Other countries: I can’t think of any other major country offhand. China, perhaps, in some ways comes closest.

The US, too, with all its pretensions of being a democracy is a very restrictive country, whose political spectrum consists of just 2 political parties (the others don’t really have a major say)- one is at best a center- right party and the other is conservative, right wing.

As William Greider points out in The Nation, the market being able to self- regulate is a flawed idea.

Free markets are not really free, as the Indian development economist Sukhomay Chakravarty pointed out.

What seems to have been borne out from the experience of the second half of the 20th century is that power of the state has been necessary to establish “free- markets”. This may not necessarily be a dictatorship. I think Chile is an extreme case- perhaps the logic of Friedman’s ideas reaching a logical culmination.

The worse thing was that Friedman was happy to support a regime that implemented his ideas, overlooking the brutality of Pinochet’s regime.

I am not a economist, a chartered accountant but like to read on economy generally

A question which has been my mind for a long time is that why government organisation even those who are in business tends to be inefficient compared to private organisation

I am really surprised to read that % spent on defence has declined in the US – the absolutes are huge. maybe they are accounting for it more creatively or that the GDP of the country has gone up so much that the defence spend seems low. but, in absolute terms its still quite high. The only blips were in the ‘balance the books’ clinton era.

Also,the fact remains that all spending impacts growth – be it yours and mine or the defence industry.

i am probably being harsh on both Thatcher and Reagan – i honestly believe that history will treat them harsher than contemporary politics has.

Thank you for you kind words.

as far as i remember there were no large wars during the reaganite years..in which the u.s. had participated. thatcher worked up a lot of hysteria on the falklands but that was hardly a war..
military spending in the u.s had actually taken a steep dive from 7% (of gdp) in the 80s to around 3.5 in the 90s and around 4.5 % now..so what war spending are we talking about? a new theory is currently gaining ground that large military spending is no longer necessary to fuel growth… perhaps you’re being a little harsh on friedman acolytes? and unjust to the genuine achievements of the economies you refer to? an excellent overview.. best i’ve read in the indian blogworld..

bhupinder,
what other economic/political dictators can one think of apart from chile and pinochet?