of population over 7 that can read, write and do arithmetic and apply it in their lives. These numbers are over inflated tbh because the standards to measure them are pretty debatable. Kerala may have 90% literacy rate, but the average literacy rate of India is supposed to be 80%+.

by darth_avocado

3/28/2025 at 5:29:43 PM

A person aged seven and above is considered literate in India if they can read and write with understanding in any language.

by leosanchez

3/28/2025 at 5:01:20 PM

Literacy mostly means Reading skills. Goes a long way in a poor country with an abysmal record for primary education. Kerala also has a Higher % of school graduation compared to rest of India.

by harichinnan

3/28/2025 at 8:55:01 PM

Never have I ever imagined the state I grew up will end up on the front page of Hacker News. Keralites have a common skill of migrating almost everywhere. They have huge connection with the middle east.

by Venkatesh10

3/28/2025 at 4:55:53 PM

Doesn't a Kerala temple contain in excess of $22 billion worth of gold?

by xnx

3/28/2025 at 5:03:11 PM

Yes. Travancore Cochin remained a princely state and escaped East India company looting. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimdobson/2015/11/13/a-one-tril...

by harichinnan

3/28/2025 at 5:03:17 PM

you are correct. Padmanabhan temple apparently has gold worth 22 billion dollars. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Padmanabhaswamy_Temple_treas...

by 2511

3/28/2025 at 11:45:16 PM

I don't know if I'm more surprised by the amount of gold, or by the fact that there's still a royal family in India that owns it.

by tdeck

3/29/2025 at 2:48:25 AM

There are a lot of royal families still present in India. But they're all in ceremonial roles and have no constitutional roles or powers like the one in Britain enjoys. They mostly live off their estates (similar to the British royals) or business enterprises.

by goku12

3/28/2025 at 8:05:16 PM

That's crazy, I wonder what led people to 'donate'. Something like monetary indulgence as has been carried out by the catholic church?

by sva_

3/29/2025 at 1:54:48 AM

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Padmanabhaswamy_Temple_treasur...:

> The valuables have been accumulated in the temple over several thousand years, having been donated to the Deity, and subsequently stored in the Temple, by various Dynasties, such as the Cheras, the Pandyas, the Travancore royal family, the Kolathiris, the Pallavas, the Cholas, and many other Kings of both South India and beyond.[10][11][12][13][14][15][16] Most scholars believe that this was accumulated over thousands of years

Remember that most Roman gold ended up in India. India was the main far East recipient and trading partner of Rome, not China (trade with China was mediated by Indian kingdoms). And that was one empire with which South India traded. It's unfortunate that a lot of narratives about India are driven by the North. The South is way more interesting, in my opinion (I'm biased).

by anon291

3/29/2025 at 5:57:28 AM

> It's unfortunate that a lot of narratives about India are driven by the North. The South is way more interesting, in my opinion (I'm biased).

It's not from North India though. North India is not on the land-based trade routes between the Middle East and the Far East due to mountains along Myannmar.

It's from Central Asia and the Middle East, who's views are often followed by Indian Muslims for political scoring against Non-Muslims. A lot of the people in Central Asia and the Middle East absolutely hate Indians and South Indians, so they often tend to write narratives that avoid India. So something like discussing direct contact between the Middle East and the Far East but avoiding India. If you want to read about the genuine geopolitics of ancient India then read some historic texts from the Far East.

The idea of there being a strong conflict between the north and the south is something driven by corrupt left wing separatist and regionalist politicians in South India, but most North Indians don't think like that.

by YouAreRONGS

3/29/2025 at 4:10:14 PM

I am ethnically Indian but not an Indian citizen. I honestly don't really care about Indian politics or religious factionalism. For me, I find the history of my own family interesting, and don't like how 'india' is presented in history books as primarily the gangetic plain when there are hundreds of millions of Indians in other parts who have a related, but different history.

I mean even customs that are 'Indian' in the diaspora are often north indian customs. It's fine, but it'd be like asking a new Yorker to make southern bbq

by anon291

3/29/2025 at 2:54:06 AM

It wasn't donated money entirely - at least not in the sense of offerings from regular devotees. They were donations/remittances by the monarchy. The history is that the southern half of Kerala was a kingdom named 'Travancore'. During the establishment of the kingdom, the first king declared himself and his successors to be 'Padmanabhadasa' or 'servants of lord Padmanabha'. Lord Padmanabha is the deity worshiped at this particular temple. The temple was considered as the seat of Travancore's power and therefore a big part of the kingdom's tax revenue ended up there.

by goku12

3/28/2025 at 5:04:27 PM

Yes. It is still locked in the vaults of the temple https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Padmanabhaswamy_Temple

by achuwilson

3/28/2025 at 4:59:08 PM

Did you mean this temple in Andhrapradesh? - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venkateswara_Temple,_Tirumala

by the_arun

3/28/2025 at 5:02:34 PM

Probably referring to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Padmanabhaswamy_Temple_treasur...

by sangeeth96

3/28/2025 at 5:46:36 PM

I have visited this temple. The security inside the premises is handled by regular police, but the temple also has a strict dress code.. so you get to see shirtless men in dhotis carrying badges and pistols in cloth holsters. It's really funny to look at.

by dartharva

3/28/2025 at 5:06:00 PM

Never knew, this temple also has so much gold. Thanks for sharing

by the_arun

3/28/2025 at 9:36:17 PM

I wrote about Kerala during a visit there in 2008. Maybe a backpacking tourist's snapshot in time, but hey it's data - some observations on literacy and cultural value of education passing to the younger generation:

https://walkabout165.blogspot.com/2008/03/maybe-if-i-disable...

(also mentioned in the 3rd image caption of https://walkabout165.blogspot.com/2008/05/retrospective.html , observation on intepreting what wealth means)

by ricksunny

3/28/2025 at 5:11:51 PM

Vasco da Gama, is credited with discovering a sea route to India by sailing around Africa in 1497-1498, though India was not new to the world, and the people of India were not "discovered" by Europeans. He entered India through Kerala (Calicut).

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

by the_arun

3/28/2025 at 5:39:01 PM

Vasco

by puckspock

3/28/2025 at 7:15:09 PM

Never thought a post about Kerala will reach the front page of HN.

by rishikeshs

3/28/2025 at 9:29:37 PM

The key question one should ask is where the money came from?

