{"id":12367,"date":"2012-08-12T05:32:20","date_gmt":"2012-08-12T05:32:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=12367"},"modified":"2012-08-12T05:32:52","modified_gmt":"2012-08-12T05:32:52","slug":"state-failure-is-the-child-of-oligarchy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=12367","title":{"rendered":"State Failure is the Child of Oligarchy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>An interesting piece in <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.democracyjournal.org\/\">Democracy Journal<\/a><\/strong> by <strong>James Kwak<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.democracyjournal.org\/25\/failure-is-an-option.php\">Failure Is an Option<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>&#8230;.Countries differ in their economic success because of their different institutions, the rules influencing how the economy works, and the incentives that motivate people,\u201d write Acemoglu and Robinson. Extractive institutions, whether feudalism in medieval Europe or the use of schoolchildren to harvest cotton in contemporary Uzbekistan, transfer wealth from the masses to elites. In contrast, inclusive institutions\u2014based on property rights, the rule of law, equal provision of public services, and free economic choices\u2014create incentives for citizens to gain skills, make capital investments, and pursue technological innovation, all of which increase productivity and generate wealth. Economic institutions are themselves the products of political processes, which depend on political institutions. These can also be extractive, if they enable an elite to maintain its dominance over society, or inclusive, if many groups have access to the political process. Poverty is not an accident: \u201c[P]oor countries are poor because those who have power make choices that create poverty.\u201d Therefore, Acemoglu and Robinson argue, it is ultimately politics that matters.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>The logic of extractive and inclusive institutions explains why growth is not foreordained. Where a cohesive elite can use its political dominance to get rich at the expense of ordinary people, it has no need for markets and free enterprise, which can create political competitors. In addition, because control of the state can be highly lucrative, infighting among contenders for power produces instability and violence. This vicious circle keeps societies poor. In more fortunate countries, pluralistic political institutions prevent any one group from monopolizing resources for itself, while free markets empower a large class of people with an interest in defending the current system against absolutism. This virtuous circle, which first took form in seventeenth-century England, is the secret to economic growth&#8230;.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Read the rest <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.democracyjournal.org\/25\/failure-is-an-option.php\">here.<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An interesting piece in Democracy Journal by James Kwak: Failure Is an Option &#8230;.Countries differ in their economic success because of their different institutions, the rules influencing how the economy works, and the incentives that motivate people,\u201d write Acemoglu and Robinson. Extractive institutions, whether feudalism in medieval Europe or the use of schoolchildren to harvest [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[216,46,215,132,65,332,524,425,51,78,336,492,588,218,187,558,381,10,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academia","category-analytic","category-culture","category-dystopia","category-economic-determinism","category-economics","category-evolution","category-government","category-history","category-ideas","category-intellectuals","category-leadership","category-oligarchy","category-philosophy","category-politics","category-social-science","category-society","category-state-failure","category-theory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12367"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12373,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12367\/revisions\/12373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}