Hutton and Desai: United in Error
Subroto Roy
In an engaging debate in Prospect Magazine about a year ago, republished at China Digital Times, Will Hutton and Meghnad Desai have made the same cardinal error: they have assumed (like almost everyone else who has considered China’s or India’s recent macroeconomics) that savings rates are some astronomical figure.
Typical official fallacies in both countries include thinking that clever bureaucratic use of such high savings rates can and does cause high growth. In fact, real growth arises not because of what politicians and bureaucrats do but because of spontaneous technological progress, improved productivity and learning-by-doing of the general population ~ mostly despite not because of an exploitative parasitic State.
Here is Hutton on this issue: “China’s economic growth is based on the state channelling vast under-priced savings into huge investment … How much longer can China’s state-owned banks carry on directing billions of dollars of savings into investments that produce tiny or even negative returns…” (italics added)
Here is Desai: “China has achieved rapid growth with a policy of under-consumption and over-saving… China… now has 10.4 per cent growth on a 44 per cent savings rate….” (italics added)
What has been mismeasured as high savings in China and India is actually the expansion of bank-deposits in a fractional reserve banking system induced by runaway government deficit-spending.
On the basis of Indian evidence, I said this in public for the first time at Patrick Minford’s seminar on monetary economics at Cardiff and a week later at the IEA London in the spring of 2005 in a lecture titled “Can India become a superpower or will there be a monetary meltdown?” My recent general articles in The Statesman “The Dream Team: A Critique”, “Fallacious Finance”, “Against Quackery” etc speak a little more of this in the Indian case. What little I have seen of Chinese evidence indicates a similar phenomenon at work.
I said in 2005:”New technological progress in a myriad of ways, as well as the discovery of new resources… are all important factors contributing to real economic growth in India today. While the real side of the economy does well, the “nominal” economy, within the Government’s control, displays disconcerting trends. Continual deficit financing for half a century has led to exponential growth of public debt and broad money. The vast growth of time-deposits in banks may have been misinterpreted as indicating a real phenomenon such as unusual savings behaviour when it is more likely to be a nominal phenomenon resulting from increasing amounts of government debt being held by the largely nationalised banking sector. (The same may be true of China).”
As for growth-rates, before anyone at all waffles on about China’s and India’s allegedly high growth-rates, it is best to bring to mind a little hard evidence from other countries eg Germany and Japan where growth was starting from devastated post-War initial conditions:
West Germany: 6.6% in 1950-1960, falling to 3.5% by 1960-1970, and 2.4% by 1970-1978. Japan: 6.8% in 1952-1960; 9.4% in 1960-1970, 3.8% in 1970-1978.
China and India sustaining 8%, 9%, 10% annual growth of per capita real GDP for years on end? Naaaaah. Or rather, if you believe that, you will believe anything.
Independent Indian: Work & Life of Professor Subroto Roy 
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