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Link	Quote	Stars	Tags	Author
254bb4b	The pattern of vicious circle depicted by the transition between Haile Selassie and Mengistu, or between the British colonial governors of Sierra Leone and Siaka Stevens, is so extreme and at some level so strange that it deserves a special name. As we already mentioned in chapter 4, the German sociologist Robert Michels called it the iron law of oligarchy. The internal logic of oligarchies, and in fact of all hierarchical organizations, is..			Daron Acemoğlu
89de0d0	Improved health and life expectancy were not the cause of England's economic success but one of the fruits of its previous political and economic changes.			Daron Acemoğlu
aa742dc	The great inequality of the modern world that emerged in the nineteenth century was caused by the uneven dissemination of industrial technologies and manufacturing production. It was not caused by divergence in agricultural performance.			Daron Acemoğlu
e449e7e	In 1800 probably only 2 to 3 percent of the citizens of the Ottoman Empire were literate, compared with 60 percent of adult males and 40 percent of adult females in England. In the Netherlands and Germany, literacy rates were even higher. The Ottoman lands lagged far behind the European countries with the lowest educational attainment in this period, such as Portugal, where probably only around 20 percent of adults could read and write. Giv..			Daron Acemoğlu
07ec2e8	Books spread ideas and make the population much harder to control. Some of these ideas may be valuable new ways to increase economic growth, but others may be subversive and challenge the existing political and social status quo. Books also undermine the power of those who control oral knowledge, since they make that knowledge readily available to anyone who can master literacy. This threatened to undermine the existing status quo, where kn..			Daron Acemoğlu
706663e	Many, such as the Ottoman Empire, China, and other absolutist regimes, lagged behind as they blocked or at the very least did nothing to encourage the spread of industry. Political and economic institutions shaped the response to technological innovation, creating once again the familiar pattern of interaction between existing institutions and critical junctures leading to divergence in institutions and economic outcomes. The			Daron Acemoğlu
1522930	Congo, vividly illustrates how political institutions determine economic institutions and, through these, the economic incentives and the scope for economic growth.			Daron Acemoğlu
4a14f5b	Absolutism and a lack of, or weak, political centralization are two different barriers to the spread of industry. But they are also connected; both are kept in place by fear of creative destruction and because the process of political centralization often creates a tendency toward absolutism.			Daron Acemoğlu
5a7e956	In this chapter, we will see how during the critical juncture created by the Industrial Revolution, many nations missed the boat and failed to take advantage of the spread of industry. Either they had absolutist political and extractive economic institutions, as in the Ottoman Empire, or they lacked political centralization, as in Somalia. A			Daron Acemoğlu
0bc46a4	Inequality in the modern world largely results from the uneven dissemination and adoption of technologies,			Daron Acemoğlu
5661faf	The fear of creative destruction is the main reason why there was no sustained increase in living standards between the Neolithic and Industrial revolutions.			Daron Acemoğlu
652c280	Most important perhaps, in most of these cases there were enormous benefits from holding power. These benefits both attracted the most unscrupulous men, such as Stevens, who wished to monopolize this power, and brought the worst out of them once they were in power. There was nothing to break the vicious circle. N			Daron Acemoğlu
e6661b1	when a critical juncture arrives, these small differences that have emerged as a result of institutional drift may be the small differences that matter in leading otherwise quite similar societies to diverge radically.			Daron Acemoğlu
dece8ea	The patent system, which protects property rights in ideas, was systematized in the Statute of Monopolies legislated by the English Parliament in 1623, partially as an attempt to stop the king from arbitrarily granting "letters patent" to whomever he wanted--effectively granting exclusive rights to undertake certain activities or businesses. The striking thing about the evidence on patenting in the United States is that people who were gran..			Daron Acemoğlu
36b6cc8	England did not become a democracy after the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Far from it. Only a small fraction of the population had formal representation, but crucially, she was pluralistic. Once pluralism was enshrined, there was a tendency for the institutions to become more inclusive over time, even if this was a rocky and uncertain process. In			Daron Acemoğlu
7693752	Under inclusive economic institutions, wealth is not concentrated in the hands of a small group that could then use its economic might to increase its political power disproportionately. Furthermore, under inclusive economic institutions there are more limited gains from holding political power, thus weaker incentives for every group and every ambitious, upstart individual to try to take control of the state.			Daron Acemoğlu
d93dc53	IF THE POLITICAL and economic institutions of Latin America over the past five hundred years were shaped by Spanish colonialism, those of the Middle East were shaped by Ottoman colonialism.			Daron Acemoğlu
adb19a9	This King, one Bogota, was so terrified that, in his anxiety to free himself from the clutches of his tormentors, he consented to the demand that he fill an entire house with gold and hand it over; to this end he sent his people off in search of gold, and bit by bit they brought it along with many precious stones. But still the house was not filled and the Spaniards eventually declared that they would put him to death for breaking his promi..			Daron Acemoğlu
559cd39	The geography hypothesis claims that the great divide between rich and poor countries is created by geographical differences. Many poor countries, such as those of Africa, Central America, and South Asia are between the tropic of Cancer and Capricorn. Rich nations in cntrast tend to be in temperate latitudes. This geographic concentration of poverty and prosperity gives superficial appeal to the geography hypothesis.			Daron Acemoğlu
