There are a lot of interesting comments here, and I especially appreciate the comments from people who know India (a place I have never been). The author of the submitted article says he grew up mostly in India and in Minnesota, the place where I was born, grew up, and now live. The article seems to suggest, with its anecdote
"She leads a simple life (impoverished even, by American standards), but she is immeasurably better off than she was a couple of decades ago. She grew up in a thatch hut. Now she lives in a house with a concrete roof, running water and electricity. Her son owns a cellphone and drives a motorcycle. Her niece is going to college.
"But not long before we talked, there had been a murder in the area, the latest in a series of violent attacks and killings. Shops that hadn’t existed a decade ago were boarded up in anticipation of further violence; the police patrolled newly tarred roads."
that crime will increase when "Americanization" happens to a society. I think that is a mistaken conclusion. I have lived overseas, for two three-years stays, in Taiwan, both before and after Taiwan's democratization. Reduction in crime seems to depend crucially on both effective law enforcement and on a civil society that builds cohesion and community norms against crime. Rapidly transforming societies--in whatever direction they are transforming--seem to suffer a breakdown of social order and an increase in crime rate. That's just what was happening in the United States as I grew up. But today crime rates in the United States are actually much lower, for nearly all types of crime, and especially for violent crime, than they were in my early adulthood. My Minnesota neighborhood and the whole large suburban municipality surrounding it is essentially crime-free, with almost the only life-threatening form of crime being driving while drunk. My whole family, including my young children, can walk or bicycle anywhere within more than a five-mile radius at any hour of day or night and have no fear of any kind of crime. I have urban habits formed in childhood of looking the door of our house every evening, but it's no worry if we ever leave the house without looking it up, and possessions like bicycles and skateboards and patio furniture can be left outdoors unattended for days on end with no one stealing them or damaging them.
More generally, in view of the many interesting comments here, I think India has a much brighter future from today than, say, China. India has a great many problems, according to every person from India I know, but India has a free press and moderately fair elections and a great deal of openness about talking about societal problems. China, by contrast, does not permit such open criticism of corruption, political favoritism, and police inaction against crime as is routine in India. Both because India has a government that must be accountable to voters and a free press to watch the government, and because people from India have access through the English language to the consequences of different political and economic systems around the world, I expect India to fix more of its problems more smoothly over the next few decades than China, and ultimately to be a leading example for countries around the world in how to build a cohesive, diverse, and thriving society with much freedom to choose the best of the traditional and modern.
"She leads a simple life (impoverished even, by American standards), but she is immeasurably better off than she was a couple of decades ago. She grew up in a thatch hut. Now she lives in a house with a concrete roof, running water and electricity. Her son owns a cellphone and drives a motorcycle. Her niece is going to college.
"But not long before we talked, there had been a murder in the area, the latest in a series of violent attacks and killings. Shops that hadn’t existed a decade ago were boarded up in anticipation of further violence; the police patrolled newly tarred roads."
that crime will increase when "Americanization" happens to a society. I think that is a mistaken conclusion. I have lived overseas, for two three-years stays, in Taiwan, both before and after Taiwan's democratization. Reduction in crime seems to depend crucially on both effective law enforcement and on a civil society that builds cohesion and community norms against crime. Rapidly transforming societies--in whatever direction they are transforming--seem to suffer a breakdown of social order and an increase in crime rate. That's just what was happening in the United States as I grew up. But today crime rates in the United States are actually much lower, for nearly all types of crime, and especially for violent crime, than they were in my early adulthood. My Minnesota neighborhood and the whole large suburban municipality surrounding it is essentially crime-free, with almost the only life-threatening form of crime being driving while drunk. My whole family, including my young children, can walk or bicycle anywhere within more than a five-mile radius at any hour of day or night and have no fear of any kind of crime. I have urban habits formed in childhood of looking the door of our house every evening, but it's no worry if we ever leave the house without looking it up, and possessions like bicycles and skateboards and patio furniture can be left outdoors unattended for days on end with no one stealing them or damaging them.
More generally, in view of the many interesting comments here, I think India has a much brighter future from today than, say, China. India has a great many problems, according to every person from India I know, but India has a free press and moderately fair elections and a great deal of openness about talking about societal problems. China, by contrast, does not permit such open criticism of corruption, political favoritism, and police inaction against crime as is routine in India. Both because India has a government that must be accountable to voters and a free press to watch the government, and because people from India have access through the English language to the consequences of different political and economic systems around the world, I expect India to fix more of its problems more smoothly over the next few decades than China, and ultimately to be a leading example for countries around the world in how to build a cohesive, diverse, and thriving society with much freedom to choose the best of the traditional and modern.