The answer is Keralites moved out of the state for work and sent back most of their earnings. What is useful is if Kerala is able to encourage home built businesses that brought in the money while keeping the Keralites inside.

by kdin

3/29/2025 at 1:57:17 AM

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

People have a really hard time understanding inflation and time, but, anything that's lasted this long is going to be wealthy.

by anon291

3/28/2025 at 5:49:50 PM

My great-grandparents were landowners in Kollengode, a village on the foothills of the Western Ghats. They operated on a system of sharecropping, which the Communist party took away (along with their land) in the 1970s for redistribution. While this eliminated much of our family wealth, most of the next generation family members weren't disturbed by it because they were proud of Kerala's reputation of having the highest literacy rates and human development standards in India due to these reforms.

Many people think of North Indians as the de-facto "business" class in India, but Kerala's long history of international trade has given its posterity a rich history of merchant knowledge. My parents started a technology company in Kerala and have seen the Communist party swing from traditional land and educational reforms to private market support. This in large part due to remittances from the Middle East fueling the state economy.

The ecological risks from climate change (e.x. the mass flooding that occurred in the past several years) is a real risk that claimed the lives of several employees at my parent's company. Kerala is posed to become the biggest success story out of India, but it needs to remain vigilant in investing in private markets and infrastructure projects to address these risks and maintain sustainable growth.

by 1zael

3/29/2025 at 6:28:40 AM

> Many people think of North Indians as the de-facto "business" class in India,

It's not "North Indians" that people think of but rather "West Indians". Virtually all of the states along the western coast of India can claim to be merchant class because they were trading with places like Europe, Central Asia and the MIddle East.

The majority of trade with East Asia seems to have been done by those on the east coast, notably Telegu, Tamils and the Sri Lankans. There are mountains in the way for substanial land-based trade between Myanmar and China, but I assume that Nepalis/Myanmar/Tibetans also had a role in connecting India and East Asia. Interestingly India has much for cultural and social synergy with East Asia despite this.

by YouAreRONGS

3/29/2025 at 8:31:14 AM

At the same time, also check out: How serious is Kerala’s drug crisis? (Data Point) - https://youtu.be/CLkRAmkgEM4

Kerala is in the grip of a rapidly growing drug crisis. The state’s High Court issued a stark warning about the ‘poisonous fangs of the drug mafia’. And the State Assembly even paused regular business to debate the issue.

Kerala now leads the country in drug-related cases, far ahead of states like Punjab and Maharashtra. The numbers are also far too high to be explained by good policing alone.

by vismit2000

3/28/2025 at 6:07:38 PM

Same old fake caste tropes, article just smells of academic nonsense. The story of Keralas success could be applied to any state in India due to recent government policies, even Gujarat is doing better.

by amriksohata

3/28/2025 at 6:49:24 PM

you may be right that the economic development of Kerala in the last 2-3 decades could be because of India's overall economic development. But note that Kerala is consistently in the lead to many indian states, including Gujarat, in terms of Human Development Index. Gujarat continues to lag on HDI despite being historically economically richer than Kerala:

- 2011: HDI in India rises by 21%: Kerala leads, Gujarat far behind - https://www.firstpost.com/india/hdi-in-india-rises-by-21-ker...

- 2011: Malnutrition mars Gujarat's growth story: HDI Report - https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/malnutrit...

- 2017: Gujarat lags behind developed states if HDI parameters are compared: P Chidambaram - https://www.financialexpress.com/india-news/gujarat-lags-beh...

- 2021: If Gujarat is a model, then the real toppers in development indicators, like Kerala and Tamil Nadu, must be supermodels - https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/the-gujarat-middle/ar...

- 2021: HDI: How States Fare in Human Development - https://ceda.ashoka.edu.in/hdi-how-states-fare-in-human-deve...

by thisislife2

3/28/2025 at 5:19:05 PM

If Kerala can do it why can't other states like Bihar do it too? (Not asking rhetorically)

From what I see from the article the major gains were from investment in health and education which should be a no brainer.

by ghoomketu

3/28/2025 at 5:38:23 PM

Not sure about Bihar, but talent / labor export isn't just a Kerala thing. Having a network does help - makes it easy to find a job, find people to live with that speak the same language, help in difficult times etc.

by vishalontheline

3/28/2025 at 5:35:52 PM

Poor education at K-12 level. People from Bihar go outside but within India, to big cities like Delhi/Mumbai or farms of Punjab/Haryana.

by blackoil

3/28/2025 at 5:42:42 PM

That's the same as asking "if Singapore can achieve near-zero levels of crime, why can't Brazil do it too?" i.e. a nonsensical question. The culture is different, the people are different and the mindsets are different.

by dartharva

3/28/2025 at 4:57:37 PM

how -> through Gulf migration remittances fueling private investment (especially in services), enabled by a skilled population and a more market-friendly political environment

by eamag

3/28/2025 at 7:19:07 PM

"Market-friendly political environment" did not bring the higher HDI that Kerala has now (and still prioritises), even before its economic development started. That was because of its left- (communist / marxist parties) and centre-left public policies. ( https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309363153_A_Compara... ). As Americans and Europeans today debate about how they can afford to have a family or buy a house, and the rise of right-wing politics due to this, there's something to be said about how bridging income / wealth inequality is important in a society.

by thisislife2

3/29/2025 at 4:33:27 AM

The main reason is probably because it is a small state with a majority Christian/Muslim population who work in the Middle East. It allows the state to get to a higher lower income level quickly. But there's very little in terms of actual enterprise in the same way you get in Tamil Nadu or other parts of India.

As to why the article is on the front page on HN? Probably because the state has a large diaspora in the Middle East.

by YouAreRONGS

3/29/2025 at 7:18:10 AM

It's a misconception that Kerala has majority Christian/Muslim population. Kerala has ~55% Hindus and ~25% Muslims and ~20% Christians.

by _thisdot

3/29/2025 at 8:27:44 AM

Christians were much more powerful than Hindus though. And the links with the Middle East has given the Muslims a lot of leverage as well. It's likely that with current birth rate trends over the past ten years since the census was taken, that the Hindus have been overtaken by the rest to form a minority too; the NFI stated in 2017 that Hindus would be a minority by 2025.

by YouAreRONGS

3/29/2025 at 6:00:44 AM

> why the article is on the front page on HN

Maybe because a lot of Malayalis read HN? We are everywhere.

by your_challenger

3/29/2025 at 6:13:23 AM

Comparitively there are far more North Indians, Kannadians and Tamils in the IT world.

