Has anyone else read this book?

Despite being loved by globe-emoji liberals- the books central thesis is that long lasting development and prosperity is determined by the inclusivity of a nations institutions, a broad belief that has seen the book be supported by libertarian socialists and those with generally anti-authoritarian views

Through the use of a number of case studies, including the English settler colonies, the Soviet Union and Latin America- the idea of the book is that 'extractive' institutions, where coercion and authoritarian rule are used to produce for the established interests, robs nations of incentives to develop, save and ultimately grow prosperous, for there is no guarantee that doing so will be respected by authorities.
This is seen in latin america, where spanish authorities compelled natives to work to serve a tiny spanish elite. despite the material wealth of latin america, industry beyond resource extraction seldom developed due to the absence of incentives and respect for liberty. This pattern plays out to this day regardless of perpetrator.

On the other hand, 'inclusive' institutions are seen where rights are respected, and economic activity is incentivised and allowed by authorities, with organs of accountability and expression. The resultant respect for rights means citizens proceed with confidence and have incentives to save, invest and pursue economic activity. This is seen in botswana, where seretse kama's reforms precipitated the fastest growing sub saharan nation. It also explains why despite being far poorer in terms of resources, english colonies in north america would develop faster than spanish latin america. while the book does not shy away from highlighting that the rights granted to settler colonists were deprived from natives, ultimately it proves inclusive institutions are the determinant of development.

I'm interested to see what everyone thinks, there's a bit of this for everyone

Interesting.. it’s true, for any nation-building, there needs to be clear, inclusive & societal direction from the top, and then execution from the bottom with an incentive or desire to progress into a self-sufficient nation (and not a failed state).

It’s not resources, wealth or military that make a nation. It’s the people.

Isolating countries that are participating in a global economy and sliding them cleanly into binary categories seems pretty broad and clunky. That's what you get with sweeping narratives I guess.

Curious how they engage with the pre-Civil War spoils system that evolved into a corporate version of the same thing. The local version seemed to matriculate wealth in a more populist manner even with cries of "corruption". The transnational, corporate version precipitated the most militant labor revolts and coups and brutal crackdowns all over the world. It was not longer corruption. It was institutional and legitimate. I'm not sure how you account for scale changing conditions in this conceptual framework.

It’s been sitting on my bookshelf unread for years

i mean calling a settler colony's economic system "inclusive" and not "extractive" is all you really need to know

i feel like the arguments are missing a twinge of modernness if it doesn't talk about neocolonialism (just judging from your great synopsis in the op). nations are no longer representative of much at all; the borders on a map represent nothing. case in point, Canada controls upwards of 90% of the active mines in the continent of Africa. India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and others have the children working in textile sweatshops so North America and Western Europe doesn't have to.

I haven't read the book so I don't know, but if they call any neocolonialist nation "inclusive" then it's a 0/10 for me

"the only change since capitalist agricultural economics that first caused our pain is the decline of the agricultural elite and the rise of the modern bourgeoise. a sweat-shop displaced the plantation." - George Jackson

no it does talk about this- but also posits that neocolonial extraction can be a downstream effect of the original colonialism creating extractive institutions

The CIA

Read it a couple of years ago and really enjoyed it. I’ll have to re-read as I remember the book showing that it took hundreds of years for nations like the UK to even have inclusive institutions, think of the periods where the monarchy would leech of citizens. The problem is we now judge poor nations that have only been independent for circa 50years by the standards of nations such as the UK that took years to be inclusive