Why nations fail | James Robinson | TEDxAcademy 

James Robinson described the whole problem which torments my country. Thank you, man. You are my favorite economist.🙂

The main reason why my country Nigeria is undeveloped is the absence of MERITOCRACY. The Nigerian constitution has something called federal character principle which means that ministers is and all government appointees must be appointed equally from all the states of the federation. People vote for the president based on what tribe they come from rather than their competence and the least educated tribes have the highest population. In business also, the wealthiest are the people with the most connection to the government. In high schools and universities people are admitted based on where they come from and this ensures that the best almost never get to run the country

What's funny is Edison didn't invent the damn light bulb. He was better versed in patent law, and got the original Inventor's patent disqualified on a technicality.

Interesting that I don't think he mentioned corruption once, yet he appears to be drawing a comparison between relatively corrupt institutions and non-corrupt ones.

All points are agreeable. I hope reading the book "Why Nation Fail" would be really fascinating and helpful to the development of my small organization (practically) and see how it will impact it.

I got his Book! Why Nations Fail. And yes, he talked about my country, Peru, in it! 👏👏

Thank you Mr Robinson for your effective speech

Poor nations are poor because rich nations don't want any competition. Rich nations succeed in kicking away the ladder (protectionism) which they used to develop their economy. I suggest you read a book by Ha Joon Chang titled The myth of free trade and the guilty secrets of rich nations.

REALLY INSIGHTFUL TALK !!

Brillant, strong institutions, respect law, inclusivism institutions, freedom, political power distribution, no monopolys

giving a presentation about failed countries in Greece (if you know what I mean)

I agree with practically everything he says, but there are at least two omissions: 1. The patent system serves mainly the mega-companies and not the individuals in two ways: The simplest one is that they buy patents from individuals at a nice price but it is cheap compared to its value to their revenues. It may be called fair trade, but here comes the second way: if the patent holder tries to develop the idea independently, a big company will look into its implementation and will find that the inventor was unaware of using some patents without paying royalties. If it is not a patent of the mega company, they will try to buy this patent, and then make their claim - it will mostly end up with the individual selling his parent to the mega company :-( 2. He forgot (?) to mention that MS is a monopoly, acts like a monopoly, and it was not divided to independent companies like the oil tycoons and like Bell company, the latter is probably the last real case of the anty-trust law in action. Just my tuppence

Excelent, I will come again to learn deeper about your speech, thanks so much Gentlemen

Very informative,please keep up.

His comments and comparisons might have been a bit too romantic for some, but the theory is so well put together by the facts and history/experience thats its hard to imagine it might not be 100% true. Sure some specific situations might need better analysis, but at its core, it just makes TOO much sense, compared to other theories. My favorite "book" up to now.

This is basically his book condensed

I love this man point I really do and I'll defiantly give his book "Why Nations Fail" a read, my only desire was for this amazing point to have been vocalized more eloquently. The point he he's makes is surprisingly topical and something that many in the US need to better understand. If only he had a better way with words then this message would reach further.

“In 2021, the top 10 percent of Americans held nearly 70 percent of U.S. wealth, up from about 61 percent at the end of 1989. The share held by the next 40 percent fell correspondingly over that period. The bottom 50 percent (roughly sixty-three million families) owned about 2.5 percent of wealth in 2021.” Please explain this using the great US institutions.

I think that the theory put forward by James Robinson in his book is invaluable and accurate. But I think there is a conflict between what that theory could generate in practice and what it wants to generate theoretically in the book. Let me explain: at the beginning of the video Robinson says that the rules of a state should create incentives and opportunities, but reaching the end he says that is necessary a political project in which a state that enforces the rules is reconciled with democracy . All this to avoid the use of the state to promote private interests and not public interests by making clientelism for example. So what would happen if the state policies propposed by a group of politicians are sold to the population as public interests (when they are not) and people believe it? being the people unable to understand that this is harmful to society as a whole and entering a spiral of decline. So this is where there is a hidden premise in Robinson's reasoning. People need to understand and agree with each other and with politicians about what those public interests to defend are. I think it is highly unlikely that this understanding within society will lead to conclusions that create institutions that foster opportunities and incentives. Robinson believes that nobody is going to question that what he calls inclusive institutions are the correct ones and nobody is going to doubt that they pursue the public interest (when this is a very ambiguous and politically usable concept). And it also does not take into account that it is highly unlikely that politicians are actually working to pursue the public interest. Hardly anyone in society is really looking for that.