The bias in much of western media is largely driven by White-Muslim politics in places like Europe, which in turn is driven by corruption from the far-left in various forms (including politicians from places like South Asia and Palestine, and I am not saying that there aren't right wing corruption as well). And yes, a lot of those left-wing politcians who claim to be representiving disadvantaged people are corrupt and creating tension for political gain.

The fact is that much of the progressive politics in South Asia just doesn't fit the narratives being built up by the left-wing in the western world.

by YouAreRONGS

3/28/2025 at 10:24:29 PM

Kerala is a must visit place, The boat house at allepey, long drive through the mountains between Tamilnadu + Kerala is one of the best experience you could have <3

by codepathfinder

3/29/2025 at 6:45:50 AM

This article and thread is highly engineered, apart from few comments. This got nothing to do people of kerala.

They have some of the highest debt in india. The government even went as far as to put empty home tax, which is highly uncommon in india.

Lack of industries and job opportunities people are moving out of the state. This is a a propaganda, probably by the state.you just need to do some simple search to validate my comments.

by glass1209

3/28/2025 at 5:38:54 PM

The dominant majority of Keralite youth that can, still emigrates to other states and countries. I have come across hundreds of Malayalis outside of Kerala who talk fondly of their homes, but refuse to admit there being any scope of nontrivial academic or professional growth within the state.

On the other hand.. yes, Kerala is very beautiful in many ways. I wish I was born there because it's nigh impossible to settle in permanently otherwise.

by dartharva

3/28/2025 at 5:28:51 PM

> Fifty years ago it was one of India’s poorest states

Yea that is a absolutely wrong. A state that had the highest literacy rate at independence will unsurprisingly remain at the higher end of developmental rankings..

In the 1970s Kerala was already comparable to Indian states from a human development and economic standpoint because of a strong shipbuilding and cooperative agricultural program (same with then undivided Punjab) [0] and by 1990 had developmental indicators comparable to Delhi NCR.

Instead, we should look at states that were historically more undeveloped than Kerala but are now within range of Kerala.

As such, a better rags to riches model to dig into is Tamil Nadu [1] or Haryana [2] - both were on the lower end of India's HDI rankings in 1990, and now outperform most states and lead India in GDP per Capita as well.

Himachal Pradesh [3] and Jammu Kashmir [4][5] are two others to also look at, as they are historically undeveloped agrarian Himalayan border states with laggard developmental indicators that used land reform, cooperative agribusiness, mass rural education drives, and specialized manufacturing (Pharma in Himachal, Food Processing in Jammu) to have high HDIs.

[0] - https://eacpm.gov.in/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/State-GDP-Wo...

[1] - https://documents.worldbank.org/en/publication/documents-rep...

[2] - https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/archive/comment/birth-of-h...

[3] - https://documents.worldbank.org/en/publication/documents-rep...

[4] - https://ras.org.in/index.php?Article=land_reform_in_kashmir

[5] - https://cup.columbia.edu/book/a-strategic-myth/9788194717560...

by alephnerd

3/28/2025 at 5:59:39 PM

As per your 1st document (page 15). Kerala has risen from 84.6 to 152 (~80%) while Haryana from 106.9 to 176.8 (~65%) in addition to the fact that most of the Haryana's growth has come from being in proximity of New Delhi. Same for Tamil Nadu (56%).

by blackoil

3/28/2025 at 6:05:52 PM

If you look at the results of India's National Human Development Report from 1981, Kerala was already further ahead of any other state [0][1]. And the report I listed did not have data on half of the states that existed in India in 1980.

> most of the Haryana's growth has come from being in proximity of New Delhi

Not really.

Delhi NCR de-industrialized in the 1970s-80s due to militant labor unionism [2]

Furthermore, much of Haryana's population lives well outside of what became Delhi NCR, and urbanization only began in the 1980s with the development of SEZs in Manesar, Faridabad, and Gurgaon.

> Same for Tamil Nadu (56%).

Tamil Nadu shared similar developmental metrics to Haryana in the 1981 NHDR, neighbored a state in an active civil war that often leaked into the state (Sri Lanka / LTTE), and had severe caste fractures.

[0] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indian_states_and_un...

[1] - https://www.researchgate.net/figure/HUMAN-DEVELOPMENT-INDEX-...

[2] - https://www.jstor.org/stable/4376065

by alephnerd

3/28/2025 at 8:51:42 PM

Also, not hating on the Kerala model - every state in India is now in the position where they can take advantage of it.

But I do not think it's replicable in most other LDCs due to historical quirks.

Like, Malawi, Guinea, or Afghanistan can't use much of the "Kerala Model" to succeed, as India was unique in that it was subsidizing the UAE's economy with the "Gulf Rupee" [0] (maybe Cambodia/Laos thanks to Thailand, but it ain't a great reason why IYKYK)

[0] - https://ar.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%B1%D9%88%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%...

by alephnerd

3/28/2025 at 6:03:24 PM

Hopefully Uttarakhand can follow Himachal Pradesh, but it is ravaged by national parties as of now, best case scenario, the new youth leadership of UKD actually wins and does some work

by kedarkhand

3/28/2025 at 6:07:57 PM

Uttarakhand will not develop unless there are incentives to invest outside of Dehradun.

HP doesn't have a "Dehradun", which means local netas have an incentive to invest in their zilla instead of hoarding cash and real estate in a major hub. Thus, Himachal benefited from a Pharma and Food Processing industrial policy in the 1990s-2000s that industrialized the rural area around Baddi and Una, and a lot of other smaller food processing and light manufacturing industries across lower Himachal.

Also, Uttarakhand has too few MLAs for the size of population. UK has 70 MLAs but 10 million people, but HP has 68 MLAs with 6.5 million people. This means UK MLAs are much more divorced from local panchayats compared to in HP.

