Why nations fail | James Robinson | TEDxAcademy

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. Why do some states enjoy wealth, security, health and nutrition while others face poverty, unemployment, lack of health care and safety?

James Robinson is a political scientist and economist. Professor Robinson teaches Economics, History and Government at Harvard University. His main research interests lie in the study of the economies of developing countries. He travels a lot in Latin America and Africa and spends his summers teaching at the University of Bogota. In 2012, he was elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2007, James Robinson and Daron Acemoglu coauthored the book “Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy”. The book was considered the best book released on U.S. policy and international relations. Their latest book, "Why Nations Fail", was included in the ten best releases of the 2012 list in Washington Post.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

Thank you very much.
I am James Robinson.

I am going to talk about why nations fail
and why nations succeed as well,

which is really about
why some countries are poor

and some countries are prosperous.

It turns out you can tell a lot
about the answers to that question

by looking at the Korean
peninsula at night.

If you look at Korean peninsula at night,
you see some obvious things.

That South Korea
has a lot of light, electricity.

North Korea, on the other hand,

is rather dark.

There you can see a spot of light.

That's probably the presidential
palace in Pyongyang.

(Laughter)

Now, there could be different reasons
why North Korea is very dark at night.

It could be that North Koreans
have electricity and light bulbs,

but they just think candles
are more romantic.

(Laughter)

It could be, on the other hand,

that North Koreans
have electricity and light bulbs,

but they are just trying
to reduce their carbon footprint.

I think, however,
the more plausible explanation

is that actually North Koreans don't
have access to the types of technologies

like electricity and power
and light bulbs that South Koreans do.

And that enormously restricts
their economic potential.

So one thing we know about the difference
between poor countries and rich countries

is that poor countries, like North Korea,

tend to have much worse technology
than rich countries.

Let me tell you about
some other things we know

about the differences between
poor countries and rich countries.

Poor countries have
much less educated people.

They tend to have
much less healthy people.

They live shorter lives.

They have much worse government
services, like infrastructure.

So, here is an idyllic Congolese
driving scene in a part of the world

where I do a lot of research,
the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

This is what they call, somewhat
ironically in the Congo, Interstate No 1.

And you can see that driving
on Interstate No. 1,

you spend a lot of time digging
your car out of sand and mud.

This is the dry season.
If it was the rainy season, forget it.

You are not going anywhere.

So poor countries have much worse
infrastructure public services.

So why is it that poor and rich countries
differ in terms of their public services,

their technologies,
their levels of education?

Well, some people think
that it's just that poor countries

are too poor to afford to build roads,

or too poor to use modern technologies
like electricity and light bulbs -

not that modern, really,
if you think about it.

But anyway, they're too poor to use it.

But I didn't think that's right.

Most of poor counties where I do research,

lots of resources that could
be used for these things are wasted.

Now, here is an example of that.

You may know this gentleman.
He is called Robert Mugabe.

He is the president of Zimbabwe.

He has been president for 34 years.

You think, you probably known him
as a good politician.

What you didn't know
is he's also a remarkably lucky man.

In fact, he won the lottery.
So how about that?

Someone who is a great politician
and he also wins the lottery.

I mean, come on. Does Greece
have politicians like that?

I mean, Britain doesn't.

So, he is a lucky guy, and I am thinking,
I am sort of trying to suggest

that this may not be
completely coincidental

that he happens to have been
president for 34 years

and he also in his spare time
wins the lottery.

(Laughter)

That road, by the way,
I showed you in 2010 in the Congo,

in 1960 that was a nice
tarmaced surfaced road

that has since deteriorated into the bush.

So I don't think the real reason
that poor countries are poor

and prosperous countries are prosperous

is that poor countries just cannot afford

to do the sorts of things
necessary to become rich.

I think the explanation is,

and that is what I am going to argue
in the rest of my presentation,

that poor countries and rich countries
are organized in very different ways.

And that organization in rich countries

creates incentives
and opportunities for people,

and in poor countries, it doesn't.

In fact, most poor countries
are organized in ways

which block people's incentives
and block people's opportunities.

And that's what creates poverty.

So let me give you
a very specific example of that

which I've realized
it is sort of the theme, you know,

it's almost the motif of the whole event,
which is the light bulb.

I was only expecting to connect this
to North and South Korea,

but there we had all these light bulbs
and Shakespeare that started the day.

So what is this?

This is a patent.

It was taken out by Thomas Edison in 1880,
who invented the light bulb.

So Edison had an invention.

And what did he do?
He took out a patent.

The patent protected
his intellectual property rights.

It stopped people from copying his idea.

And that created incentives
for people to innovate.

So, that was a very important stimulus
for innovation in 19th century U.S.

Let me tell you a few other things
about the patent system.

The patent system was actually set up
by the US constitution.

The first patent law's in 1790,

and Thomas Jefferson, not Thomas Edison,

one of the founding
fathers of the United States,

was actually on the first patent board
handing out patents.

The system was open to everybody.

So, it didn't matter who you were,
you could pay the same fee,

you got a patent,

and the government protected
your intellectual property rights, OK?

