Why Nations Fail- book review
I recently completed reading “Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty” by Daron Acemoglu & James Robinson. The book was recommended by Andy and it turned out to be a fascinating read, even more so once you consider a former person’s “shithole” nations comment.
So why do nations fail? In a word: Extraction.
What do I mean by that? First, look at the pattern of western colonialism. All western European nations engaged in conquest and colonialism primarily for extraction purposes. The goal was to get as much wealth out of their possessions overseas as possible, whether it be gold or timber or agriculture.
Eventually, the colonizers left , but never really instilled a solid model of governance. So when the native population takes over, strongmen implement their own locally sourced extractive policies on their own people, following the pattern that was left to them.
In contrast, for example, the USA was an outgrowth of what the English wanted to be extractive, but conditions in North America were not conducive to real extractive operations. Additionally, colonists from England had come from a tradition which had grown and evolved to be more participatory at many levels of their social structure so there wasn’t a history or pattern of full extractive power in England. So when colonists came to North America, it was for the purposes of starting their own life there, rather than to plunder the new lands.
While it didn’t really come up in the book, one could think of Russia as a failed nation. Russia went from the extractive nobility dominating serf-operated society (where there was extraction from the peasantry) to the Bolshevick/Communist domination extracting from the entire society (while enriching the few at the top of the party food chain) to the current Russia post-USSR where the mad race for acquisition and extraction has been dominated by a corrupt few oligarchs with ties to the political leadership.
On another topical point for the USA- migration. There is a current political fight and blame-game over the immigrants from Latin America coming to the USA. It should be recalled that many of these nations were once extraction victims of the Spanish empire. As noted above, when the Spanish left, local people merely took over the task of extracting from their own people. As the late 1800s and all through the mid-1900s progressed, the USA became a defacto extractor, supporting coups and dictators for the earlier reasons of supporting American corporations such as United Fruit and then later due to the desire to ward off communist influence in the western Hemisphere. The USA supported extraction for our own political purposes. The key to reducing and eliminating migrants coming to our southern border would be the cost of assisting the Latin American nations in developing a true non-extractive political economy. It would cost us money, but considering we took so much for over 100 years it is a debt we should pay.
Unfortunately, with rising inequality here at home along with extractive vultures on Wall Street, we are ourselves in danger of becoming a failed state as well.