There is a good case study about this at Harvard Business School [0]

[0] - https://www.hbs.edu/ris/Publication%20Files/Asian_Survey_550...

by alephnerd

3/29/2025 at 6:20:35 AM

Agree on the point of Dehradun, as for the number of MLA's, that is due to the growing concerns of the native Pahadi population. The plain regions of Uttarakhand have been settled by desi people in recent decades and due to the difference in population density and fertility rates, their population is growing more and more. Now the Pahadi people have genuine concerns that everything they fought for during the Uttarakhand Movement will go to waste. And this is already happening, the finance minister of Uttarakhand abused pahadi people in the Vidhan Sabha, thankfully due to many protests, he has resigned. But if plain regions get majority seats, it would give approx 18% of UK the right to govern the entire region!

by kedarkhand

3/28/2025 at 9:45:51 PM

> best case scenario, the new youth leadership of UKD actually wins and does some work

Trust me. You don't want that. Ussi najuwane nu khadi pata ni hege (Kangri but translate to your equivalent)

by alephnerd

3/29/2025 at 6:22:14 AM

Even if they lack experience, they are still a better alternative than BJP and Congress who have done nothing but loot Uttarakhand up to this point!

by kedarkhand

3/28/2025 at 5:13:32 PM

It's pretty crazy how many new billionaires have been minted in Kerala.

https://english.mathrubhumi.com/news/money/malayalis-make-in...

by greekanalyst

3/29/2025 at 3:30:23 PM

you should check the Maharastra list

by SandraBucky

3/28/2025 at 5:51:20 PM

Love Kerala, highly underrated tourist destination IMHO compared to the more traditional Indian destinations.

by snyp

3/29/2025 at 4:44:34 AM

Isn't Kerala's economy held up by remittances and duct tape?

by nithssh

3/28/2025 at 6:16:51 PM

* Access to sea routes from west and east. Easy access to ideas from around the world. Christianity and Islam came to Kerala long time back peacefully.

* No big invasions from outside India. North India constantly faced Invasion.

* Tropical weather which makes doing agriculture easy.

* Good rainfall and no need to worry about water. Many Indian states you need to worry about water accessibility.

* No shit given to anyone caste or religion for the most part except for things like marriage.

by hshshshshsh

3/29/2025 at 2:14:31 AM

What's interesting is that 50 years ago or so it had one of the highest concentrations in India of Dalits (lowest caste).

by epolanski

3/29/2025 at 3:40:40 AM

I keep hearing this Kerala has great literacy rate cope, but I’ve come to realize literacy rate doesn’t matter. Literacy rate is a very white collar, tech bubble bias. People of our social class, cannot imagine being unable to read or write until you realize that American literacy rate in 1900 was 46% (< 96% of Kerala today) and no one is going to claim Kerala of 2024 was richer than America of 1900.

What you really need is industry. Kerala on that note has a very low score. Many states have much bigger industry and thus work for the people in those states. Kerala is still a rural farming/ tourism state and the only reason it has any money is because they send people to do blue collar back-breaking work in UAE and get back remittances.

To be fair, this is an India wide problem. India creates far more engineers than it needs, hence they all leave to find jobs elsewhere. There is almost no high quality engineering jobs in India, if they exist they are a part of US based tech companies. All Indian companies are stuck 10+ years in the past. Among that Kerala is a particularly bad offender where it doesn’t have even the existing textile/ steel/ automotive industry that other states do.

by sashank_1509

3/28/2025 at 4:56:40 PM

Looks like this is one sided political propaganda article. Googling shows real picture.

Unemployment is at 40%. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment_in_Kerala

Kerala is in the grip of a surging drug crisis https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/india/kerala-is-in...

Kerala rooting on central govt to solve state's Rs 26,000 crore monthly expenditure crisis https://keralakaumudi.com/en/news/news.php?id=1498119&u=kera...

by kappi

3/28/2025 at 5:11:10 PM

Yep. I lived there for the first two decades, and outside Kerala for the next two and a bit. The only thing Kerala exports is the workforce, since it's impossible to start anything in Kerala thanks to politics and high costs. I know because I've tried. Kerala had historical ties with the Middle East thanks in part to a substantial Muslim population, and the migrant labour force was able to funnel some of Middle Eastern prosperity during the oil boom years back into the state. That is in a nutshell, Kerala's economic story.

Speaking of the left, I remember being next to a protest circa 1990 against ... computers!

by jeswin

3/28/2025 at 5:57:02 PM

It's not clear what you tried to start and absent any other information your personal failure at it isn't a compelling alternative picture of the region's development to me.

I'm sure there are valid other views than the one presented in the article, I'm not saying there aren't. But as someone who doesn't know much about the region, you aren't really giving me more information about it, or giving me any reasons to take your view more seriously than the one presented in the article.

by giraffe_lady

3/28/2025 at 6:03:41 PM

You can completely ignore what I said about my personal experience. The rest of it is still valid, and please read the child comment I posted on the same sub-thread.

Basically, Kerala exports a workforce because it can't produce or export anything else. At roughly a third of the GDP (in 2012 according to Wikipedia), it's a remittance based economy. Someone commented that remittances are a smaller part of the economy of late (and that might well be true), but in the last decade or so Kerala is also heavily in debt.

by jeswin

3/29/2025 at 4:35:51 AM

I think the main point of the opposition argument is that it's Kerala's religious demographics that led the state to be dependent on Middle Eastern remmitence. If you did a demographic survey of South Asians in the Middle East, the vast majority of them would be Muslim. It's a good way to reach a lower middle income level, but it's not achieving the type of growth needed to build industry and service.

by YouAreRONGS

3/28/2025 at 5:13:19 PM

You aren’t keeping up then. Remittances is a much smaller % of economy these days.

by harichinnan

3/28/2025 at 5:40:59 PM

Ten years back remittance was 31% of the GDP [1] - a massive number. It might have declined, but the tiny state accounts for 20% of India's inward remittance while holding a mere 3% of the nation's population. Wikipedia says that 3 million people are working abroad (mostly in the middle East), which is like 10 percent of the population (what percentage of the youth will that be?). Also, a very significant number of Malayalees work in neighbouring states - again due to Kerala having no industries.

I don't have numbers for the last ten years, but if remittance has gone down, it is also neck deep in debt. I am in Kerala quite frequently, and can confirm that there are no industries there - except for tourism, and some IT which is relatively miniscule compared to neighbouring states.

[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Kerala

by jeswin

3/29/2025 at 4:49:41 AM

Remittances for 2023 made up 23% of state GDP.

