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I strongly recommend Acemoglu, Robinson classic book "Why Nations Fail" https://www.amazon.com/Why-Nations-Fail-Origins-Prosperity/dp/0307719227 https://www.am

I strongly recommend Acemoglu, Robinson classic book "Why Nations Fail" https://www.amazon.com/Why-Nations-Fail-Origins-Prosperity/dp/0307719227 https://www.amazon.com/Why-Nations-Fail-Origins-Prosperity/d... It's very accessible, no economics background required. Along with Krugman and Kahneman, one of the few economics scholars that take the time to write a book for layman.

alephnerd 2y ago
I also recommend Acemolgu's recent book "Power and Progress" on the relationship between labor and technology [0]. If you don't like reading, Acemoglu gave a talk about it at HKS recently [1] [0] - https://ig.ft.com/sites/business-book-award/books/2023/longlist/power-and-progress-by-daron-acemoglu-and-simon-johnson/ https://ig.ft.com/sites/business-book-award/books/2023/longl... [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WT0NzlATjf0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WT0NzlATjf0
js8 2y ago
I read the summary from the review and I am not convinced that neoliberal US and EU have a less extractive governance structure than China has, as the authors seem to claim. It's been a decade since the book was published and China is still going strong. We will see.
- dash2 2y ago
  China has become more and more authoritarian under Xi, its GDP growth stats may be dodgy, and recently its housing bubble has popped big-style. It could go the way of Japan. I agree with your last sentence, all the same.
  - MichaelZuo 2y ago
    How do you know this? I don’t want to single this out but tangible proof of a net increase in ‘authoritarian’ decision making, compared to say a decade ago, has never been posted on HN, as far as I know. Most of the in depth analysis I’ve seen suggests that although enforcement actions have become stricter over the past decade, the actual number of new laws and regulations has gone down. And more importantly, the number of contradictory laws and regulations (between central authorities, and between the centre and provinces) has gone way way down. So there’s much less leeway to punish on a whim or trap someone in a double bind, compared to a decade ago. Which suggests a net decrease, if anything.
    - vlovich123 2y ago
      It depends on if you’re talking about authoritarianism as it relates to the average person or the political and ruling class. There have been a lot of reports of Xi getting rid of a lot of potential adversaries when he announced himself ruler for life and the imprisonment of Jack Ma and stripping him of his wealth for making challenging statements against Xi seems pretty authoritarian.
      - MichaelZuo 2y ago
        Does it makes sense to discuss it relative to the ‘political and ruling class’? Since they pretty much all have party cards already. And the moment they give it up means they’re kicked out from any decision making, from what I understand. Yes internal factions within the party can arbitrarily punish each other for made up reasons all day long, every day of the year. So in a sense it was already authoritarian without limit. But that’s not new, nor different from any other big political party.
        vlovich123 2y ago
        The kind of punishment authoritarian regimes dish out is much more severe in ways that you couldn’t do in the US (imprisonment, seizure of assets, death). In fact I’d argue it’s the only kind that matters. Authoritarian regimes rarely go after normal people unless they speak out actively against the government (which China does) and instead focus on controlling and censoring anyone in a position of power and let the implicit censoring of the entire population flow downstream from that.
        MichaelZuo 2y ago
        If the party membership is revoked first, then the person wouldn’t be part of the ‘political and ruling class’ any longer. Then they would just be a citizen who might formerly have been some bigshot, i.e. the second case. It still doesn’t seem to make sense to discuss any increases relative to the first case, since in 2012 it was already unlimitedly authoritarian.
  - feedforward 2y ago
