PEN-L message, Re: Infant mortality rate, etc.

Another example of this is that education of Arab women has improved and generally more men and women have become literate. but the qulaity of education on avearge is lower and its contribution to the economy is lower. see UNDP arab human development report. moreover rise of islamic fundemnatalism lowered the rate of represetaion of women in politics that in turn made them more frustrated because they more educated.

Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I've been following a rather interesting debate on Doug Henwood's list
about India. Ulhas Joglekar, who was subbed to both the Marxism list and
PEN-L, and somebody named Sujeet Bhatt, are stressing capitalist dynamism
in order to discredit the series of articles that Alex Cockburn has been
writing about India for Counterpunch that, as might be expected, focus on
peasant suicides, etc.. One thing caught my eye, however. When Carrol Cox
asked about infant mortality, life expectancy, etc., Sujeet produced
numbers that demonstrated steady improvement since 1955. The implication is
that capitalism can solve India's problems. I wrote Carrol Cox a note that
pointed out that Nicaragua rated higher than India based on the 2004 UN
Human Development Indicators report. Since Nicaragua is one of the poorest
countries in the Western Hemisphere, I wondered how useful stats such as
these can be. Here's something else to ponder. Going to the same website
from which Sujeet produced his figures, I found the following numbers for
Nicaragua:

Infant mortality rate
Year (per 1000 live births)
1960: 130
1970: 113
1980: 85.0
1990: 52.0
2000: 34.0
2002: 32.0

So, based solely on these figures, one might assume that things keep
getting better and better in Nicaragua. I can't believe that's true,
however. It suggests to me that a better measure is needed. I seem to
remember reading a while back that cheap antibiotics have helped enormously
in poor countries, but that poverty remains intractable. Perhaps a more
holistic approach is needed to gauge a country's progress.

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