The Korea example was spot on

Since i Started to read this book, i just changed my mind about the political Issues👏👏👏👏👏

I need to read the book 📖 😩

Good reading.

Interesting insights into the wealth of developing countries..monopolies

Currently reading this book found it pretty interesting

He gets part of the point, he does miss the problem of government control. Patons limit product growth, if you have a free market it makes it harder for the company to sell the product because multiple people are building it, the companies have to fight to make a better cheaper product that convinces the consumer to purchase the product.

the title should be "Why some nation develop while others don't". I think the talk is very limited in scope. Its seems like patent protection seems to be the road to development. If that were the case then China would have never become what is it, because it simply has no patent laws. There are other factors like demographic dividend, size, export oriented growth etc etc which lead to development not just plain patent protection

The government does not protect inventors from infringement on their patents; a patent only gives you the RIGHT to sue someone who infringes on your patent. Often the legal cost of defending your rights as an independent inventor is prohibitive. Large corporations run roughshod over inventors taking what they please with very little consequences if any at all.

A nation is the deployment of nature into institutions, human institutions. Among those institutions is the contract, the social contract. A nation fails when leaders cannot translate into practical reality the prescriptions of the contract or if that contract isn't a real one. For instance, the case of a dictatorship.

Wow, the brilliant argument here, I never thought about why North Korea is so poorer than us South Koreans before, but it all makes sense now with the inclusive/exclusive social institutes. North Korea inherited the extremely exclusive political Insititute system from Cho Seon Dynasty whereas South Korea chose to adapt the western way of the more inclusive system which led to having a lot more commonwealth. The irony is tho North Koreans thought communism can enrich their life when they decided to remain in the north but the reality turned out to be a total opposite :(

The fallacy of looking at the world though only the prismat of power, while the power is included in the hierarchy of competence - it is only one means of gathering wealth.

your country need to be peaceful 2 you have to work on your economic 3 you have to have good military 4 you have to change the way people see your country outside of the country I hope I will my country develop Somalia 🇸🇴 am only 17 learning new things everyday hopefully I will make my country how they used to be in the 70s and 80s peaceful and develop ❤️🇸🇴❤️

I think after watching this it’s important to learn about modern monetary theory , and ways to create publicly funded elections. This way the state isn’t serving private interests.

The light was actually not invented by Edison. It is was invested by a British professor, who didn't get the patent.

It's always many factors that affect a society: Culture, history, institutions, religion, geography, natural resources, interference from foreign nations etc. Arguably, institutions play a major role, but do not believe in single explanations of complex phenomenon.

Are you telling me Microsoft is not a monopoly? Lol

Like to hear an updated assessment for respective countries today.

At first sight it was like Heisenberg giving a speech

So the underlying principle is you need a state that enforces fairness for all and not just the few.

Countries spending big on building their economies are mostly on the way up Countries spending big on wars and armaments are mostly on the way down

Currently reading this book. It makes us know how poor country and rich country depends on political institution

Such a good book, such a bad conference.

The book is more esoteric tbh. The talk is a bit frivolous, I strongly recommend reading the book. The book is a bit heavy undoubtedly but will surely address many questions.

Wealth must be created through innovations not monopolies

He didn't mention the role of colonialism and the exploitation and extraction of resources and labor by the former colonialists. The poor countries have failed to develop their inclusive institutions because historically they have been derailed from doing so due to the inconvenience that would cause to a few countries.

In case of DRC it's hard not to fail with leader like Mobutu.