    People were saying when the PRC was founded 75 years ago it would collapse any day now. They were saying this during the cultural revolution. They were saying it earlier this year, as China sent a robot to the far side of the moon to collect moon rocks and bring them back to earth. And they're still saying it. I'm not holding my breath.
    - doctorpangloss 2y ago
      There are HN posters with the ability to see hard data inside America's largest tech and manufacturing businesses, but don't investigate the question, "How much of what you buy every day was made in China?"
    - kiba 2y ago
      Just because PRC didn't collapse doesn't mean PRC perform well. On the contrary, the current strength of PRC is probably a reversion to mean, what China would be like if it wasn't so mismanaged, and yet decades late from where they could be. States can endure a lot of mismanagement. Look at North Korea for instance. What we won't know is when we hit the breaking point. What is happening in Russia may lead to an eventual collapse, though unlikely. There are some signs of a loss of monopoly on violence as the system is pushed to its breaking point. Hopefully that won't happen, but it's a scary possibility nonetheless.
  - zorked 2y ago
    China is the #1 trading partner of nearly every country in the world. That's all you need to know about how bad they are doing.
- nabla9 2y ago
  Not really: https://data.worldbank.org/share/widget?contextual=aggregate&end=2023&indicators=NY.GDP.PCAP.CD&locations=CN-OE&start=2000 https://data.worldbank.org/share/widget?contextual=aggregate...
- CyberRymden 2y ago
  Do you actually think China has fairer courts, more open financial markets, and better business environment than the EU or US? For the longest time Hong Kong had to fill those gaps for China in order for the country to attract capital. Regardless, even if China does today the explanation still holds considering China only transformed a few decades before the book was written.
  - JetSpiegel 2y ago
    I think China is a worse country to live that the US or EU, but a better business environment. China's State Capitalism is simply more efficient than the neoliberalism hellscape that came up from the Soviet Union's collapse. I see the rest of the world becoming more similar to China than the other way around, unfortunately. The US is already a pseudo-Soviet state economically, and is on the brink of becoming a dictatorship on top of that.
    - blackhawkC17 2y ago
      > I see the rest of the world becoming more similar to China than the other way around, unfortunately. I hope they enjoy the mediocrity that comes with state-dominated economies. > The US is already a pseudo-Soviet state economically. Maybe I'm blind, but I have no idea how someone looks at the USA and concludes this.
      - JetSpiegel 2y ago
        Extremely inequality that keeps increasing, political movements that try to change this are killed in the crib, a dying empire. Just because the Central Comittee is called Blackrock, doesn't mean the American economy is not being more and more centrally planned. Free Enterprise is dying. I mean economically, the political system is still "free" (less and less), it's not a dictatorship (yet).
        blackhawkC17 2y ago
        > Just because the Central Comittee is called Blackrock, doesn't mean the American economy is not being more and more centrally planned. Of course, you'll mention BlackRock, the never-ending boogeyman for people with little economic knowledge.
- jltsiren 2y ago
  You have a short-term perspective. All kinds of governance structures can work for a single human lifetime, if they manage to get the right people to the right places. But those people will eventually retire and die. Good institutions make it more likely that their replacements will also be competent and have the right motivations and incentives. PRC has enjoyed ~45 years of stability and economic growth under four leaders. Until now, the leaders have retired voluntarily, and there has been an ordered transition of power to the successor. But Xi Jinping is clinging to power in a way his predecessors didn't. If he stays beyond 2027, it will be interesting to see if China can survive his death.
Eumenes 2y ago
> Krugman Not sure I'd spend time on a Krugman book. He predicted in 1998 that the internet would cease having an economic impact by 2005 and that it would be no greater than fax machines. He's like the Neil deGrasse Tyson of economics.