6486298	But selling patents was a good idea only for someone like Edison, who had ideas faster than he could put them to practice. (He had a world-record 1,093 patents issued to him in the United States and 1,500 worldwide.)			Daron Acemoğlu
0edc79d	The reason that Nogales, Arizona, is much richer than Nogales, Sonora, is simple; it is because of the very different institutions on the two sides of the border, which create very different incentives for the inhabitants of Nogales, Arizona, versus Nogales, Sonora.			Daron Acemoğlu
4f6e129	Cuando el Estado no logra practicamente ninguna centralizacion politica, la sociedad, tarde o temprano, llega al caos,			Daron Acemoğlu
aa7f8e7	economist Abba Lerner noted in the 1970s, "Economics has gained the title Queen of the Social Sciences by choosing solved political problems as its domain."			Daron Acemoğlu
ffecd08	Inclusive economic institutions are in turn supported by, and support, inclusive political institutions, that is, those that distribute political power widely in a pluralistic manner and are able to achieve some amount of political centralization so as to establish law and order, the foundations of secure property rights, and an inclusive market economy. Similarly, extractive economic institutions are synergistically linked to extractive po..			Daron Acemoğlu
f80f410	What is crucial, however, is that growth under extractive institutions will not be sustained, for two key reasons. First, sustained economic growth requires innovation, and innovation cannot be decoupled from creative destruction, which replaces the old with the new in the economic realm and also destabilizes established power relations in politics. Because elites dominating extractive institutions fear creative destruction, they will resis..			Daron Acemoğlu
9ac2936	As we will show, poor countries are poor because those who have power make choices that create poverty. They get it wrong not by mistake or ignorance but on purpose.			Daron Acemoğlu
c7afd14	el obstaculo principal para la adopcion de politicas que reducirian los fallos del mercado y fomentarian el crecimiento economico no es la ignorancia de los politicos, sino los incentivos y los limites a los que se enfrentan desde las instituciones politicas y economicas de sus sociedades.			Daron Acemoğlu
47b0481	In North Korea, the state built an education system to inculcate propaganda, but was unable to prevent famine. In colonial Latin America, the state focused on coercing indigenous peoples. In neither type of society was there a level playing field or an unbiased legal system. In North Korea, the legal system is an arm of the ruling Communist Party, and in Latin America it was a tool of discrimination against the mass of people. We call such ..			Daron Acemoğlu
bd0df93	Tradicionalmente, la economia ha ignorado la politica, pero la comprension de la politica resulta esencial para explicar la desigualdad del mundo.			Daron Acemoğlu
7e4ba8e	The process of economic growth and the inclusive institutions upon which it is based create losers as well as winners in the political arena and in the economic marketplace. Fear of creative destruction is often at the root of the opposition to inclusive economic and political institutions.			Daron Acemoğlu
56cefed	the secret ballot was introduced and moves were made to eliminate corrupt electoral practices such as "treating" (essentially buying votes in exchange for which the voter received a treat, usually money, food, or alcohol). The" --			Daron Acemoğlu
f68d83d	according to some accounts Smith's life was saved only at the intervention of Wahunsunacock's young daughter Pocahontas.			Daron Acemoğlu
ff40114	In 1856 the state of Victoria, which had been carved out of New South Wales in 1851, and the state of Tasmania would become the first places in the world to introduce an effective secret ballot in elections, which stopped vote buying and coercion. Today we still call the standard method of achieving secrecy in voting in elections the Australian ballot.			Daron Acemoğlu
ecffeb9	Technological change is only one of the engines of prosperity, but it is perhaps the most critical one.			Daron Acemoğlu
e1d7710	Breaking another mold: Rosa Parks challenges extractive institutions in the U.S. south The Granger Collection, NY			Daron Acemoğlu
373201c	The so-called ancien regime prided itself on its continuity and stability. Entry by entrepreneurs and talented individuals into new occupations would create instability and was not tolerated. If			Daron Acemoğlu
f88443e	Dutch governor of Batavia, Jan Pieterszoon Coen, came up with an alternative plan. Coen founded Batavia, on the island of Java, as the Dutch East India Company's new capital in 1618. In 1621 he sailed to Banda with a fleet and proceeded to massacre almost the entire population of the islands, probably about fifteen thousand people.			Daron Acemoğlu
7e2fb8c	The rebirth of China came with a significant move away from one of the most extractive set of economic institutions and toward more inclusive ones. Market incentives in agriculture and industry, then followed by foreign investment and technology, would set China on a path to rapid economic growth. As we will discuss further in the next chapter, this was growth under extractive political institutions, even if they were not as repressive as t..			Daron Acemoğlu
89f8667	On the eve of the French Revolution in 1789, there were severe restrictions placed on Jews throughout Europe. In the German city of Frankfurt, for example, their lives were regulated by orders set out in a statute dating from the Middle Ages. There			Daron Acemoğlu
9f39928	Until 1726 they had to wear specific markers, two concentric yellow rings for men and a striped veil for women. All Jews had to pay a special poll tax.			Daron Acemoğlu
1012008	1791 the French National Assembly emancipated French Jewry. The			Daron Acemoğlu
449a66a	In fact, Egypt is poor precisely because it has been ruled by a narrow elite that have organized society for their own benefit at the expense of the vast mass of people.			Daron Acemoğlu
39dc95a	Slavery and the slave trade in Africa further disrupted family and marriage structures and may also have reduced fertility.			Daron Acemoğlu
aac28a1	Growth thus moves forward only if not blocked by the economic losers who anticipate that their economic privileges will be lost and by the political losers who fear that their political power will be eroded.			Daron Acemoğlu

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