The media is feeding on the boastful self-confidence of a newly invigorated entrepreneurial class in India, and on the growing irritation with the Indian upstart in the Chinese leadership. To say these two countries will dominate the global economy in 50 years if they stay on their present trajectories is undoubtedly true. But to take for granted that they will succeed in doing so is naive.

Both countries are in the early stages of transformation from pre-capitalist to capitalist societies and this transition is, by its very nature, jarring. The transition closes old avenues of progress and opens new ones, creating new winners and new losers by the hundreds of thousands. The faster the rate of economic change, the less time given to existing social institutions to adapt, and the greater, therefore, is the propensity for violent change.

This book examines the interaction of economic with political and social change in China and India as they have progressed down the road to capitalism. It examines the social and political conflicts that the market has unleashed, and the success and failure of the countries in trying to contain it.