Kerala Rising: From Exporting People to Exporting Ideas · Page 17 of 353

KERALA RISING · FROM EXPORTING PEOPLE TO EXPORTING IDEAS

KERALA RISING · FROM EXPORTING PEOPLE TO EXPORTING IDEAS
actions, and to house the capability in a permanent,
publicly-owned institution that can be reused across
many outcomes rather than rebuilt for each. The
assessment below considers whether that claim is
sound, whether the economics are credible, and
whether the risks are manageable.
Whether the central claims hold up
Three claims carry the framework, and each can be
checked against evidence already in the public
domain rather than taken on the author’s word.
– That the mechanism works. The claim that
visible, recognised, socially-reinforced behaviour
changes a population is not speculative here; it
is the documented basis of this state’s own
literacy campaign, its decentralisation of power
to local bodies, its cooperative and
neighbourhood-group movements, and the speed
of its adoption of digital payments. The
framework is best read as an attempt to do
deliberately, and across more outcomes, what
has already happened by circumstance.
– That it is now affordable. The historical obstacle
was the cost of verifying millions of small
actions, which once required labour no
administration could justify. Published figures on
the cost of automated verification show that cost
has fallen to a fraction of a rupee per action and
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