- CyberRymden 2y ago
  Krugman is controversial at times, but he is a serious economist. The quote is also taken out of two important contexts. 1. It was not a serious academic prediction but rather part of a fluff piece by the Times about future precitions. 2. The quote also exists in the context of a debate that was raging during the advent of the internet whether or not the internet would hyper charge productivity and economic growth. In hindsight, especially after the late 1990s, the truth is far closer to the fax machine rather than a new era of prosperity. The lack of visible productivity growth from a technology that has so visibly transformed our society is one of the bigger questions in economics today.
  - AnimalMuppet 2y ago
    The lack of visible productivity growth. In particular, it's not as visible as you expect in the GDP statistics. Take TV Guide, for instance. Now, if anybody watches broadcast television, they can use the internet to find out what's on when. Is that better or worse for users than having a paper TV guide? In many ways it's better. But it shows up in the GDP as a negative, because nobody's buying TV Guide any more. Or take Google. I can search for any information I want, for free. That creates immense value - immense in every sense except the GDP, where it doesn't show up at all, because it's free. Wikipedia. Linux. gcc. The Wayback Machine. Even HN. All this is available to us, whenever we want it, for whatever purpose we want, for free. There's great value to us. Just nothing that shows up on the GDP statistics, because it's all free. (Yeah, I know, RedHat sells Linux, and Wikipedia asks for donations. They aren't Microsoft selling Windows and The World Book, though. You can still use them for free, and not get sued or jailed.)
    - kiba 2y ago
fekunde 2y ago
After reading "Why Nations Fail", which I really enjoyed, I wondered whether we could develop an LLM with a wide enough context window where I could input the lessons from such books along with data and metrics about a specific country. Then, the AI could prescribe tangible solutions and policy recommendations tailored to that nation's unique situation. I'm curious what an AI system like that might look like. I also wonder if it's possible to experiment with a smaller-scale version of this concept using today's technology.
- JetSpiegel 2y ago
  I thought the Chicago School had already proved blindly applying "policy recommendations" from on high was a receipt for disaster and misery, but sure, let's do the same with AI, this time it will surely work.
- nradov 2y ago
  What's the point? We generally know what economic policies work. But they aren't put into effect due to ideology or special interests. This isn't a problem with a technical solution.
omnee 2y ago
The rule of law is a key part of a nations success as argued by AJR. A very good exposition for the layman on the rule of law provided by Tom Bingham in the eponymous 'The Rule of Law):https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7734691-the-rule-of-law https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7734691-the-rule-of-law While the above is informed by the UK's constitutional arrangement, the 8 principles are near universal when considering nations that have or aim for The Rule of Law. The principles are: (1) The law must be accessible and so far as possible intelligible, clear and predictable. (2) Questions of legal right and liability should ordinarily be resolved by application of the law and not the exercise of discretion. (3) The laws of the land should apply equally to all, save to the extent that objective differences justify differentiation. (4) Ministers and public officers at all levels must exercise the powers conferred on them in good faith, fairly, for the purpose for which the powers were conferred, without exceeding the limits of such powers and not unreasonably. (5) The law must afford adequate protection of fundamental human rights. (6) Means must be provided for resolving, without prohibitive cost or inordinate delay, bona fide civil disputes which the parties themselves are unable to resolve. (7) The adjudicative procedures provided by the state should be fair. (8) The rule of law requires compliance by the state with its obligations in international law as in national law.

