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Why Nations Fail

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  • Why Nations Fail

    Why Nations Fail

    The New York Times
    The Opinion Pages
    March 31, 2012

    By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

    I'M reading a fascinating new book called `Why Nations Fail.' The more
    you read it, the more you appreciate what a fool's errand we're on in
    Afghanistan and how much we need to totally revamp our whole foreign
    aid strategy. But most intriguing are the warning flares the authors
    put up about both America and China.

    Co-authored by the M.I.T. economist Daron Acemoglu and the Harvard
    political scientist James A. Robinson, `Why Nations Fail' argues that
    the key differentiator between countries is `institutions.' Nations
    thrive when they develop `inclusive' political and economic
    institutions, and they fail when those institutions become
    `extractive' and concentrate power and opportunity in the hands of
    only a few.

    `Inclusive economic institutions that enforce property rights, create
    a level playing field, and encourage investments in new technologies
    and skills are more conducive to economic growth than extractive
    economic institutions that are structured to extract resources from
    the many by the few,' they write.

    `Inclusive economic institutions, are in turn supported by, and
    support, inclusive political institutions,' which `distribute
    political power widely in a pluralistic manner and are able to achieve
    some amount of political centralization so as to establish law and
    order, the foundations of secure property rights, and an inclusive
    market economy.' Conversely, extractive political institutions that
    concentrate power in the hands of a few reinforce extractive economic
    institutions to hold power.

    Acemoglu explained in an interview that their core point is that
    countries thrive when they build political and economic institutions
    that `unleash,' empower and protect the full potential of each citizen
    to innovate, invest and develop. Compare how well Eastern Europe has
    done since the fall of communism with post-Soviet states like Georgia
    or Uzbekistan, or Israel versus the Arab states, or Kurdistan versus
    the rest of Iraq. It's all in the institutions.
    The lesson of history, the authors argue, is that you can't get your
    economics right if you don't get your politics right, which is why
    they don't buy the notion that China has found the magic formula for
    combining political control and economic growth.

    `Our analysis,' says Acemoglu, `is that China is experiencing growth
    under extractive institutions - under the authoritarian grip of the
    Communist Party, which has been able to monopolize power and mobilize
    resources at a scale that has allowed for a burst of economic growth
    starting from a very low base,' but it's not sustainable because it
    doesn't foster the degree of `creative destruction' that is so vital
    for innovation and higher incomes.

    `Sustained economic growth requires innovation,' the authors write,
    `and innovation cannot be decoupled from creative destruction, which
    replaces the old with the new in the economic realm and also
    destabilizes established power relations in politics.'

    `Unless China makes the transition to an economy based on creative
    destruction, its growth will not last,' argues Acemoglu. But can you
    imagine a 20-year-old college dropout in China being allowed to start
    a company that challenges a whole sector of state-owned Chinese
    companies funded by state-owned banks? he asks.

    The post-9/11 view that what ailed the Arab world and Afghanistan was
    a lack of democracy was not wrong, said Acemoglu. What was wrong was
    thinking that we could easily export it. Democratic change, to be
    sustainable, has to emerge from grassroots movements, `but that does
    not mean there is nothing we can do,' he adds.

    For instance, we should be transitioning away from military aid to
    regimes like Egypt and focusing instead on enabling more sectors of
    that society to have a say in politics. Right now, I'd argue, our
    foreign aid to Egypt, Pakistan and Afghanistan is really a ransom we
    pay their elites not to engage in bad behavior. We need to turn it
    into bait.

    Acemoglu suggests that instead of giving Cairo another $1.3 billion in
    military aid that only reinforces part of the elite, we should insist
    that Egypt establish a committee representing all sectors of its
    society that would tell us which institutions - schools, hospitals -
    they want foreign aid to go to, and have to develop appropriate
    proposals.
    If we're going to give money, `let's use it to force them to open up
    the table and to strengthen the grass-roots,' says Acemoglu.

    We can only be a force multiplier. Where you have grass-roots
    movements that want to build inclusive institutions, we can enhance
    them. But we can't create or substitute for them. Worse, in
    Afghanistan and many Arab states, our policies have often discouraged
    grass-roots from emerging by our siding with convenient strongmen. So
    there's nothing to multiply. If you multiply zero by 100, you still
    get zero.

    And America? Acemoglu worries that our huge growth in economic
    inequality is undermining the inclusiveness of America's institutions,
    too. `The real problem is that economic inequality, when it becomes
    this large, translates into political inequality.' When one person can
    write a check to finance your whole campaign, how inclusive will you
    be as an elected official to listen to competing voices?

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