'Capitalism is king' watch

Today's what-if question is derived from a Cato institute report that tackles the following question: "What if India had liberalized sooner"? (India followed a Soviet based socialist model of development until 1980. In 1981, the finance minister opened up the doors a bit inviting direct foreign investment... (via)

It finds that with earlier reform, 14.5 million more children would have survived, 261 million more Indians would have become literate, and 109 million more people would have risen above the poverty line. The delay in economic reform represents an enormous social tragedy. It drives home the point that India’s socialist era, which claimed it would deliver growth with social justice, delivered neither.

I am not advocating Soviet style five year planning run by hypnotized apparatchiks, but I am left wondering how many countries (whose stated aim is to get to consumption patterns akin to the United States) can the world sustain responsibly at any one point of time without catastrophic breakdown? This article on 'Chimerica' is an eye opener - albeit more narrowly focussed towards the US China imbalance...

By the way, has anyone bothered to look at the steady state economy model?