Table 5.2, pg 51 of https://iimad.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/KMS-2023-Report...

by gyan

3/28/2025 at 5:07:16 PM

You’re reading the youth unemployment rate. Overall is only 9% (still not great, but much better).

by rafram

3/28/2025 at 6:20:20 PM

The article is a classic submarine[0] for Kerala.

"The state has one of the highest concentrations of startups". I laughed out loud at this one. Of all the half-truths peddled in that article, this was easily the most hilarious and egregious.

[0] - https://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

by rakejake

3/28/2025 at 6:24:09 PM

Perhaps they mean small business entrepreneurship, not tech startups?

by seltzered_

3/28/2025 at 6:37:20 PM

Whatever it is I am not buying it. Kerala is notoriously an incredibly hard place to do business in, so a line like this needs some real hard stats to back it up.

by rakejake

3/28/2025 at 4:59:26 PM

yup, a definitive “neoliberal”/“neoclassical” economic theory puff piece.

by xyst

3/28/2025 at 5:06:17 PM

Crime statistics are because Kerala Police isn’t as corrupt and registers more crimes compared to rest of India. It’s a good thing as most crimes goes unreported in India as police are corrupted in rest of India.

by harichinnan

3/28/2025 at 5:15:43 PM

a neoliberal neoclassical puff piece on the only region in india ruled by the communist party? that's fresh

by impomura

3/28/2025 at 5:47:03 PM

The region has remnants of socialist ideas. The article, however, is indeed a puff piece on the vastly dominant economic theory, which is, as it turns out, not "fresh" at all.

I will say however that I think it's unfair to call professor Roy a neoliberal. Being a neoliberal is merely the expectation for most economic "theorists", but his vocal apologetics for imperalism and colonialism is not.

> Indian Marxists viciously attacked the CEHI, arguing the imperial state's aim was to extract surplus from India, that it withheld the capacity to do good in famines, and deployed the capacity to cause harm at all other times.

> In this void, blog and trade-book writers moved in with a leftist-nationalist political agenda posing as economic history. Most of their claims can be dismissed by subjecting them to the 1980s test: Can economic change be read as an effect of the Empire? The answer remains: No.

This is indeed a very powerful purity test, "Do your claim go against my utterly ahistorical narrative? If not, then I can comfortably dismiss them without addressing them."

> That India's trade surplus meant Britain looted India is bad logic because the surplus did not mean theft but the purchase of services. “Millions of Indians died of policy-induced famines” (Hickel) is bad logic by assuming infinite state capacity was deliberately withheld.

This one is quite rich aswell, it's just blunt unapologetic imperalism denial. It's bad logic because the logic bothers me.

I mean it just goes on and that's just his most recent tweets.

by cafeoh

3/28/2025 at 5:14:51 PM

There's a lot to this article, but one interpretation of it is that it is a story somewhat similar to China's— a history with communism and gradual opening-up to private capital and the global market. In the case of China, capital has entered due to its huge export market. In Kerala there seems to have been an important capital injection from remittances, and a growing tourism industry. The article summarizes it as such:

> In short ways, four forces of change – Kerala’s reintegration with the global economy, remittances from the Persian Gulf, strong welfare policies from a legacy of Leftist government, and private investment from individuals and businesses who shared the remittance flows – have combined to form the structure of Kerala’s miracle of human wellbeing with economic growth.

by aylmao

3/28/2025 at 5:17:13 PM

As they say, ex-communists make the best capitalists.

by mathieuh

3/28/2025 at 6:43:55 PM

I don't think they'd call themselves ex-communist. The ruling party is the Communist Party of India.

Also, to be clear, it's a common understanding in Marxism that capitalism is a stage of socialism. The "capitalism and socialism are opposites" rhetoric is too simplistic.

Socialism is different but built upon capitalism, in a similar way, for example, to how electric cars are different but built upon gas cars. Marxism opposes neoliberalism and other forms of governance that leave capitalism unchecked, but doesn't reject everything about capitalism— "just the motor, gas tank, and other harmful parts" you could say.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/CapitalismVSocialism/comments/vlxxv...

[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/CapitalismVSocialism/comments/1g5kd...

by aylmao

3/28/2025 at 6:22:35 PM

Just sharing bookmarks, see also https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/16/4481 (talk link: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=u-OdFBARXHg ) (via https://ashfordhall2018.wordpress.com/ ) for some further research on Kerala, India and economics.

by seltzered_

3/29/2025 at 6:35:09 AM

Kerala has a strong pool of high-quality but underpaid software engineers and some of the most active FOSS communities in India. Unfortunately, in today's capitalist landscape, many talented engineers from middle-class backgrounds are compelled to move to other states like Bengaluru for better-paying opportunities.

by psudohadex

3/28/2025 at 6:25:42 PM

TL;DR:

"From a historical perspective, Kerala has at least four distinct qualities that most states in India do not share. First, it has a centuries-long history of trade and migration, particularly with West Asia and Europe. Second, Kerala is rich in natural resources, which have been commercially exploited. Third, Kerala boasts a highly literate, skilled and mobile workforce. Finally, the state has a strong Left political movement. Any story we tell about its advances in health and education or its recent income growth must refer to some of these longstanding variables."

by teleforce

3/28/2025 at 8:47:58 PM

Since the authors are communists, What they left out was that Kerala, especially the southern half of it preserved its independence (though only nominally under the British) from foreign occupations, something most other states in india couldn't.

by air3y

3/29/2025 at 5:23:27 AM

There is one part of the story that any reader should be well aware of, when consuming any content about Kerala - especially public comments on fora like HN. Kerala is deeply against extreme right wing politics. The big RW national coalition has struggled over the decades to grab power in Kerala. The RW has in turn spreads falsehoods, derogatory statements and outright propaganda against Kerala - very often based on misleading, outdated or simply fake data. It often comes in the form of jibes at Kerala's economy, emigration, foreign remittances, businesses, employment, literacy, extremism, etc. You can see a lot of them in this discussion thread - debunking one at a time is a waste of time. So be a bit skeptical about such claims - especially the ones that seem indignant towards Kerala. Some comments display a complete absence of first-hand experience.

