Pranab Bardhan at his own Substack:
I had a visceral distaste for the country’s imperial hegemony and its support of oppressive regimes all over the world in the name of fighting the Cold War. The ongoing Vietnam War was an obvious irritant. At the same time, I knew that in the world of new ideas, entrepreneurial innovations and academic excellence, American pre-eminence was undeniable.
In fact, coming from an extremely hierarchical Indian society and then from the class snobbery that pervades in England, in some sense the American social scene was a bit of fresh air for me, somewhat contrary to what I had expected (and guessed from reading about the country’s dark history of racial oppression and discrimination). At MIT where Joe Stiglitz and I were hired as young economics assistant professors at the same time, our offices were close together, and both Joe and I used to work until quite late. Late evenings the janitors (mostly black) would come to sweep the floors and clean the bins and the toilets. Sometimes they’d sit down in our rooms and chat with us about the latest in sports, weather or politics. To Joe, this was routine; he did not realize how pleasantly out of the ordinary it was for me, coming from India. To this day in India, I have never seen a sweeper or a toilet cleaner daring to sit and chat with professors (or with students, for that matter). So that was a refreshing experience.
More here.
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