Monique Wray for SJI.
Why Nations Fail: the Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty is a 2012 non-fiction book on comparative politics by Turkish-born Armenian-American economist Daron Acemoglu from MIT and British political scientist James A. Robinson from the University of Chicago. It countered another popular comparative political theory book of the time, Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond, who (essentially) argued that tangible issues like environment and access to goods or trade are the biggest impact on the success or failure of a nation. Why Nations Fail, however, looks at the unseen political systems throughout history and what brought them to their knees or raised them up.
After reading the book, Jake was encouraged by what he sees as the solution to a more prosperous nation. (Spoiler alert: it has to do with VOTING! Please vote if you can).
Why do these authors have important things to say about nations failing?
These authors of Why Nations Fail give a really extensive list of how they’ve researched the topic: they have studied historical artifacts, previous political models, done lots of economic studies of the past and present, and are looking at the way that different nations have developed over time.
Something that stands out is the answer is so obvious and right in front of us, but at the same time it’s easier to divert our attention and look at things like tangible objects, such as those Jared Diamond talks about in Guns, Germs, and Steel, because these are the resources right in front of people! We can’t wrap our heads around the invisible political environment we’re situated in, because for the most part most Americans and most people don’t understand political systems and how they work. So it’s easier to look at the environment or things you can readily study, like guns. That is more visual, and seems to easily explain how one nation could “conquer” or take over another territory - through superior technology or more wealth or mercantilism. But political systems are invisible.
The political system provides structure for an outcome. It’s a determiner of how we behave because we have politics in place that systemize our world. But humans operate in level two chaotic systems - when we try to manipulate a system and bring order to it, the chaos comes right back.
What is Why Nations Fail about?
The thesis of Why Nations Fail is thus: places around the world historically most vulnerable to colonization in the “age of conquest” were actually tribal systems or nations where there was a high concentration of power. All another nation had to do was work on taking out the people at the top, and take over the loyalty of the subjects underneath.
In other nations, this power takeover has failed and nations have been able to defend themselves and their political systems when so many people in that nation have political power and an interest to get some of what they want at the political bargaining table. If that is the case, it’s not easy for another nation to just come in and take that nation over.
A nation is more easily conquered if power is concentrated. But that’s just one way to fail. Economic prosperity - those nations that were not conquered and defended themselves grew into more prosperous nations because everyone had some sort of political power to check other powers.
What’s your biggest takeaway from this book?
The central argument of the book is that nations fail when you do not have diverse political interests engaged in the political systems that are built. You can have competing interests which, although it may feel counterintuitive, you may feel like you can never get something done since compromise can be a slow process, but when everyone gets a seat at the table and has power to slow progress or to have their own needs met - and there’s transparency and education about what is happening in political systems - everyone has a greater ability to get at least some of their needs met, and that is drastically different than autocratic system or political system without needs met because you weren't part of policy making. Policy-making sets ground rules for how people are going to interact in a society.
There is a downside to this slow compromise, though: it’s not a problem of so many voices, or too many, it’s a problem with the individuals who are part of the system being unwilling to trust each other. When it comes time to bargain again, they’ll be unwilling to bargain.
How does Why Nations Fail support the idea that you should vote?
The primary reason nations have failed to achieve prosperity in the past is because there was no inclusion of diverse interests and voices in the political system. If you don’t vote, you’re destining your own political system to failure as the end destination. It’s fine to have friction and disagreement, but when you don’t participate, you’re essentially guaranteeing we aren’t as prosperous as we could be. You are responsible to give politicians and system information from the group about what is needed for this society to move forward.
Something that is encouraging is that it’s not a zero-sum game and when you add more people to the bargain table politically and make sure there is a seat at the table for everyone, it doesn’t actually take away from your ability to prosper as a society, it enhances it. There’s nothing to lose by giving minority groups more political power and a voice, in fact, there’s a lot to gain.
OK but what is your definition of a “prosperous nation?”
A prosperous nation is a nation that is growing economically, where its citizens are happy with their quality of life, and where there is opportunity to have your needs met in society and do that in a way that is sustainable and won’t end in the next five years with the next election cycle.
Why did you decide to read this book?
Years back I was traveling in Croatia, getting a broader perspective, seeing how the world is different in different places, all the good things. A friend was reading this book, carrying it around everywhere, and at one point I looked over and asked why he was reading that. It’s an interesting title in and of itself - it hadn’t ever occured to me to think about why nations fail - but the book itself is really an answer to the ingredients for successful nations. It’s important to examine how things can go awry and not result in success, but what I like about this book is that ultimately it has a positive outlook and solution.
What impact has Why Nations Fail had on you personally, as an educator, business owner, and civics-minded citizen?
Education about what your political system and policies are doing is really important. That’s one of the main challenges to being able to be politically active and have a seat at the bargaining table of how we’re going to run society: knowing what’s actually happening with laws being passed and measures you do have a voice in stopping or passing.
The thing to realize is that to do something is better than nothing. If you can't be politically educated on every single thing, that’s OK! Ideally we’d all know everything but there is only so much time and energy we can devote to educating ourselves on complex issues. When you find something you're passionate about and care about and realize if you want to see change in the world around that thing, you have to go out and educate yourself and others on this topic.
What we don't have today, we will be forever fighting for unless we’re working toward changing the policies that are in place.