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Why Nations Fail,
by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson (2012, Crown Books.)
In
the event you are interested in such things and cannot read this
text, at least read the book preface that outlines the latest from
“Arab Spring”, and “Jasmine Revolution” and the like. The
text itself is rich in the images of things like
corruption and societal backwardness, institutional and societal
inertia and lack of ambition and ingenuity that pervades the politics
and administration today of different, in fact unequal and
dynamically conflicted states that are first embattled in different
ways and then disowned by the overriding international community.
These same characteristics, the authors propose, and other key ones
appear again and again among states in the failure endgame, though it
does seem the patterns and permanence of some momentous and more
successful revolutions, and the models of 1688 England and 1789
France are often used in the text, are also illustrated and the
proposition of the failed state is not necessarily an end to either
the revolutions in various regions nor the direct result of
internecine strife such as that in Central Africa at this point.
Though no particular mention is made of it in this narrative, there
are specific applications of the text at hand to Eastern Europe and
its economics and politics especially (1986 – present.)
In
illustrating a political thesis about a makeup of failed states that
is introduced in its details in greater detail throughout the text,
the author begins with an illustration of cross – border societies,
one violent and completely indigent, one more wealthy, that have deep
– seated reasons, dating in fact to the Age of Discovery, for their
greatly contrasting socio – economic environments. It does appear
and with validity that is in the history books, the authors have
proposed that the politics of old, and going back many generations to when
the world itself began to be properly mapped and to the origins of
political spheres of influence, had more to do with a corporate
partnership with various crowns that greatly augmented political
scope and power of the royalty to the benefit of society, mostly to
the bourgeoisie and the rich, but really to everyone. The relation
of the Conquistadors to the Spanish crown is presented as a case in
point here, as are some of the overseas ventures of the English in
the early days, Napoleonic France in part, and other more modern
examples of empire (the soviets, in fact, might have used this older
model in their influence – pedaling and propaganda efforts over the
years). With this model in mind, and that monetary wealth had
depended upon growth models of the time, and that those growth models
have changed to include more and more intangibles, such wealth had
often been the result of society's policies and the edicts of the
various crowns. To the extent people themselves had not been able to
participate in this process, even in the economic models of today
that are the engines of growth and prosperity, first little
inequalities presented themselves, not really defined nor distinct;
but these became rapidly greater and greater and more marked in
places like the UK and the Americas and Canada, in places like
Australia and New Zealand, China, Japan, and Singapore. Said
disparities become even more obvious in the examination of the
Pacific island countries, Sub – Saharan Africa, places in South and
Southeast Asia, and other places that are immediately more heart –
rending in the media today – Afghanistan and the Middle East
overall as well.
One
might explain the general drudgery and poor circumstances of some of
these territories through an age – old thesis of those countries of
the tropics of Capricorn and Cancer and the corresponding and
intrinsic wealth of places in the Americas, for instance: A kind of
“tropical disease” where the “hot” countries, given their
location as well on the globe, do not do as well economically as
those in the Northern climates. There are cultural hypotheses that
apply and are affected by the contrasting evidence of inequalities
between various places, even across delineated borders and rivers
like the Rio Grande in the US / Mexico. Additionally, there are
ideas as to failures of various governance through lack of proper
succession of the leadership over time, ineffability and willful
ignorance of the imperatives of proper business and commerce in
places; communism, of course; and as a real outlier, rule of the
populace by what are essentially an ascendance of a group or groups
of ignorant poor given various conflicts and the scarcity of good
leadership in some systems. These actual circumstances in some
places render proper economic considerations that ordinarily enrich a
country completely moot, and this where governing authorities and
other stakeholders are in search of payoffs only at the exclusion of
citizens' rights, a prospering home rule with reasonable or better
living standards, or any common – sense measures of socio –
economic success or accomplishment as we ordinarily know them.
Today, North Korea might be cited as an obvious and impossible
example of this.
The
authors propose models to remedy this and these are varied, but
mostly depend upon paying attention to the benefits and obligations
of Western economics and capital formation, even to the extent of
failed regimes making an effort about having profitable private
business and institutions as well as leading indicators. This
presents prosperity not as a completely wasteful and dirty
undertaking as Marx proposed it is at least for the most part, but as
a choice in which governance and the institutions of society function
with a political imperative or imperatives that promote reasonable
and steady, sustainable economic growth even today, again with the
“green” or multi – feature approach with environmental
considerations and other trends of the day. The thesis of the text
goes beyond this, and is for every economist, professional or
amateur, or anyone who follows current events and knows of systemic
and political attrition as provoked by socio – economic failure, to
read through and respond, and not to what is a provocation, but to an
avoidance of economic plagues and the kind of serfdom that is an
issue at present not only for the worker and working professionals
all over, but in consideration of different, various and marked
economic successes and failures as illustrated that await every
nation – state whose chiefs are uninformed on such matters. Though
the text presents (and this runs on) the idea as well that economic
and political, etc., histories are extremely important in the failure
analysis at hand, and the cause – and – effect administration of
some regimes past and present, that without some analysis of
difficulties examined therein using the methods presented again
therein, or at least some method that one might agree upon, we are
all due only the limited and arithmetically marginal prosperity and
growth, if any, in our economic, monetary and other incomes,
productivity, capital growth and other benefits of Western economics,
as a result of lacking in our ability to adapt to new levels of
analysis and conclusion in looking at modern economics as they are;
and then acting upon this for the benefit (and corresponding calling
to everyone to contribute to society) that accrues to each and every
one of us. The disconcerting thing about such an idea is it purports
to represent a kind of “end of capital” as Francis Fukuyama
presented the idea in his popular books and talks some time ago as
the “end of history”: Perspective itself and extremely heavy
rumination that portends only a brand new beginning, albeit maybe
even a Ricardian one.
Recent Article on Eastern Europe by Condoleezza Rice - "Washington Post".
See also various presentations this past week from CPAC.
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