alephnerd 2y ago

I also recommend Acemolgu's recent book "Power and Progress" on the relationship between labor and technology [0]. If you don't like reading, Acemoglu gave a talk about it at HKS recently [1] [0] - https://ig.ft.com/sites/business-book-award/books/2023/longlist/power-and-progress-by-daron-acemoglu-and-simon-johnson/ https://ig.ft.com/sites/business-book-award/books/2023/longl... [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WT0NzlATjf0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WT0NzlATjf0

js8 2y ago

I read the summary from the review and I am not convinced that neoliberal US and EU have a less extractive governance structure than China has, as the authors seem to claim. It's been a decade since the book was published and China is still going strong. We will see.

dash2 2y ago
China has become more and more authoritarian under Xi, its GDP growth stats may be dodgy, and recently its housing bubble has popped big-style. It could go the way of Japan. I agree with your last sentence, all the same.
- MichaelZuo 2y ago
  How do you know this? I don’t want to single this out but tangible proof of a net increase in ‘authoritarian’ decision making, compared to say a decade ago, has never been posted on HN, as far as I know. Most of the in depth analysis I’ve seen suggests that although enforcement actions have become stricter over the past decade, the actual number of new laws and regulations has gone down. And more importantly, the number of contradictory laws and regulations (between central authorities, and between the centre and provinces) has gone way way down. So there’s much less leeway to punish on a whim or trap someone in a double bind, compared to a decade ago. Which suggests a net decrease, if anything.
  - vlovich123 2y ago
    It depends on if you’re talking about authoritarianism as it relates to the average person or the political and ruling class. There have been a lot of reports of Xi getting rid of a lot of potential adversaries when he announced himself ruler for life and the imprisonment of Jack Ma and stripping him of his wealth for making challenging statements against Xi seems pretty authoritarian.
    - MichaelZuo 2y ago
      Does it makes sense to discuss it relative to the ‘political and ruling class’? Since they pretty much all have party cards already. And the moment they give it up means they’re kicked out from any decision making, from what I understand. Yes internal factions within the party can arbitrarily punish each other for made up reasons all day long, every day of the year. So in a sense it was already authoritarian without limit. But that’s not new, nor different from any other big political party.
      - vlovich123 2y ago
        The kind of punishment authoritarian regimes dish out is much more severe in ways that you couldn’t do in the US (imprisonment, seizure of assets, death). In fact I’d argue it’s the only kind that matters. Authoritarian regimes rarely go after normal people unless they speak out actively against the government (which China does) and instead focus on controlling and censoring anyone in a position of power and let the implicit censoring of the entire population flow downstream from that.
        MichaelZuo 2y ago
        If the party membership is revoked first, then the person wouldn’t be part of the ‘political and ruling class’ any longer. Then they would just be a citizen who might formerly have been some bigshot, i.e. the second case. It still doesn’t seem to make sense to discuss any increases relative to the first case, since in 2012 it was already unlimitedly authoritarian.
- feedforward 2y ago
  People were saying when the PRC was founded 75 years ago it would collapse any day now. They were saying this during the cultural revolution. They were saying it earlier this year, as China sent a robot to the far side of the moon to collect moon rocks and bring them back to earth. And they're still saying it. I'm not holding my breath.
  - doctorpangloss 2y ago
    There are HN posters with the ability to see hard data inside America's largest tech and manufacturing businesses, but don't investigate the question, "How much of what you buy every day was made in China?"
  - kiba 2y ago
    Just because PRC didn't collapse doesn't mean PRC perform well. On the contrary, the current strength of PRC is probably a reversion to mean, what China would be like if it wasn't so mismanaged, and yet decades late from where they could be. States can endure a lot of mismanagement. Look at North Korea for instance. What we won't know is when we hit the breaking point. What is happening in Russia may lead to an eventual collapse, though unlikely. There are some signs of a loss of monopoly on violence as the system is pushed to its breaking point. Hopefully that won't happen, but it's a scary possibility nonetheless.
- zorked 2y ago
  China is the #1 trading partner of nearly every country in the world. That's all you need to know about how bad they are doing.
nabla9 2y ago
Not really: https://data.worldbank.org/share/widget?contextual=aggregate&end=2023&indicators=NY.GDP.PCAP.CD&locations=CN-OE&start=2000 https://data.worldbank.org/share/widget?contextual=aggregate...
CyberRymden 2y ago
Do you actually think China has fairer courts, more open financial markets, and better business environment than the EU or US? For the longest time Hong Kong had to fill those gaps for China in order for the country to attract capital. Regardless, even if China does today the explanation still holds considering China only transformed a few decades before the book was written.
- JetSpiegel 2y ago
  I think China is a worse country to live that the US or EU, but a better business environment. China's State Capitalism is simply more efficient than the neoliberalism hellscape that came up from the Soviet Union's collapse. I see the rest of the world becoming more similar to China than the other way around, unfortunately. The US is already a pseudo-Soviet state economically, and is on the brink of becoming a dictatorship on top of that.
  - blackhawkC17 2y ago
    > I see the rest of the world becoming more similar to China than the other way around, unfortunately. I hope they enjoy the mediocrity that comes with state-dominated economies. > The US is already a pseudo-Soviet state economically. Maybe I'm blind, but I have no idea how someone looks at the USA and concludes this.
    - JetSpiegel 2y ago
      Extremely inequality that keeps increasing, political movements that try to change this are killed in the crib, a dying empire. Just because the Central Comittee is called Blackrock, doesn't mean the American economy is not being more and more centrally planned. Free Enterprise is dying. I mean economically, the political system is still "free" (less and less), it's not a dictatorship (yet).
      - blackhawkC17 2y ago
        > Just because the Central Comittee is called Blackrock, doesn't mean the American economy is not being more and more centrally planned. Of course, you'll mention BlackRock, the never-ending boogeyman for people with little economic knowledge.
jltsiren 2y ago
You have a short-term perspective. All kinds of governance structures can work for a single human lifetime, if they manage to get the right people to the right places. But those people will eventually retire and die. Good institutions make it more likely that their replacements will also be competent and have the right motivations and incentives. PRC has enjoyed ~45 years of stability and economic growth under four leaders. Until now, the leaders have retired voluntarily, and there has been an ordered transition of power to the successor. But Xi Jinping is clinging to power in a way his predecessors didn't. If he stays beyond 2027, it will be interesting to see if China can survive his death.

