The sociology of the slowdown

The last economics guy to take sociology into account was Milton Friedman, says the author

Here’s a hypothesis about the slowdown in two parts that better minds than mine should test: First, the current economic slowdown has its roots more in sociology than in economics; second, it applies only to urban India and, even there, to that subset which can consume things other than food and wage goods in quantities large enough to make a difference. The number is very tiny: Around 50-70 million people, of whom the self-employed are around 75 per cent.

Meanwhile, urbanisation has resulted in what I call the pre-nuclear family problem, where a full joint family has been replaced by a