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."
Jason Onyimbo –
1984 addresses totalitarianism. We are taken on a journey into a world where it is the only system of rule. We learn that the people under such a rule feel powerless and too divided to fight back. So, they simply accept whatever they are told.
Their lives are pre-tailored to suit the system, and it is how they must live until they die. Such a system creates soulless or broken people with zero identity or independence, which keeps the ruling class ever – powerful. Totalitarianism is gross oppression and must never be allowed to take hold in any system, whether a nation, a classroom, or a family.
A government such as this feeds off the submission of the masses and assures itself of more control by instilling fear through scare tactics and mental domination. Such a system operates on lies, a subversion of truth and history to keep the populace in check. It is a perversion to the usual way people are supposed to express their rights to have freedom, facts of history, and truth.
Totalitarianism makes a clear distinction between the rich and the poor. The poor believe that such a lowly status is the best they can get in life. Their reality is warped; rather than focusing on their financial lack, they instead work against each other.
This style of government is targeted at the public’s psyche as it seeks to control them without applying physical pressure. Instead, it breaks down individuals from the inside out, robbing them of the will to question, rebel, or harbor any thoughts that aren’t sanctioned or informed by the ruling class.
Chief, the NuriaStore bookseller –
If science fiction, sociology, political fiction, and dystopia are literary bread for your teeth, then the number one title is undoubtedly 1984.
In a post-atomic scenario that to say disturbing is an understatement, the superpower of Oceania is governed by a totalitarian party headed by the so-called Big Brother. Shivering down my spine.