風蕭蕭_Frank
以文會友
Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and poverty
ABOUT WHY NATIONS FAIL
Brilliant and engagingly written, Why Nations Fail answers the question that has stumped the experts for centuries: Why are some nations rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine?
Is it culture, the weather, geography? Perhaps ignorance of what the right policies are?
Simply, no. None of these factors is either definitive or destiny. Otherwise, how to explain why Botswana has become one of the fastest growing countries in the world, while other African nations, such as Zimbabwe, the Congo, and Sierra Leone, are mired in poverty and violence?
Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson conclusively show that it is man-made political and economic institutions that underlie economic success (or lack of it). Korea, to take just one of their fascinating examples, is a remarkably homogeneous nation, yet the people of North Korea are among the poorest on earth while their brothers and sisters in South Korea are among the richest. The south forged a society that created incentives, rewarded innovation, and allowed everyone to participate in economic opportunities.
The economic success thus spurred was sustained because the government became accountable and responsive to citizens and the great mass of people. Sadly, the people of the north have endured decades of famine, political repression, and very different economic institutions—with no end in sight. The differences between the Koreas is due to the politics that created these completely different institutional trajectories.
Based on fifteen years of original research Acemoglu and Robinson marshall extraordinary historical evidence from the Roman Empire, the Mayan city-states, medieval Venice, the Soviet Union, Latin America, England, Europe, the United States, and Africa to build a new theory of political economy with great relevance for the big questions of today, including:
– China has built an authoritarian growth machine. Will it continue to grow at such high speed and overwhelm the West?
– Are America’s best days behind it? Are we moving from a virtuous circle in which efforts by elites to aggrandize power are resisted to a vicious one that enriches and empowers a small minority?
– What is the most effective way to help move billions of people from the rut of poverty to prosperity? More philanthropy from the wealthy nations of the West? Or learning the hard-won lessons of Acemoglu and Robinson’s breakthrough ideas on the interplay between inclusive political and economic institutions?
Why Nations Fail will change the way you look at—and understand—the world.
《為什麽國家會失敗》精彩而引人入勝，回答了幾個世紀以來困擾專家們的問題：為什麽一些國家富裕而另一些國家貧窮，在財富和貧困、健康和疾病、食物和饑荒之間存在差異？
是文化、天氣、地理嗎？ 也許不知道什麽是正確的政策？
簡單地說，不。 這些因素都不是決定性的或命中注定的。 否則，如何解釋博茨瓦納成為世界上發展最快的國家之一，而津巴布韋、剛果和塞拉利昂等其他非洲國家卻深陷貧困和暴力之中？
Daron Acemoglu 和 James Robinson 最終表明，經濟成功（或缺乏）的基礎是人為的政治和經濟製度。 舉一個他們引人入勝的例子，韓國是一個非常單一的國家，但朝鮮人民是地球上最貧窮的人之一，而他們在韓國的兄弟姐妹卻是最富有的人。 南方打造了一個創造激勵、獎勵創新並讓每個人都能參與經濟機會的社會。
由於政府變得對公民和廣大人民負責並做出回應，因此刺激的經濟成功得以持續。 可悲的是，北方人民已經忍受了幾十年的饑荒、政治壓迫和截然不同的經濟製度——看不到盡頭。 韓國之間的差異是由於政治造成了這些完全不同的製度軌跡。
基於十五年的原始研究，阿西莫格魯和羅賓遜整理了來自羅馬帝國、瑪雅城邦、中世紀威尼斯、蘇聯、拉丁美洲、英國、歐洲、美國和非洲的非凡曆史證據，建立了一個新理論 與當今重大問題密切相關的政治經濟學，包括：
– 中國建立了威權增長機器。 它會繼續以如此高的速度增長並壓倒西方嗎？
– 美國最好的日子過去了嗎？ 我們是否正在從一個精英為擴大權力的努力受到抵製的良性循環轉變為一個使少數人富裕和賦權的惡性循環？
– 幫助數十億人擺脫貧困走向繁榮的最有效方式是什麽？ 來自西方富裕國家的更多慈善事業？ 或者學習阿西莫格魯和羅賓遜關於包容性政治和經濟製度之間相互作用的突破性想法來之不易的教訓？
為什麽國家會失敗將改變你看待和理解世界的方式。
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