Similar comparisons could be made between Burma and Thailand, the former having had the higher standard of living before instituting socialism, and the latter a much higher standard of living afterwards. Other countries—India, Germany, China, New Zealand, South Korea, Sri Lanka—have experienced sharp upturns in their economies when they freed those economies from many government controls and relied more on prices to allocate resources. As of 1960, India and South Korea were at comparable economic levels but, by the late 1980s, South Korea’s per capita income was ten times that in India.
– Thomas Sowell, Ph.D., Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy p. 44
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