Let me start with a few statements: 1. Righteousness exalts a nation - there is no alternative. 2. The quality of life of the citizens of any country is directly proportional to the quality of the leadership of that country. Matabeleland and Mashonaland became Rhodesia. Rhodesia became Zimbabwe - all the same geographical area. Matabeleland and Mashonaland were pretty much a trackless, disease-ridden, war-torn waste with the warlike Matabele preying on the less warlike, but more productive, Mashona. In 1980 Cecil Rhodes sent in the pioneer column. The country became known as Southern Rhodesia - later Rhodesia. In 90 years Rhodesia became almost a first world country with great infrastructure - roads, railways, telecommunications, government buildings, schools, clinics, hospitals, hydro-electricity, etc. The economy was built on mining, farming, manufacturing and tourism. Unemployment was virtually nil, as was corruption in the government and the civil service. After some 13 years of civil war - the Rhodesian Government on one side, and Mugabe and Nkomo, with their Chinese and Russian backed guerillas, on the other. In 1980 Mugabe and his ZanuPf party took power. Since then the country has been virtually destroyed with the poor getting poorer, life expectancy diminishing, disease becoming rife, infrastructure collapsing, and the country in almost unrecoverable debt. The ruling class have become obscenely rich, and the main development has been in the form of huge mansions for the politically connected to the detriment of everyone else. So what are the lessons? 1. It started with tribal chaos and inter-tribal war. 2. It went through 90 years of almost unbelievable prosperity under the Rhodesian government. 3. It has now been almost completely destroyed by Marxist kleptomaniacs. What was the difference between these regimes? Righteousness. The Rhodesian government was a (reasonably) honest, facilitating, encouraging government. Patents are an interesting subject, and I am not against them. However Rhodesia had some of the best agricultural and mining businesses in the world. The reason for this, is that every farmer or mining firm shared all their discoveries, to the benefit of all. Food for thought.

What about IMF loans and corporations taking resources.

Who would have thought ten years later if you were to listen to him describe places out of context, that it would sound eerily similar to what's happening in the west

Great! Only thing I did not understand is what is an institution.

And yet another tale of some country where patents are freely given to all inventors who have original ideas and the government enforces all controlling factors of the invention to the holders by stopping anyone else who tries to steal the idea for their own use. At one time a country named the United States of America really did this and it was a very successful model for economic incentives that grew that nation into the top producing country ever existing in world history. However this country no longer exists and has been replaced by a professional circus team who still can spin the yarn fast enough to knit the needed curtain that covers their backstage of corporate boardrooms of the megalithic nations called international "businesses" and the patent procedures are the joke of the nightly after dinner drinks and camaraderie.

Not that I'm an advocate of the Soviet regime in Eastern Europe, BUT most of the extremely poor and corrupted African countries would be more than happy with the very well organized and free healthcare, education, housing, paved roads only to mention the few of achievements including those in science. Remeber Jurij Gagarin, the first man in Space?

Such a Wide range of comprehensive analysis of poor and rich countries.

It all happens today in my goddamn country Indonesia

Mr Carlos Fabra (President of the Diputación Provincial de Castellón , somewhat of a State and a county in the USA) won the lottery around 7 consecutive times. I guess great minds think in the same ways.

You have some point. But the foreign policy of prosperous countries could be one factor that makes a difference. Anyways, it is up to the nations themselves to be wise and strong internally to come out as prosperous and strong.

"Slaves were not considered American citizens and laws at the time prevented them from applying for or holding property, including patents." Smithsonian Magazine. It was very frustrating to continuously hear "equal" "open" and "inclusive" for a system that was absolutely not.

POLITICS IS A MYTH!

🔥🔥🔥🔥

Oh my goodness! Ken robinson has six siblings and his father's name is James. is this ken robinson's brother??? He kind of looks like him. He's even British! haha

What is the difference between 'Why Nation Fail" and " The Narrow Corridor" in theoritical views and forwarded solutions ?

Patent creates incentive for people to innovate as their reward is safeguarded from getting stolen

Its interesting seeing him try to associate poor and rich with inclusive and extractive institutions. There are SO many variables and history involved with countries that make them poor or rich, and so many other variables that you have to take into account if you'd associate a country as "poor" or "rich". There's tonnes of inequality, poor healthcare, and corruption in "rich" countries, for example a lot of places in America can be considered third world in terms of government services, healthcare and wealth. Additionally, its easy to say african countries are poor because of their economic organisation, when in fact it also has a lot to do with the empires who came to their continent, exploited their people and resources for hundreds of years, enslaved them. then left them with extremely corrupt governments

TedTalks are by definition ‘short’, and un packaging so much in so little time is exceedingly difficult. I listens to his presentation carefully, and was left with the clear impression that way too much is over simplified, especially when dealing with the root causes of poverty. I am not impressed at all. Yes, for those who may be wondering… I bought and read his book (“Why nations fail”).

