The Indian Express reports Banerjee's recipe for dealing with poverty- 'There is so much prejudice about the abilities of the poor. Give the very poor some asset. Not lend, but give them an asset. Maybe a cow, some goats or trinkets to sell, then you look what happens to these people after 10 years. They will be 25 per cent richer, they will be healthier and happier. It encourages them to keep trying and they work harder than the people who didn’t get the assets,” he said.
Which country escaped poverty by giving people 'some goats' or 'a cow' or 'some trinkets'? None at all. India has too many cows. It needs to reduce not increase the bovine populations. Goats are probably better for the environment than cows but more goats means more kids stay out of school. As for the notion that everybody should sell trinkets to everybody else- this was the panacea micro-finance maven Dr. Vikram Akula was touting a few years back- the evidence is that it traps people in poverty.
How did Japan and South Korea and China and so forth get rich? How are some Indian States climbing up? Is it by keeping kids out of school to chase after goats or cows? Is it by getting women to go around selling each other trinkets? No. Of course not. Don't be silly. Even Amartya Sen recognizes that what has to happen is rural women being transferred into factory dormitories such that they earn rather than breed. Kids need to stay in school. Goats and Cows and selling trinkets should be a declining portion of National Income. Manufacturing and high value adding Services have to take off. In China, the average person was about equal to the average Indian in 1990. But there was massive urbanization via an export led manufacturing boom. By 2000, the average Chinese person was twice as well off as the average Indian. Now they are five times as well off. How was this achieved? Goats? Cows? Trinkets?
Banerjee is in the poverty business. His absolute advantage is in having a brown skin and being from India. Naturally, he wants to keep India poor. He foresees a long life measuring the impact of giving people goats. I suggest that very poor Indians are each given an Abhijit Banerjee. The dung produced by a Banerjee can fertilize the soil. It can sell trinkets- like Nobel Gold Medals. After 10 years, a poor person who received an Abhijit Banerjee may be 25 per cent better off- if they sell the Banerjee's hide and consume its meat. However, there is a dark side to this rosy picture. The bleating of Banerjees is unpleasant to the ears. They don't smell good. They may invade your garden and eat up all the roses. Children have to skip school to chase after them. Already we see the kids at JNU are not showing up for classes. It may be that they are having to chase after their Banerjees collecting their precious dung. Consider what happened to Rahul Baba when his Mummy got him a Banerjee. He became so frazzled chasing after it to collect its precious dung that he had to give up being Congress President.
Why do not Banerjee and Duflo help American and French citizens by getting them goats and some trinkets to sell? Is it because America already has Banerjees in plenty while France is more interested in leaping after frogs to bite off their tasty legs? I don't know. Lack of a JNU credential is the cause of my lamentable ignorance in this respect.
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