Eumenes 2y ago

> Krugman Not sure I'd spend time on a Krugman book. He predicted in 1998 that the internet would cease having an economic impact by 2005 and that it would be no greater than fax machines. He's like the Neil deGrasse Tyson of economics.

CyberRymden 2y ago
Krugman is controversial at times, but he is a serious economist. The quote is also taken out of two important contexts. 1. It was not a serious academic prediction but rather part of a fluff piece by the Times about future precitions. 2. The quote also exists in the context of a debate that was raging during the advent of the internet whether or not the internet would hyper charge productivity and economic growth. In hindsight, especially after the late 1990s, the truth is far closer to the fax machine rather than a new era of prosperity. The lack of visible productivity growth from a technology that has so visibly transformed our society is one of the bigger questions in economics today.
- AnimalMuppet 2y ago
  The lack of visible productivity growth. In particular, it's not as visible as you expect in the GDP statistics. Take TV Guide, for instance. Now, if anybody watches broadcast television, they can use the internet to find out what's on when. Is that better or worse for users than having a paper TV guide? In many ways it's better. But it shows up in the GDP as a negative, because nobody's buying TV Guide any more. Or take Google. I can search for any information I want, for free. That creates immense value - immense in every sense except the GDP, where it doesn't show up at all, because it's free. Wikipedia. Linux. gcc. The Wayback Machine. Even HN. All this is available to us, whenever we want it, for whatever purpose we want, for free. There's great value to us. Just nothing that shows up on the GDP statistics, because it's all free. (Yeah, I know, RedHat sells Linux, and Wikipedia asks for donations. They aren't Microsoft selling Windows and The World Book, though. You can still use them for free, and not get sued or jailed.)
  - kiba 2y ago

fekunde 2y ago

After reading "Why Nations Fail", which I really enjoyed, I wondered whether we could develop an LLM with a wide enough context window where I could input the lessons from such books along with data and metrics about a specific country. Then, the AI could prescribe tangible solutions and policy recommendations tailored to that nation's unique situation. I'm curious what an AI system like that might look like. I also wonder if it's possible to experiment with a smaller-scale version of this concept using today's technology.

JetSpiegel 2y ago
I thought the Chicago School had already proved blindly applying "policy recommendations" from on high was a receipt for disaster and misery, but sure, let's do the same with AI, this time it will surely work.
nradov 2y ago
What's the point? We generally know what economic policies work. But they aren't put into effect due to ideology or special interests. This isn't a problem with a technical solution.

omnee 2y ago

The rule of law is a key part of a nations success as argued by AJR. A very good exposition for the layman on the rule of law provided by Tom Bingham in the eponymous 'The Rule of Law):https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7734691-the-rule-of-law https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7734691-the-rule-of-law While the above is informed by the UK's constitutional arrangement, the 8 principles are near universal when considering nations that have or aim for The Rule of Law. The principles are: (1) The law must be accessible and so far as possible intelligible, clear and predictable. (2) Questions of legal right and liability should ordinarily be resolved by application of the law and not the exercise of discretion. (3) The laws of the land should apply equally to all, save to the extent that objective differences justify differentiation. (4) Ministers and public officers at all levels must exercise the powers conferred on them in good faith, fairly, for the purpose for which the powers were conferred, without exceeding the limits of such powers and not unreasonably. (5) The law must afford adequate protection of fundamental human rights. (6) Means must be provided for resolving, without prohibitive cost or inordinate delay, bona fide civil disputes which the parties themselves are unable to resolve. (7) The adjudicative procedures provided by the state should be fair. (8) The rule of law requires compliance by the state with its obligations in international law as in national law.