So here is the other side for the sake of completeness. I'm a Keralite currently living and earning in Kerala. I have lived and worked in North America for several years and I have done the same in many other states within India, but for shorter periods. It's not like everything is fine and dandy here - there are still a lot of unresolved issues. Employment situation has to improve. There isn't enough space for big industries. People are generally clean, but large scale waste management needs a lot more effort. There are labor union issues as well. Definitely not at European or NA levels of infrastructure or organization. Roads are often very dilapidated. And the culture is slightly towards the conservative side.

But when discussed online, some of these problems look like exaggerated interpretation of true data. Job situation is not extremely bad - it's similar to the rest of the world, in line with a depressed global economy. But the business sector has seen some growth in the last few years, driven by an a startup boom. I hear fewer complaints about labor unions these days, though I don't know what changed. It's true that a lot of students are moving abroad. One good reason is that they are educated and adaptive. (I didn't find it too hard to adapt to a foreign culture). This is to be expected when you have a reasonably educated and mobile youth population in a developing economy. But not everyone is leaving. We also have young workers with us. Some places are becoming very rich and crowded - like the suburb where I live. People are also exhibiting more civic sense in the past few years (personal observation based on driving and littering).

While Kerala is not comparable to western nations, some things are strictly better here. There are small affordable shops everywhere. The cost of living is quite tolerable, compared to the wages. Public transportation is shabby - but it can get you anywhere. And it's improving. Car culture is not necessary. Education is cheap. Public school education is free if you prefer. Primary education at some level is unimaginably competitive. Almost everyone here reads newspapers in the morning, including in Malayalam and English (I missed it sorely when I was abroad). I took my 4 year engineering (electronics) graduation with a grand total of 300 USD (we had government sponsored seats) - all of which was covered by another scholarship. Professional textbooks have cheap Indian editions - but most cities also have thriving second-hand book markets that will probably cover all your needs. My first monthly salary alone was more than my entire course fee - that too as a launch vehicle avionics engineering in my own home town. All of these are why we find it easy to emigrate abroad. Health sector is reasonably good too. It's free at public hospitals if you can't pay. During the start of the covid pandemic, public health officials were screening patients directly from airports and railway stations and admitting them for quarantine and free treatment. If you're middle class by American standards, you can get treatment at private hospitals with dedicated staff to guide you around. Now the police - if I have to deal with them, I would rather it be the Kerala Police. They are less jumpy and deadly. They're also renowned for solving tough cases when not interfered with. Another surprising factor is how the people coordinate themselves in the face of natural disasters - they are like a force of their own.

The point here is, I wont sell you Kerala as some sort of paradise (though, that is exactly how Kerala is sold as a tourist destination). It isn't. It's a small piece of land with a unique flavor. It's entirely up to you to judge. But I suggest you have a look before judging. Please don't believe the majority narratives. If you want an opinion, at least ask someone who has witnessed the ground reality.

by goku12

3/29/2025 at 4:11:12 PM

Fellow-Malayalee here. Thank you for taking the time to write this comment!

by mavelikara

3/30/2025 at 11:32:21 AM

You're welcome! Though, it's sad that it has come to this. And this isn't the first time I had to do it either.

by goku12

3/29/2025 at 2:24:46 AM

And not a single map of Kerala.

by deepsun

3/28/2025 at 7:19:00 PM

These communists sound like they have the right idea; maybe we should try it!

by poisonwomb

3/29/2025 at 4:10:02 AM

I'm from Kerala and I've been to North America. The 'communism' here isn't what the Americans think it is. You can consider it as socialist liberalism at best. Communism in its revolutionary form did exist at a time when social inequality and injustice was very rampant. Now it's a political movement under India's democracy.

by goku12

3/28/2025 at 6:03:16 PM

y is this on HN first page? by wat measure is Kerala rich? No industries if exports bodies to ME, commie rule for decades atrophied all industry. It's a political hitjob against India central gov, HN should keep its standard above this shitshow

by redzedi

3/28/2025 at 7:33:44 PM

Last I checked, Kerala was still part of India. So why should the central government of India feel jealous about an article praising the indian state of Kerala?

by thisislife2

3/28/2025 at 8:57:34 PM

While not agreeing to the parent comment, it comes from the domestic politics now playing out in that state. After India got independent in the 40s, communists were the main opposition political party in the country for decades. Now, their presence in power is mostly confined to just this small state. While the center and most states are ruled by a hindu nationalist party. This has led to the politics in kerala moving to a sort of secessionary path. A political alliance of the communist-christian-muslim groups against hindu groups and rest of india.

by air3y

3/29/2025 at 4:38:32 AM

You've also got the mess in Tamil Nadu as well. Despite having two left-wing parties, it's still got one party that Hindus vote for, and another party that Muslims/Christians vote for.

by YouAreRONGS

3/29/2025 at 3:11:41 AM

Kerala generally hates divisive and communal politics. Consequently, the alliance currently in power at the national level never makes any significant gains here. Unfortunately, the response to that can get very contrary to federalism and other constitutional values. They went so far as to promote a propaganda movie against the state and one community in particular. Maligning Kerala, even through official channels is frankly a very common thing in India (only from people who support a certain extreme political ideology). The accusations of secession are all part of that campaign.

PS: I'm not very comfortable discussing such a divisive political matter in this forum. However, I'm leaving this here since I see some biased opinions being raised without a counter.

by goku12

3/29/2025 at 6:08:34 AM

Kerala is "diseased" in its current form of governance, it needs to get help and get better . It is a great disservice to the state and the country to hide the malady and paint an opposite picture just to set up narrative - " that look this state is doing good in spite of rejecting and revolting against the Central govt policies " . This is what propaganda sounds like - for context the narrative that is pushed in Indian context is " poor North draining affluent South resources " - this is not based on facts - where does that lead the country to ? The ruling party of the state of Tamil Nadu is openly pushing racist and xenophobic narrative to the populace .

"... North Indians are dirty and breed like pigs . " is an actual statment made by a sitting state minister . This kind of stuff is still unthinkable in West despite all the bitter politics we are seeing there currently.

There is non-stop propaganda , their ideologues are pushing ideas like India is not a single congruous country it is merely a "collective" or "Union" ( the term they are pushing more and more ) of nations currently in a marriage of convenience. They are allergic to the symbols of our nationhood - the flag , the national anthem and they specifically hate the glue elements of the different cultures in India - "Hinduism" is the cultural substrate and continuum that binds the length and breadth of this subcontinent and these ideologues are rabidly against it .