Now, that's absolutely crucial
because we know as economists

that one of the huge differences
between poor and rich countries

is exactly innovation,
exactly technological change.

It's that new technologies
that don't spread

from South Korea to North Korea.

So, here's an example of would call
an economic institution,

a kind of rule that creates incentives
and opportunities in society,

and this institution
has a particular property

which I'm going to call inclusive.

It's inclusive in a particular
and important way

because if you look at who are
these people who are filing patents?

You know, Thomas Edison. Who?

What were their social backgrounds?

Well, it turns out,
they came from all over society.

Poor people, rich people,
elite, non-elite,

farmers, artists, professional people,
educated people, non-educated people.

Talent, ideas, skill,
creativity, entrepreneurship

are spread very broadly in society.

And if you want to have
a prosperous society,

you need to have a set of institutions

that can harness all that
latent talent in society.

That's what inclusive
institutions are about,

and that's exactly how
the patent system worked.

Countries like Zimbabwe,
or Democratic Republic of Kongo,

or North Korea, which are poor,

have economic institutions

that create very different
incentives and opportunities

than inclusive economic institutions
like the patent system.

To illustrate that in a richer way,

let me bring time
from 1880 right up today,

and talk about why the United States
is richer than Mexico,

just across the border.

I'm going to do that
in a very particular context.

I'm going get you think about
the two richest men in the world,

Bill Gates and Carlos Slim.

Bill Gates from United States of America,
Carlos Slim from Mexico.

What's really interesting
about the comparison

is the way those people made their money.

Bill Gates was an entrepreneur.

He set up a company when he was
a Harvard undergraduate.

He made a fortune through innovation
in the computer software industry.

Carlos Slim, on the other hand,

made a fortune
through creating monopolies,

and through owning a monopoly,
a telecommunications monopoly.

According to the Organization
of Economic Cooperation and Development,

Carlos Slim's monopoly created
an enormous amount of wealth for him,

reduces national income in Mexico
by about 2% a year,

for the period of 2005 to 2009
it actually reduced income in Mexico

by 130 billion dollars.

So, in the United States,

Bill Gates responded
to the inclusive nature of institutions,

creating incentives,
creating opportunities.

What happened?

He generated innovation,
he generated new ideas,

and that created wealth for him,

it created a vast amount
of wealth for society.

What happened in Mexico
was something very different.

The way to create wealth
was not through innovation,

but through creating monopolies.

Monopolies block
other people's opportunities,

and they block other people's incentives.

Extractive institutions is what I'm
going to call the opposite of inclusive.

I gave the patent system as an example
of an inclusive economic institution.

Let me say that there is something else,

and that's what's going on in Mexico,
in North Korea, and Zimbabwe.

I'm going to call that
extractive economic institutions.

Rules in society that impede
incentives and opportunities.

So, that's the difference between
poor and rich countries, in a nutshell.

But now, let's go
one layer back in the onion

and ask, "OK, fine. So how come
the United States ended up like that?"

or "How come Mexico is like that?"

and "Why is Zimbabwe like that?"

The example of president
Mugabe winning the lottary

is perhaps meant to plant
a seed in your mind.

And so now, I'd like the seed
to sort of grow a little.

But I'm not going to grow it in Zimbabwe.

Let me go back to the United States and
back to the patent system, back in 1790,

when Thomas Jefferson
was on the patent board,

and get you to think,

"OK, so how come they ended up
with this patent system like this?

What was the secret?"

And I think there were two secrets,
and they are very political.

So, ultimately, I think what matters
for economic prosperity,

for success and failure, is inclusive
and extractive economic institutions.

But lying behind that is politics.

And I want to emphasize
two dimensions of politics.

One is, how did you end up
in the United States

with this patent law
that treated everybody equally,

that gave everybody equal access
to patenting on the same terms.

That was because in the United States
in the late 18th century,

political power was sufficiently
broadly distributed in society,

but you couldn't have some
oligarchive patent system.

You couldn't have a patent system
where Thomas Jefferson could decide,

"Mmm, maybe you get a patent,
and maybe you don't.

Maybe I'll give you a patent,
but I don't like your face.

You're not getting a patent."

That wasn't possible, given how
democratic US society was at that time.

So, one thing which is important about
creating these inclusive institutions

was the distribution
of political power in society.

The broad distribution of political power.

The other thing was important,
was at that time,

the United States had a strong state
that could enforce the patent.

It wasn't just a matter
of passing the law,

it was enforcing the law.

The state would come, and they would
protect your intellectual property rights.

So, these two things are very important.

So let me bring that to the present

and show you a photograph
of Bill Gates in Washington DC.

Now, what is he doing here?

He's giving testimony
to the US anti-trust authority.

Here's the strong US state in action.

Both of these elements
that I talked about,

the distribution of power
and the strength of the state

are crucial for understanding

the difference between
Bill Gates and Carlos Slim.

How did Carlos Slim
get his monopolies?

It was a one-party state,
the PRI, the one-party state,

which had been in power
since the late 1920s,

in the 1990s, privatized
a monopoly to Carlos Slim.

