Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy Reprint Edition

I’ve to say, Acemoglu’s work is foundational for the modern political economy theory of democracy and dictatorship. I’m so glad I got this book on discount right before he got the Nobel.The book is an easy read if you’ve taken graduate-level classes on Microeconomics and Game Theory.

These guys have a great theory as to how democracy and the rule of law get started. It explains an awful lot about what's going on in the world today, such as why democracy and the rule of law doesn't take hold in many countries. It has had the biggest impact on my political thinking as anything I've read in a long time.Chapter two is the heart of the book, and it's easily worth the price for just that chapter alone.

The book offers a well researched account of the linkages between the conduct of various leaders, and prevailing economic imperatives. It reinforces the well understood notion of the relationship between politics and economics, mainly as a means to obtain access to limited resources. The evidence is of the indeed linkage compelling, regardless with geographical location, race and creed. A worthwhile read for students of contemporary politics.

Both the thesis and the science behind this book are sound and interesting. However, the book is overly technical for bed-time reading - in particular regarding the heavy use of advanced statistical methods.If you are into statistics and the technical issues fo building a statistical model for democracy and dictatorships - which this book is about - it is well worth both the money and the time it takes to read it. If you are not into building statistical methods, you are much better off reading their other book: Why Nations Fail.

Acemoglu and Robinson present a clear, straightforward and compelling explanation of the conditions under which political democracy emerges from dictatorship. The strength of their analysis, as they repeated tell us, flows from their use of that key tool on the economist's workbench, the so-called rational actor model (p. 19). "We stress individual economic incentives as determining political attitudes, and we assume people behave strategically in the sense of game theory.'' (p. xii) Theirs is also a clear-cut class analysis, although by contrast with Karl Marx, the classes are defined mainly by their relationship to state power rather than the means of production (although that matters as well, as we shall see). "We emphasize the fundamental importance of conflict," they assert. "Different groups, sometimes social classes, have opposing interests over political outcomes and these translate into opposing interests over the form of political institutions which determine the political outcomes." (p. xii).The main social groupings in the non-democratic society, according to Acemoglu and Robinson, are the elite that controls the state and the citizens, who are blocked from exercising political power. "Nondemocracy is rule by the elite; democracy is rule by the more numerous groups who constitute the majority... In nondemocracy, the elite get the policies it wants; in democracy, the citizens have more power to get what they want." (p. xii) The authors claim that there is a single dynamic leading from nondemocracy to democracy: "We argue that this only occurs because the disenfranchised citizens can threaten the elite and force it to make concessions.... In the limit, a revolution... repression is often sufficiently costly that it is not an attractive option for elites.'' (p. xii) Acemoglu and Robinson elaborate by noting that simply making non-structural concessions to the enraged masses might not be sufficient to head off revolt, because the concessions can be revoked once the collective action spirit dissipates. The concession of political democracy, by contrast, creates a long-term alternative set of rules of the game in which the previously omnipotent elites no long have the power to get their way.There is one additional conceptual tool on Acemoglu and Robinson's workbench, that of social class. First, the authors assert that state repression does not hurt landlords much but it is very harmful to capitalists because the latter benefit from freedom of movement, speech, and consensual labor relations, whereas traditional landlords never really get beyond the stage of medieval social relations p. 288). Hence industrial capitalism has an elective affinity with democracy that is completely absent from earlier economic formations based on agriculture. Second, Acemoglu and Robinson argue that the elites are more likely to accede to democracy when there is a strong middle class (entrepreneurs, academics, professionals), because the latter will not allow so much power to pass to the unwashed masses as to seriously threaten the wealth and influence of the elites (p. 255, 258).Acemoglu and Robinson's argument is so powerful that one might be forgiven for overlooking its weak points. But it does have some significant weak points. First, it assumes that there is a monolithic elite and a potentially monolithic citizenry. Neither of these is in general correct. For instance, often there will be conflicts among the elites, one side drawing on support from the lower classes to defeat the other. This was the case in Great Britain in the passage to democracy.Second, and more important, I think it is just false that political democracy is compromise in which the elite gives up hegemonic power and the citizenry gives up the vision of revolution and complete mass hegemony. As Samuel Bowles and I argued in Capitalism and Democracy (Basic Books, 1985), large-scale collective actions have virtually always had the goal of social emancipation, in which the common man and woman are endowed with the blessings of liberty and in which democratic institutions are desired not only because they lead to an alteration in the distribution of wealth, but also because political democracy is desirable in its own right, given the nature of our species as, to use Aristotle's term, zoon politicon.Third, Acemoglu and Robinson incompletely address the question as to why the dominant movement in the past two centuries has been from nondemocracy to democracy. Their recognition that capitalism and middle classes are relatively favorable to democracy explains part of this movement. But I think another crucial element is the emergence of modern warfare based on infantry with small arms weapons. Elite control of the state goes along with small armies of elite and/or mercenary mounted warriors with a heavy capital cost per man, whereas enlisting the common man to participate in national armies in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries required ceding the suffrage to the masses.Acemoglu and Robinson do not appear to realize that their commitment to the rational actor model does not oblige them to model all social behavior as self-interested, and all political goals as materialistic. There are whole dimensions of social and moral history absent from their account because they do not accept that the fight for dignity and freedom is just as central to collective action as the fight for shoes, a coat, and a job. Nor can they possibly understand why collective action even takes place unless they admit that people fight and die for ideals, and for comforts that will only be enjoyed by those who come after them. There is another volume to be added in explain the emergence of democracy---not a volume hostile to Acemoglu and Robinson's effort, but rather fleshing out the moral and emancipatory thrust of modern collective action.

Superb book. Empiricism and reason without ideology. However, the book is not for those looking to have their values reinforced with simplistic slogans or assumptions. Acemoglu and Robinson read with McCloskey and Piketty will change your economic perspective forever.

I purchased this book with several others and they all arrived in mint condition, as described, within the time frame designated. I will certainly purchase from this buyer again. Can't wait to get into all these new books in my library!

More technical than why nation fail, has economic mathematical models in addition to explanations. Captivating. Read a future Nobeloriate. Know the current trend in developmental economics...