His theory: a lack of meritocracy due to political institutions with a lack of democracy stifles innovation. This lack of democracy stems from a concentration of political power, which enables corruption within the institutions (as the minority with this power can promote its interests at the expense of the excluded majority), and this corruption allows the maintenance of the power concentration that allowed the corruption in the first place. An unvirtuous cycle. Rich nations are rich because they do not fall victim to this cycle; poor nations are poor because they do. My question: what initiates the cycle? Which came first, the corruption, or the concentration of power? For moral deficiencies in individuals to expand into institutional corruption, these individuals must already have a decent amount of power - so perhaps the latter? And if this is the case - if the concentration of political power came first - where did this come from? In the case of Mexico, a succession of revolutionary generals stepped on the top power podium, cementing the podium and paving the way for individuals with political rather than military might to step onto it in the future (after this transition from caudillismo to era institucional). Military prowess created the positions with concentrated political power, and now, these positions are occupied by individuals who succeed in elections - elections which easily fall prey to corruption. So, perhaps it's the very existence of power positions that allows, invites and even encourages corruption. Now, Robinson's proposed solution is that politicians have to 'build a non-clientelistic state', or in other words, to reform and remake the state so that it serves public, not private, interests. So, he's asking us to rely on politicians to make this reform... But when elections are easily corrupted in these poor nations, how will you get non-corrupt politicians into positions of power to make these reforms? Especially considering the basic principle I highlighted earlier, that the presence of positions of power inevitably attracts corruption, by either attracting corrupt individuals, or corrupting individuals with initially virtuous(ish) intent. Even states in rich nations serve private over public interests; cronyism and successful corporate lobbying in government is rampant. So, if states in both rich and poor nations have this shared characteristic of serving private over public interests, this is clearly not one of the ultimate causes of the wealth disparity. To holistically diagnose the difference, we have to travel further back to about the 16th century - the start of colonialism. Neglecting the colonial and imperial history of our world in attempting to explain wealth inequalities between nations is like trying to diagnose cancer by observing someone's skin. It's surface-level analysis, making the fatal flaw of missing a huge chunk of history - a chunk which is vital to understand to even begin to grasp the real roots of the world we see today, including the relative wealth of nations. Side note: he says that economic institutions 'stem from a political process'. I'd argue that political institutions stem from an economic process: globalisation (integration of nations into the global economy). I can't be bothered to write about it now because I have a life I should probably get on with. Thanks for reading ;)

A country is essentially a collection of communities of people. As life experience is unique to each and every individual a country's history and power dynamics, culture, beliefs, values and the size and depth of the gap between stated values and the lived experience of its culture are likely to be unique to each and every country as well. Moreover, what is rich and what is poor? Overall such comparisons are like judging the quality of an apple by the standards of a pear. And of course, there is the area of colonialism, slavery, and exploitation - including taking away anything valuable or movable - many of such treasured items to be found in rich countries' formal institutions, e.g. British Museum. Lastly, of anything then exceptionalism and avoidance, when get disproportionate in relational dynamics, tend to yield - on encountering curiosity, creativity or innovation in others, fear of competition or threat- originating anger, arrogance that often culminates into the so-called glass ceiling phenomenon. In societies where maturity is yet to be conquered by the majority of people discrimination, invalidating and trivialising stifle any initiative easily simply because being excellent is internalised and people do realise where the boundaries are by relating to one another as well as their own selves. As they experience something missing or inadequate that even causing harm or loss but because they believe in their culture's fundamental values without thinking about them, most people tend to conclude that whatever their actual life experience is really as good as it gets so they do not challenge the Status quo. I guess these two fundamentals somewhat became sort-of Holy Cows and therefore play a part in the English's monolingualism and the English men's very limited enthusiasm around travelling abroad so those beliefs do not get challenged by contrast that, if one doesn't have the safe space to converse about exceptionalism and avoidance as cultural values or doesn't have a vocabulary even thinking about them feels almost like blasphemy.

3:21 "does Greece has politicians like that?" No. They have way way worst. As a greek person you can take my word for it.

while the US is more prosperous than Mexico and is considered a rich country, its gini coefficient is also one of the highest in the world. I think the author should write a new vol. of the book perhaps to be titled: why nations are more equal

How about CORRUPTION ?

History shows that Art is the main factor in the fall and rise of the Nations. Human civilization is built with Art. Art is a source of innovation and a tool to shape the word and even portrait and imagine the future. ( not patent Law ) Nations, cultures who demote or restrict the Art, no matter how rich they may end up in misery!

Good Analysis minus ruling out the external involvement all together. Yes, the nations fail due to their internal problems initially but after that, most of it is external.

