Nextier(Review: “WHY NATIONS FAIL: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty” by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson. Crown Publishing Group (March 2012) Length: 533 pages
A tale of the twin towns of Nogales, a city on the US-Mexican border, split into half by a fence. The same geographical position, cultural upbringing, and population. They share a lot in common but with one part richer, healthier, safer, and with higher living standards than the other. Nogales, Arizona, is in the United States and its inhabitants have access to the United States’ economic institutions. This enables them to choose their occupations freely, acquire schooling and skills, invest in the best technology, and get better wages for them. They also have access to political institutions that allow them to participate in the democratic process, elect their representatives, and replace them if they fall short of expectations. Nogales, Sonora, in Mexico is not as fortunate. Its inhabitants live in a world where both the political and economic institutions are inept, inaccessible, and seclusive. This leads to high rates of infant mortality, poor public health conditions, unemployment, and lack of amenities propelled by the extractive institutions put in place serve the interests of a few elites.
These contrasts form the background to understanding the viewpoints and pivotal arguments of the authors. Also central is the discussions to ascertain the causes for the opposite economic posture of these twin towns and others alike. In answering these questions, some theorists have suggested that the climate, geography, culture, and the ignorance of domestic leaders are the causes of this anomaly.
Max Weber, a German sociologist, using the culture hypothesis, posited that the protestant reformation played a crucial role in facilitating the rise of modern industrial society in Western Europe. The culture hypothesis does not rely solely on religion but stresses other types of beliefs, values, and ethics. Other arguments in favor of the culture hypothesis maintain that Africans are poor because they lack a good work ethic, believe in witchcraft, and resist new western technologies. In their response to this position, the author’s offered that many aspects of culture between Nogales Arizona and Sonora are the same north and south of the fence without ruling out the possibility of slight differences in practices, norms, and values.
On the whole, Acemoglu and Robinson did not align with the listed schools of thought; instead, they opined that the real reason behind the poverty, riches, and significant differences between nations lies in the political and economic institutions. According to them, only within an inclusive system is it possible for countries to achieve prosperity. This is because inclusive institutions create inclusive markets, which give people the freedom to pursue the vocations in life that best suit their talents and provide a level playing field that allows them to do so. The reverse scenario plays out under extractive political institutions where wealth is accumulated by a narrow ruling elite that strives to preserve its power to exploit the system further. In this mode, people are not encouraged to make economic and political decisions; instead, they are discouraged and subjected.
Convincingly, the authors utilized an array of historical narratives to reveal that age-long events and patterns enhanced the present inclusive or extractive political and economic systems. Emphasizing this position, they recalled the English and Spaniards’ colonization strategy that involved extracting the indigenous population’s resources and forcing them to work for the colonial elite to obtain maximum benefits from it. While this strategy did well in India and Africa, it failed in North America because it was less attractive and scarcer in gold than South America. Besides, the Native Americans put up resistance and, more importantly, didn’t allow themselves to become enslaved and forced into manual labour for the newcomers. It was up to the settlers to work themselves. Initial coercion to work for colonialists failed because of the possibility for the inhabitants to escape to the Indians. As a result, the settlement needed to create different institutions to create incentives for the settlers, which transformed into personal and political freedom. For the authors, these initial institutional differences manifested the political power, democratic principles, and economic incentives that paved the US and Mexico’s different development paths.
Aligning the cardinal points of this work to the Nigerian situation, one cannot help but refer to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) 2020 report on poverty and inequality where it stated that 40 percent of the populace, making a total of 82.9 million Nigerians are living below the poverty line. Furthermore, Statista (2018) puts the infant mortality rate in Nigeria at 75.7 deaths per 1,000 births. In recent times, the insecurity in the northeast has become more dynamic with the addition of banditry and kidnapping to the menace of terrorism. These reflect the realities facing all other segments of Nigeria, which comfortably indicates the presence of extractive political and economic institutions that do not encourage inclusion and incentives.
Commendable is the depth of work in tracing the history and the comparative analysis of the rich and developing countries. This work is a fantastic read for students of history and politics and all knowledge enthusiasts—a worthy recommendation to policymakers in public and private circles, development, resource persons, and social workers.
