Why nations fail
economist.com
Why nations fail
1–10 of 119 posts
Re: Why nations fail
#2Nations fail due to low average intelligence and high average psychopathic tendencies. The reasons for those things are multitudinous, of course, but the ruling class is a result more often than a cause.
Re: Why nations fail
#3Once again Occam's butterknife is spotted in the wild. Richard Lynn, call your office:
Re: Why nations fail
#4Once again Occam's butterknife is spotted in the wild. Richard Lynn, call your office: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_and_the_Wealth_of_Nations
Wow, this thread just became some kind of magnet for racists, didn't it. Since you are apparently very proud of your IQ, perhaps you can read the actual article and try to comment on something related to the article's substance, and not just give us a knee jerk reaction based on the title.
Re: Why nations fail
#5Once again Occam's butterknife is spotted in the wild. Richard Lynn, call your office: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_and_the_Wealth_of_Nations
It surely doesn't explain differences between similarly coloured countries.
In Europe Italy seems to be the bluest and yet things are not good.
Ireland is very pale yet it fared pretty well before the recession.
I would argue that in many cases wealth causes IQ and poverty takes it away. E.g. ex-ussr is rather blue for its sorry state, and I guess it would be much bluer if measured 25 years ago. Argentina is pretty blue but yet it fails to monetize that. Mongolia is very blue and it's effectively a placeholder.
Re: Why nations fail
#6I can't get past how needlessly wordy this article is. It's as if someone is trying to flaunt their language skills and it distracts me from the actual content; I must admit that I read the whole thing and did not catch wind of the author's point.
Sentences like these just read as nonsense to me:
"The intuition behind the theory is nonetheless compelling, which makes the scarcity of policy prescriptions frustrating."
Re: Why nations fail
#7I can't get past how needlessly wordy this article is. It's as if someone is trying to flaunt their language skills and it distracts me from the actual content; I must admit that I read the whole thing and did not catch wind of the author's point. Sentences like these just read as nonsense to me: "The intuition behind the theory is nonetheless compelling, which makes the scarcity of policy prescriptions frustrating."
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Re: Why nations fail
#8I am always wary of these grand theories people come up with about why great civilisations fall. People tend to project their own values onto history. Conservatives invariably argue that societies fall because they become decadent and valueless, while liberals contend that societies became too stagnant and inflexible to survive. Observer bias is a big problem in the study of history.
Re: Why nations fail
#9I can't get past how needlessly wordy this article is. It's as if someone is trying to flaunt their language skills and it distracts me from the actual content; I must admit that I read the whole thing and did not catch wind of the author's point. Sentences like these just read as nonsense to me: "The intuition behind the theory is nonetheless compelling, which makes the scarcity of policy prescriptions frustrating."
"The authors do a convincing job of explaining why things are they way they are, but fail to explain how we might go about changing them."
Re: Why nations fail
#10The author's key argument is that extractive institutions lead to state failure. Like most theories of state failure, there's some good examples but enough weak or counter examples to discredit it as 'the' answer. At best, I'd argue that extractive institutions are a block to success: countries with them have one fewer barrier to overcome.
I recently researched the thorny issue of what consititutes art, and the leading idea in that field is a cluster theory: a set of ten ideas which commonly associated with things accepted as art. Some objects don't have all ten, but together they provide a powerful guide. My point in mentioning this is that state failure seems to follow the same pattern. Geography (ie Jared Diamond's theory) is a factor in state success and failure. Culture is another factor. Economic system and the nature of institutions (extractive or inclusive) are two more factors. (And there's bound to be a few more).
A state can succeed with only a couple of these. Lacking them all is a sure sign of failure. Having them all likely comes as close to guaranteeing success as possible. But thinking there's some single indicator that determines state failure is a doomed project.