16:00 - 18:18 💯💯💯💯REAL LIFE💯💯💯💯 Not going to lie, I love the British, there’s slight differences between the influences of nurture vs nature in the UK environment than even their European neighbors such as but not limited to a random/arbitrary example of i.e: tendencies/etc found in Germanys society which has their own strong pros and cons of a nations tendencies of the way of thinking/influencing/etc it’s population…for example what trains or thoughts that are birthed out of nations

Lo que no entiendo es por qué la gente actúa en favor a los monopolios! Entiendo que es cuestión de cifras, pero en realidad, las cifras a dónde llevan? De verdad todo este lío se deriva de un juego de egos? No me cabe en la cabeza!

So maybe it would have helped that companies of western historically wealthy nations had not corrupted the authorities of these countries and continue to do so in order to secure the vast resources of these countries

Does economic sanctions, coups, monopoly of international trade through u.s. dollar & wars waged by the west that destroys infrastructure plays a role in these nations being poor&failing? Perhaps it has something to do with, when such countries use national mining, metallurgy & oil companies to keep all their resources to themselves they suddenly become undemocratic and then a coup backed by the west ensues? like the situation of Venezuela?

I don't disagree with James Robinson, however it is part of the story. Poor countries are disadvantaged by Big corporations in that they can avoid taxes. They sell the product (usually Minerals) to a subsidiary outside the country, at a very low price, thus you have not made much profit and pay very little tax. The subsidiary then sells it at a very good price to the rest of the world from a place that has very low tax. I can understand corporations not wanting to pay taxes to a despot, Mugabe being a very good example. But there are some good African leaders too. It is also worth mentioning poor countries cannot retain their Doctors.

Very clear intro there Englishman. What you seem to have conveniently left out is that Congo in Africa, is a very wealthy nation and its thanks to many of these countries that the prosperous countries have gotten that way. Colonization, exploitation and looting backed by powerful and brutal military responses to those who dared to stand in the way of the free flow of resources from these "poor" nations to the prosperous West. Belgium, technically not even a country, brutally colinized that part of Africa.

I'll tell you why I started a new country on the west coast... in 2014!

of course one always need to take those theories with a grain of salt. from the 'ted talk' on may think that the US are an example in competition regulation, but one need to take into account that because the comparison is made to mexico, etc...

Such a limited lot of ideas that blinds more than reveals the complexities of the world

I think hes oversimplifying it. I think theres and he has hit on one part of it and there is more where he has missed

The uk issued their first patent in tve mid 1450s.. and it had nothing todo with euality or fairness.. just look as tesler.. the ownership often goes to the employer..

care to explain why Brexit is such an "inclusive" chaos?

Monopolies do not block other people potential. How OPEC blocked potential of oil rich countries that are not in OPEC? No, they are benefited them.

Would like to ask whether James Robinson has been to North Korea???

As an Indonesians, i cant agree more. Lots of similarities here

The two key words here are; Innovation versus monopoly. Simple

He could have saved us all 18 minutes of our time by just coming out and saying - 'I dont know' lol.

Mugabe went to MSU, East Lansing Michigan USA

In the end USA created a monopoly for it's patent products in the world today. Is that the irony to Mexico's situation?

The word "patent" is not in the US Constitution, and innovation happens all the time without anyone registering a patent. The incentive to profit, and fear of starvation, creates innovation.

I think poor countries are poor because they do not have enough economic space on the global markets where they sell their commodities. Also they have weak political institutions.

I'd love to know his thoughts about China

I could not finish the book it's just too long,✌️😭😭

Now year 2019 everybody knows what happen to Greece after 2014. He basically predicted their meltdown: 'Where is the Greek project? -> No Greek project -> Greece failed'.

Why Nations Fail - ethnic diversity governed by unitary governments.

The very American phenomenon of companies like Uber, Tesla and Amazon being able to run losses years on end, all the while growing spectacularly and destroying competition, is the same problem he has identified with the Carlos Slim example; here too a massive inequality is at play, the ability of these companies to access vast reserves of wealth which are unavailable to businesses in most parts of the US itself, much less the rest of the world. This of course is a direct result of the huge wealth inequality established in the US since Reaganomics. These businesses continue to make losses, hence a negative contribution to GDP, but the owners become fabulously rich. No different from Senor Slim.

Big Tech should be broken up.

I was expecting a more transparent discourse in this one. He doesn’t mention certain things he does in the book.. Wonder why!

Tl;dr - "corrupt oligopolies are bad"