Mexico has very nice anti-trust laws.

But it's inconceivable that Carlos Slim
would have to do what Bill Gates did,

which was to come and, you know,

"I swear to tell the truth, the whole
truth and nothing but the truth,"

in front of anti-trust authorities
in Washington DC.

So, this is the power of the state.

And if you think about
both of these examples,

both of these elements come in.

The fact that Carlos Slim
could create his monopolies

because political power was not
broadly distributed in Mexico,

and the anti-trust laws that exist
in Mexico cannot be enforced,

because the state is too weak
to enforce them.

In the United States it's inconceivable

that you could have such
a monopolization of industry,

and the state is capable
of enforcing the law.

And in fact, anti-trust laws
are a fascinating example.

If you go back to a hundred
years before this.

This is the octopus
of the Standard Oil Company.

The Standard Oil Company
was run by John Rockefeller.

It was an enormous attempt to build
a monopoly in the United States.

You can see here, it's got its tentacles
around the White House,

it's got its tentacles
around the politicians, around Congress,

it's enveloping the political system
with its wealth and connections.

It was broken up
by federal anti-trust authority.

So, there's a long battle
against monopolies,

against extractive institutions
in an inclusive society.

So, what about Greece?

(Laughter)

Let me say something about Greece.

How does Greece fit into this?

Well, of course, compared to Zimbabwe,
or the Democratic Republic of the Congo,

or Haiti, or North Korea,
Greece is an enormous success.

Greece has been enormously successful,
economically, in the past 100 years.

It's diversified its economy,

it's raised people's
living standards enormously,

it's broadened education, health, etc.

But I think, the problems
of Greece in the last decade

stem from the problems of reconciling
these two dimensions of politics

that you need to create
an inclusive society.

Reconciling, building
an effective strong modern state

with having a democracy

where political power
is broadly distributed.

Now, when I talked about the United States

you might have been thinking, "Gosh,
these things smoothly come into place,

you have one thing, you have the other.

You want to have a broad
distribution of power

that makes the state accountable.

You want to have a strong state
because that makes democracy effective.

You can enforce the rules,

but I think the more you look,
and the more you think,

you see that actually in many contexts

these two dimensions
are difficult to reconcile.

They sometimes have
an enormous contradictory feature.

And I think that's part
of the problem in Greece,

particularly since
the redemocratization in 1974,

is that Greek society
has found it difficult to reconcile

building an effective central
state based on rules.

Remember my example of the patent system,

how crucial it was that this was a rule,
the patent system applied to everyone,

the same rules applied to everyone.

That's what generated
these incentives and opportunities.

If Thomas Jefferson had been handing out
patents to people on the basis,

"Hey, I want to be president,
so if you support me,

let's start building a coalition,
then you get your patent."

"I don't like your face. You don't
look like you're going to be on my team.

You're not going to get a patent."

If that had been how
the US patent system worked,

then it would not have
the incentive effects,

the effects on innovation and economic
development, that it did have.

And I think that once you think about it,

you can see that when you
increase political power,

when you create political power
broadly in society,

that can create pressures to undermine
the functionality of the state.

To undermine the strong state.

To make the state become a tool
of the political struggle

rather than a neutral arbiter
of new rules and universal principles.

And I would say, that's the root cause
of a lot of the problems,

from my perspective, in Greece.

Trying to make the state
work properly, to enforce rules,

to not be clientalistic,
to enforce universal principles.

And a lot of the economics
stems from that.

The way I'm talking now
is sort of politics.

Politics, it's about politics.
Economics is crucial.

But economic institutions
and economic incentives and opportunities

are embedded in a political society.

And they stem from a political process.

And I think that's being
the problem in Greece.

Think about the deficit
or the fiscal problem.

Why has that happened?

That didn't happen
for some technical reason.

It didn't happen because Greek governments
had the wrong economic advisors.

It happened because of this problem
of reconciling democracy

with creating a strong state.

If the state becomes a tool
for serving private interests

and not public interests,

serving individuals and not following
the collective welfare in society,

then of course you're going
to have terrible fiscal policy

and unsustainable debt problems.

Stable macroeconomic
policies are public good,

but if the state become clientalized,
it's not about providing public good.

It's about providing private goods.

So who's internalizing the debt
or the deficit? Nobody.

So, that's a natural context
to get unsustainable fiscal policy.

So what's the solution to this?

Not fiscal austerity.

Fiscal austerity might be necessary
to keep the Germans happy,

but you're treating the
symptoms, not the cause.

The cause is political.

The solution to the problem
is to find a way of reconciling

these two elements to build
inclusive political institutions.

And where does that come from?

That's a political project.

That'a about organizing
people collectively.

Clientelism is always
individually rational,

it's just not collectively
rational for society.

So, you have to build a project.

Politicians have to build
a project to build the state,

to build a non-clientelistic state,

to reform the interface
between state and society in Greece.

And if you ask me, am I optimistic
or pessimistic about Greece,

then I'd start looking at the politics,
and I'd start looking at civil society

and ask, "Who has
that project? Where is it?"

(Applause)

Thank you.

(Applause)