I recommend everyone interested in this subject to read "Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty" by Daron Acemoglu
It's a great book that tries to explain why.
It's a great book that tries to explain why.
Interesting to read, and it seems like it comes down to:
- Because they have extractive political and economic institutions.
- These are difficult to change though they can be successfully challenged and altered during critical junctures.
- The roots of modern world inequality lie in the emergence of inclusive institutions in Britain and the fruits of this - the industrial revolution - spread to those parts of the world that had similar institutions (settler colonies) or quickly developed them (Western Europe).
- Other parts of the world languished with extractive institutions which have persisted over time and thus remain poor today.
- History is not destiny.
- Effective reforms towards inclusive institutions possible.
- But it often necessitates a minor or major political revolution.
Two examples:
1 End of Southern equilibrium in the United States
2 Botswana
- In 1445 in the German city of Mainz, Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press based on movable type. Spread rapidly throughout Western Europe.
- In 1485, the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid II issued an edict to the effect that Muslims were expressly forbidden from printing in Arabic.