Quotes About Society

The Maya experience illustrates not only the possibility of growth under extractive institutions but also another fundamental limit to this type of growth: the political instability that emerges and ultimately leads to collapse of both society and state as different groups and people fight to become the extractors.

Liberty needs the state and the laws. But it is not given by the state or the elites controlling it. It is taken by regular people, by society. Society needs to control the state so that it protects and promotes people's liberty rather than quashing it like Assad did in Syria before 2011. Liberty needs a mobilized society that participates in politics, protests when it's necessary, and votes the government out of power when it can.

Cuando el Estado no logra prácticamente ninguna centralización política, la sociedad, tarde o temprano, llega al caos

El temor a la destrucción creativa es la razón principal por la que no hubo un aumento sostenido del nivel de vida entre la revolución neolítica y la revolución industrial

what rules society ends up with is determined by politics: who has power and how this power can be exercised.

Rich nations are rich largely because they managed to develop inclusive institutions at some point during the past three hundred years.

But in many other cases, just the opposite takes place, and the process of political centralization also ushers in an era of greater absolutism.

The process of political centralization can actually lead to a form of absolutism, as the king and his associates can crush other powerful groups in society. This is indeed one of the reasons why there will be opposition against state centralization

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.

Inclusive economic institutions require secure property rights and economic opportunities not just for the elite but for a broad cross-section of society. Secure

The U.S. experience in the first half of the twentieth century also emphasizes the important role of free media in empowering broad segments of society and thus in the virtuous circle.

Many citizens in Rome did not need to work: they lived off the handouts from the government.

Las instituciones económicas inclusivas implican la existencia de derechos de propiedad seguros y oportunidades económicas no solamente para la élite, sino también para la mayor parte de la sociedad.

Las instituciones económicas inclusivas también allanan el camino para otros dos motores de prosperidad: la tecnología y la educación.

Allowing people to make their own decisions via markets is the best way for a society to efficiently use its resources. When the state or a narrow elite controls all these resources instead, neither the right incentives will be created nor will there be an efficient allocation of the skills and talents of people.

Denominaremos instituciones políticas inclusivas a aquellas que están suficientemente centralizadas y que son pluralistas. Cuando falle alguna de estas condiciones, nos referiremos a ellas como instituciones políticas extractivas.

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.

Pluralism enshrines the notion of the rule of law, the principle that laws should be applied equally to everybody—something that is naturally impossible under an absolutist monarchy. But the rule of law, in turn, implies that laws cannot simply be used by one group to encroach upon the rights of another.

Denominamos instituciones económicas extractivas a las que tienen propiedades opuestas a las instituciones inclusivas. Son extractivas porque tienen como objetivo extraer rentas y riqueza de un subconjunto de la sociedad para beneficiar a un subconjunto distinto.

Our brief review of the history of the Americas begins to give a sense of the forces that shape political and economic institutions. Different patterns of institutions today are deeply rooted in the past because once society gets organized in a particular way, this tends to persist. We'll show that this fact comes from the way that political and economic institutions interact. This

The powerful and the rest of society will often disagree about which set of institutions should remain in place and which ones should be changed.

Tradicionalmente, la economía ha ignorado la política, pero la comprensión de la política resulta esencial para explicar la desigualdad del mundo.

Political and economic institutions, which are ultimately the choice of society, can be inclusive and encourage economic growth. Or they can be extractive and become impediments to economic growth. Nations fail when they have extractive economic institutions, supported by extractive political institutions that impede and even block economic growth.

La política es el proceso mediante el cual una sociedad elige las reglas que la gobernarán