Unfortunately, their argument here sounds more like ideology than evidence. One can think of numerous examples of lengthy periods of growth in countries in which the political institutions have been dominated by elites not only China which has grown at breakneck speed for more than 3 decades, but also Vietnam, South Korea, Singapore, and, of course, Indonesia.
While there is clear evidence than creating inclusive economic institutions is necessary for growth, the evidence that inclusive political institutions are essential to achieve this is, sadly, far less compelling. From a growth perspective, it would appear to be sufficient to have contestability between competing elites.
The views above have been expressed in a personal capacity and do not necessarily represent the position of AusAID. However, I note that your counter-arguments 1 and 2 do not come equipped with supporting evidence. I think that both such arguments could easily be over-played. To conclude: it seems to me that you have defended some aid, whilst leaving probably the majority as unlikely to lead to significant economic development. A better defence is that a lot of aid will not generate economic development but, done properly, can at least make life substantially less miserable to millions of people who live below the poverty line.
Aid therefore can be viewed as keeping these institutions in power. I thought your point about our failure to ask why things are the way that they are, and to put sufficient effort into the analysis of the politics of countries receiving assistance, compared to the technical aspects of the development problem alone, especially important.
Sign me up for the fortnightly newsletter! Don't subscribe All Replies to my comments Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. What was wrong was thinking that we could easily export it. Continue Reading. Still curious? Mobutu's Congo and Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe didn't even try.
Acemoglu and Robinson argue that the protesters in Egypt's Tahrir Square had it right: They were being held back by a feckless, corrupt state and a society that wouldn't let them fully use their talents. Egypt was poor "precisely because it has been ruled by a narrow elite that has organized society for their own benefit at the expense of the vast mass of people.
Such unhappy nations as North Korea, Sierra Leone, Haiti and Somalia have all left authority concentrated in a few grasping hands, which use whatever resources they can grab to tighten their hold on power. The formula is stark: Inclusive governments and institutions mean prosperity, growth and sustained development; extractive governments and institutions mean poverty, privation and stagnation — even over the centuries.
The depressing cycle in which one oligarchy often replaces another has meant that "the lands where the Industrial Revolution originally did not spread remain relatively poor. So what about China, which is increasingly cited as a new model of "authoritarian growth"?
The authors are respectful but ultimately unimpressed. They readily admit that extractive regimes can produce temporary economic growth so long as they're politically centralized — just consider the pre-Brezhnev Soviet Union, whose economic system once had its own Western admirers.
But while "Chinese economic institutions are incomparably more inclusive today than three decades ago,"China is still fundamentally saddled with an extractive regime. In fairly short order, such authoritarian economies start to wheeze: By throttling the incentives for technological progress, creativity and innovation, they choke off sustained, long-term growth and prosperity.
Chinese growth, they argue, "is based on the adoption of existing technologies and rapid investment," not the anxiety-inducing process of creative destruction that produces lasting innovation and growth. By importing foreign technologies and exporting low-end products, China is playing a spirited game of catch-up — but that's not how races are won. So how can the United States help the developing world? Inclusive political and economic institutions may be mutually reinforcing, but they are not indestructible.
Adam Smith sought to explain the wealth of nations; Acemoglu and Robinson, by contrast, examine why nations fail. There are many ways in which elites can impose extractive institutions that cripple economic development. This is a critical lesson, even today in the country that has long been considered a paragon of dynamic capitalism and political democracy.
Although our institutions have often been deeply flawed, Acemoglu and Robinson show how crucial moments in history, from Jamestown to the Progressive Era to the civil-rights movement, have led to the expansion of political democracy and economic opportunity. Rather than as a series of inevitable triumphs, however, this history can also be seen as a warning—that our institutions are fragile, always at risk of being subverted by elites seeking to exploit political power for their narrow economic ends.
That risk has reappeared today. Distrust of economic elites has a long history in the United States. The financial crisis and its aftermath recently revealed how tilted our economic and political playing fields can be.
During the past three decades, large financial institutions rewrote their regulations, exploited the new rules to generate enormous profits, and poured a share of those profits back into politics. The power of the financial sector is only one example of the broader threat to our inclusive political institutions: namely, the ability of the economic elite to translate their enormous fortunes directly into political power.
This may seem like a level playing field. But money is not distributed evenly. The recent, breathtaking rise in inequality has put unprecedented resources at the disposal of the super-rich. With the ability to secretly invest unlimited sums in political activities, they now have the opportunity to swamp all other participants in American politics.
Rising inequality and deregulation of political spending have made possible a new kind of class warfare. The 1 percent can blanket the airwaves, install their chosen representatives, and sway public policy in their favor.
That political power can be used to extract resources from the population at large. Though far less barbaric, the basic idea is the same: fewer rights for workers, making it easier for companies to obtain labor on favorable terms. The most direct way to translate political power into cold, hard cash is to advocate for lower taxes. Republican presidential candidates spent the past year competing to offer the most bountiful tax cuts to the super-rich.
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