With each passing day and each article with subliminal propaganda like these they are reinforcing and increasingly saying the quiet part aloud .

They are even promoting discredited historical theories like Aryan Invasion theories and ground their claims of 2 nation/race theory to antiquity ( > 5000 yrs) . The follow the "Motte and Bailey" structure -- Motte being "Social Justice" -- they justify their hate claiming caste atrocity of the last 5000 yrs , but they can easily re-target the raw hate to North Indians and Outsiders at will. They are rushing to appropriate the Indus Valley Civilization as the origin of their race .

They even had a ridiculous commemoration of a statue of the British head of the Archeological Survey of India during the Colonial period in whose tenure the discovery of IVC took place , bypassing all the Indian scholars that worked on the ground and did the actual discovery and analysis - that surely sounds odd for a country with a bitter Colonial history like India ? to give undue credit to the erstwhile masters even when the British didnt claim that individual to be discoverer . The reason is more sinister -- The Indian Scholar - RD Bannerji was a northener and doesnt suit the hateful ideology of this govt .

The biggest tragedy is Indian ruling class and elites are blissfully short-sighted or simply are not gifted enough to fight this ideology that is tearing India apart - India will just disintegrate into warring third world states kept into dirt by the ruling families . India will just produce bodies for the First world , for the low end work and for all sorts of experimentation - a guinea pig farm . A big , dirty slum - a guinea pig farm that's the fate that awaits that await 1.5 B humans - controlled by Compradors from their mansions in West .

Low ambition and self esteem did the people in .

Ofcourse the cleverer ones realize this fate and what's their strategy of survival ? to live off the crumbs from the high table of the Compradors and their master . These clever people are ever anxious to display their loyalty to the Comparadors, they are the middle management of the Comparadors today . The writer of these article - flaunting fancy degrees is one such and the foreign publication is nothing but a step towards their ultimate goal and India's final fate.

To the outsider s - this is a stark reality that you should be aware of , nothing is as simple as it looks like - so before forming an opinion or cheerleading scratch the surface a little .

A propaganda and ideology driven society looks rosy from outside . Many people would have cheered and believed 1930s Germany or the USSR .

In many ways , West is also going through same political cycle but i have more hope for West being able to extricate itself than i have for India . The education , awareness and most importantly a millenia of occupation has bred a different docile mindset in Indian people . This crisis is very unlikely to precipitate leaders in India that can take a hard stand , its more likely for that to happen in West .

by redzedi

3/29/2025 at 10:06:05 AM

India is a very large nation that is recovering from prolonged exposure to Imperial Colonialism so there is great expectation for social and economic improvement which ultimately effects us all.

by m0llusk

3/29/2025 at 6:20:10 AM

Well, we know who this guy is. Something good is said about Kerala and he has to jump in to bring it down.

by your_challenger

3/29/2025 at 6:37:58 AM

I question why it's on the front page as well even though I'm Tamil.

Kerala is by no-means unique in India. It's controversial because the state is communist and majority Christian/Muslim, on top of being one of the thorns for the BJP (albeit a small one at least).

It reeks more of left-wing propaganda being promoted by left-wing narratives in the western world that end up supporting corrupt and divisve left-wing politcians.

by YouAreRONGS

3/29/2025 at 7:33:57 AM

Why is it "controversial" to have a left leaning government and a significant population of Christians or Muslims? Yes, Kerala had early "true" communism (land reforms, nokku kooli) but since then it has just been a left leaning, liberal government. Also answer why you find it controversial for it to have other religions than Hinduism.

by your_challenger

3/29/2025 at 8:19:18 AM

It's politically charged to have politically-driven narratives on HN, especially when it has the basis of ethnic politics. This makes it controversial in the first place.

by YouAreRONGS

3/29/2025 at 9:55:28 AM

If someone feels threatened by "liberal governance" and "religious diversity", that says more about them than about Kerala.

HN is great because discussions stand on their merit, not on downvotes. You using a throwaway account just to push an agenda proves the point.

by your_challenger

3/28/2025 at 6:14:03 PM

Needs a Tldr!

by jimnotgym

3/28/2025 at 5:18:55 PM

Paragraph after paragraph restating the question, then:

by MathMonkeyMan

3/28/2025 at 5:23:32 PM

So sending tons of people to be indentured servants in Saudi Arabian was the secret sauce.

by readthenotes1

3/28/2025 at 5:26:00 PM

> sending

They went on their own accord. They wouldn't have gone had the opportunity not been large enough. Plenty of people from the West have done the same and continue to do so.

by vishalontheline

3/28/2025 at 5:27:28 PM

Not the same, but slavery tends to be productive for development. (I reference Indian laborers in UAE whose employers confiscate their passports. Yes they are paid, but they are not free or well treated.)

by kridsdale1

3/28/2025 at 5:51:18 PM

> Hundreds of thousands of people migrated to the Persian Gulf states like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Qatar to work in construction, retail and services, sectors that saw a massive investment boom following the two oil shocks of 1973 and 1979.

> The demand for skilled workers increased as the Gulf economies diversified from oil-based jobs to finance and business services. While offering jobs in the millions, the migration also had a series of broad effects back home on occupational diversification, skill accumulation, changing gender roles, consumption, economic and social mobility, and demographic transitions.

It looks like there they were employed across the value chain and the peninsula, some (many?) of which I do not think typically practices modern-day slavery.

by jhanschoo

3/28/2025 at 8:14:40 PM

I did say indentured servants, not slaves...

Thonik not sure what the difference is when the servent can be killed with impunity

by readthenotes1

4/3/2025 at 1:22:50 AM

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by kara4151

3/29/2025 at 4:24:29 AM

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by thrownaway29

3/28/2025 at 6:01:21 PM

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by merillecuz56

3/28/2025 at 9:06:14 PM

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by tyriwetggy5665

3/28/2025 at 6:24:06 PM

These are my personal/anecdotal observations, of course, for a state I love.

Compared to many other better states and cities, the places in Kerala have this combination of low expenses, good government/public health care. It’s utter shit in most of India — including other rich states like Karnataka (~Bangalore). The place has no or less hostility to outsiders, a general non-RW political atmosphere, and being less polluted or free from it. While Tamil Nadu (~Chennai) is ahead of Kerala in many ways, it kind of falls behind on integration points and weather (that's just a personal preference).

