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Why Nations Fail? — Book notes on the origins of power, prosperity, and poverty.
Four hundred and sixty-two pages synthesized on a six-minute reading with more-less twelve hundred words…
I will start this article by saying, read the book.
I had the book “Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty” sitting on my shelf waiting to be read for several months and when I did, the only regret I had was not to have started sooner.
No matter if you are close to the economics/finance/social fields or not, I think most readers will enjoy it.
This is a book that explains the research of the authors Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, answering which factors could explain why some nations succeed and others don’t.
In the beginning, it starts by looking at why some nations do better than others, even if they are neighbors, for example, border cities in the US-Mexico borderline, and how their cultural and political differences influence how institutions are organized, as well as the implications on each one.
These ways of behaving and operating regarding the institutions fundamentally follow two trends, societies could tend to have more inclusive or extractive political and social institutions.
Referring to an inclusive institution means having a more liberal, in a sort way pro-capitalism, respectful for private property rights, and innovative oriented, contrary to the extractive institution focus, which tend to follow a centralized power with a more restrictive and a status quo preserving view.
During the lectures on the book, we can read about the differences in history, as well as achievements that countries such as the United States and some European countries like France and England had in contrast to countries like Russia, China or in Latin America and some African countries.
At first, we could expect that countries with more inclusive institutions will always succeed the extractive ones. Emerging questions such as, if it is so obvious why are countries still tending to the extractive view?
As a surprise for most, extractive institutions also had their boost moments in history and challenging…
