**Brilliant and engagingly written, Why Nations Fail answers the
question that has stumped the experts for centuries: Why are some
nations rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and
sickness, food and famine?
*
***Is it culture, the weather, geography? Perhaps ignorance of what the
right policies are?
Simply, no. None of these factors is either definitive or destiny.
Otherwise, how to explain why Botswana has become one of the fastest
growing countries in the world, while other African nations, such as
Zimbabwe, the Congo, and Sierra Leone, are mired in poverty and
violence?
Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson conclusively show that it is man-made
political and economic institutions that underlie economic success (or
lack of it). Korea, to take just one of their fascinating examples, is a
remarkably homogeneous nation, yet the people of North Korea are among
the poorest on earth while their brothers and sisters in South Korea are
among the richest. The south forged a society that created incentives,
rewarded innovation, and allowed everyone to participate in economic
opportunities.
The economic success thus spurred was sustained because the government
became accountable and responsive to citizens and the great mass of
people. Sadly, the people of the north have endured decades of famine,
political repression, and very different economic institutions--with no
end in sight. The differences between the Koreas is due to the politics
that created these completely different institutional trajectories.
Based on fifteen years of original research Acemoglu and Robinson
marshall extraordinary historical evidence from the Roman Empire, the
Mayan city-states, medieval Venice, the Soviet Union, Latin America,
England, Europe, the United States, and Africa to build a new theory of
political economy with great relevance for the big questions of today,
including:
- China has built an authoritarian growth machine. Will it continue to
grow at such high speed and overwhelm the West?
- Are America's best days behind it? Are we moving from a virtuous
circle in which efforts by elites to aggrandize power are resisted to a
vicious one that enriches and empowers a small minority?
- What is the most effective way to help move billions of people from
the rut of poverty to prosperity? More philanthropy from the wealthy
nations of the West? Or learning the hard-won lessons of Acemoglu and
Robinson's breakthrough ideas on the interplay between inclusive
political and economic institutions?
Why Nations Fail will change the way you look at--and
understand--the world.