I see one more difference there (this is kind of specific, and I just wanted to take an example) — all over India, people are scared of cops. Severe chronic fear of the police (from the British times; maybe continued). You don’t get in their way, you don’t talk to them, you don’t argue with them, and you hope they never notice you exist. Mostly! Not in Kerala (and to some extent in Tamil Nadu as well) — in Kerala, police in most cases don’t get that some kind of feared reverence at all. It has always heartening to see police getting questioned by locals there when they demand something from the people. I am someone originally from the Indian North, and it was an alien experience — just like seeing government/public hospitals in villages and small towns that are well-equipped and functioning.

The thing about protest culture and the so-called union culture that right-wingers and/or the "economically progressive" folks accuse Kerala of — is actually a highly educated populace (very close to 100%; let that sink in — because we are talking about India) standing up for their rights and not allowing either the corporates or the government to steam-roll them. Is that ideal? I don't think so. But then they easily forget that Kerala always had a left-leaning ideology and India’s centre never had any left majority Govt (hell, not even significant representation), which means the state has always been at odds with the centre—and still did well literally on its own.

The Indian right-wing loves to hate on Kerala (you might see some right here; veiled or direct; or not; and that's alright - I guess, people just like and dislike things) — calling the state and its people with left-bashing slurs and abuses. There have been concerted efforts to flare up the Hindu-Muslim divide in the state, which has worked almost everywhere — with great success in the North India (which is the mostly uneducated, mostly conservative, mostly poor and backward India) and to good success in Karnataka (~Bangalore) and Maharashtra (~Mumbai). These last two are among the richer states of India, while the North is generally a proper shit-hole (I am originally from there).

One can go on and keep counting the majestically built homes that are empty most of the year because the well-off occupants mostly stay out of the state or India or attribute everything to the Gulf. But the bottom line is it is much better than the hellhole that most of India is. They also conveniently forget that it has been in direct and active trade contact with the rest of the world (especially Europe) from very old times. The state has one of the oldest mosques and churches in the world (not just India). I have seen the tech industry of Kerala very closely. There are some boutique software places in that state - not very big (except one kinda famous FOSS photos, 2fa app shop), some service industry but not gigantic like in other states et cetera. Do I have hopes from the place? Yes. Will it be fast? I doubt it.

Do their socio-economic-political choices have their drawbacks and unflattering outcomes? Yes, of course. But I think Kerala state and its people have realised one thing—that by virtue of being in a third-world country like India, they have two options: either keep working and keep getting better at a slower pace while maintaining a better "quality of life" compared to almost all of the rest of India or give in and become a sweatshop like a lot of India currently is and for them if that means moving out of India to do work and earn money and send money back home then so be it.

by shelled

3/28/2025 at 9:14:32 PM

> The thing about protest culture and the so-called union culture that right-wingers and/or the "economically progressive" folks accuse Kerala of — is actually a highly educated populace (very close to 100%; let that sink in — because we are talking about India) standing up for their rights and not allowing either the corporates or the government to steam-roll them.

The militant labour problem is something even the communists in kerala have started distancing themselves from. Just a small example - Even a few years ago, anyone shifting homes didn't have the right to load and unload their own personal belongings. They could get it done only through unions. Now if they did do it by themselves, and the union got wind of it, they could get beaten up and still have to pay the unions. It was legally outlawed only a few years ago. For industries and commercial establishments, this is still applicable.

>There have been concerted efforts to flare up the Hindu-Muslim divide in the state, ... The state sent the largest number of recruits for ISIS. A national islamic terror group called PFI which was banned only a couple of years back was founded primarily in Kerala and spread nationwide. The state has been a hub of islamic terrorism for ages. It has been a hub for islamist terrorism, especially in south india for ages. Due to the unique demography of the state, with hindus no longer a majority, backlash to these have not been like in other states.

by air3y

3/28/2025 at 8:35:08 PM

> famous FOSS photos, 2fa

Ente photos I assume

by NoelJacob

3/28/2025 at 4:57:41 PM

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3/29/2025 at 6:04:16 AM

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3/28/2025 at 5:09:09 PM

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3/28/2025 at 5:50:01 PM

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3/28/2025 at 5:43:06 PM

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3/28/2025 at 4:52:01 PM

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by gleenn

3/28/2025 at 5:07:14 PM

I chuckled at "Litearcy Rate" written on one of the graphs...

by crawsome

3/28/2025 at 6:06:58 PM

the jokes just write themselves

by shreyshnaccount

3/28/2025 at 6:13:03 PM

I find the over use of "socialist" as a negative term to apply to any mutual investment, regardless of returns, so myopic.

Families are "socialist". Investing in each other and their young.

Wealthy families are even more "socialist". Dramatically so. Investing in offspring through childhood, higher education, and often long after.

For good reason. Education and health have a compounding impact on people's potentials, for themselves and as a benefit to others.

Key word here is: Compounding

That being said, all investments must be prioritized against a total balance sheet. Debt also compounds. And Kerala demonstrates health and education are a matter of prioritization of efforts, even more so than money.

EDIT: Not promoting actual Socialism. Which has been demonstrated to be catastrophically unstable, quickly transforming into an authoritarianism of elites, inevitably economically propped up by a "free market", either ad hoc, underground or as a "dual" system. Critiquing a particular brand of "anti-socialism" in the U.S. that can best be described as anti-national investment in people, without consideration for specifics or benefits, and often agnostic on corporate subsidies.

by Nevermark

3/28/2025 at 6:19:00 PM

Are families socialist, or clannish and nepotistic? I don't think you can run a country like a family, especially a multicultural transcontinental one.

by schnable

3/28/2025 at 11:18:03 PM

I think family loyalty is deep rooted, where as socialism is something people debate (maybe more a mix of neocortex I.e. planning and lower emotions coming from morality and political identification)

No matter what their politics most people will look out for their family especially their kids.

by nextts

3/28/2025 at 7:26:19 PM

I would say there is a high socialist elements - a parent doesn't have to sacrifice their economic comfort or even time just to give their kids a better education or better lifestyle. But many do so.

by thisislife2

3/28/2025 at 6:36:12 PM

I completely agree. I am not suggesting actual socialism, which has failed spectacularly.

Added edit to clarify.

by Nevermark