I live in Africa.
South Africa, to be precise.
Jerm
Almost every country on the continent could be labelled a 'failed state' and it’s something I’ve often thought about. Is it because Black people can’t govern effectively? If so, what about the North African countries governed by Arabs?
I don't know but it's probably more nuanced.
Nations fail when their elites rig the rules to benefit themselves at the expense of the many, creating a cycle of exploitation.
— Daron Acemoglu
And it is, say Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson who authored Why Nations Fail.
Daron is a professor at MIT and James is a professor at the University of Chicago. Both received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2024.
So, why do nations fail?
Why are some countries rich and others poor?
Is it culture, weather or location that decides if a country does well or not?
A state fails when its government prioritises a small ruling class over the needs of its citizens, breeding resentment and chaos.
— Statement from World Population Review
After fifteen years of research, Daron and James show that it’s the political and economic systems we build that cause success or failure.
In the book, they look at South Korea which is generally wealthy and mostly homogeneous, while North Koreans are also homogeneous and generally poor.
Why?
This difference is the governance structures.
Why Nations Fail pages through history, analysing the Roman Empire, Mayan cities, the Soviet Union, the United States and, of course, Africa.
The book also raises the following questions (and tries to answer them):
- Why is China growing so fast?
- Why are Western countries starting to fail?
Jerm
🎙️ Podcast episode
Daron spoke to me about all of the above and dropped in a few comments about South Africa too.
