Footnotes
1)
Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson; “Why Nations Fail”; Crown
Publishers, New York; 2012.
2)
Acemoglu and Robinson,
p. 81. (The authors’ arguments are novel and careful, so we reference them in
detail.)
3)
Ibid,
p. 81.
4)
Ibid,
p. 19.
5)
Ibid,
p. 19.
6)
Ibid,
p. 23.
7)
Ibid,
p. 26.
8)
Ibid,
p. 27.
8a)
|
In a Bloomberg
11/11/12 article,
Colin Woodard suggests that the U.S. contains at least eleven (or more)
regional cultures that included the communitarian Yankee Puritans of the
Northeast that believe in the efficacy of public institutions (like
universities) and the people of Appalachia, who were “…rough bellicose
settlers from the war-ravaged borderlands of Northern Ireland, northern
England and the Scottish lowlands, whose cultures included a warrior ethic
and deep commitments to individual liberty. If Yankee ideology seeks to make
a community free of tyrants, Appalachia’s sticks up for each person’s freedom
to become a tyrant.” (This sounds extreme, but may contain a grain of truth.
He also mentions the culture of the Far West whose colonists in the 19th
century, “…had, almost by necessity, a libertarian streak”.) What unifies the many
U.S. cultures is a distinctive American way of doing things,
that we shall discuss later. |
9)
Ibid,
p. 28.
10)
Ibid,
p. 84.
11)
Ibid,
p. 86.
12)
The
authors’ treatment of England’s Glorious Revolution of 1688, that modernized
the English state, mentions mainly events. They do not mention the crucial
element of social trust that enables civil society, political coalitions, and
economic bargaining. This is the social basis of the Pareto curve.
13)
Thomas
Ertman; “The Birth of the Leviathan”; Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge; 1997; p. 159.
14)
The
English essentially out-organized France. The French revolution of 1789 was
caused by the inability of the French state to effect fiscal reforms under
Louis XVI. The French state was burdened by debts incurred by its continental
commitments, by those incurred during the American revolution,
and by the non-cooperation of its elites, Schama
(1989).
15)
Acemoglu and Robinson,
p. 333.