Singapore's state capitalism vs. the Indian economy: comparing the economic systems of two potential allies

This paper studies the phenomenon of “State Capitalism”, undertaking a comparative analysis of the economies of Singapore and India, two potentially strong Asian allies in today’s global economic order. Practised and adopted in many variants over the world, the “New” variant of “State Capitalism” as pursued in the emerging city-nation of Singapore has enabled it to achieve remarkable successes, posing challenges to bigger economies. India, on the other hand, began its newly independent planned industrialization under a conventional “State Capitalism” regime, but soon got mired in bureaucratic shackling. Subsequent to widespread Structural Adjustment Programmes in 1991, it is only recently that India has started emerging as a strength-gathering and rapidly developing nation, although its successes, compared to Singapore, have been modest on many fronts. This paper compares the two nations’ performances on various aspects including economic, political and a body of “freedom indices” using Time Series data on National Accounts and other selected economic indicators. “Freedom” indices for both countries are found to be correlated to respective economic indicators. Singapore is found to have much healthier economic indicators with higher “freedom” rankings. The lessons India can emulate from Singapore’s development experiences are also highlighted.