Asimog, Robinson
Daron Acemoglu is a professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a former professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Awarded the John Bates Clark Medal in 2005, the prize is designed for economists under the age of forty who have made significant contributions to economic thought and knowledge, and is the second most honorable after the Nobel Prize in Economics and the hottest Nobel Prize candidate in the future.
In 2016, he was awarded the BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award for his outstanding contributions to economics, finance and management.
Essemulu is one of the top ten economists with the most cited economic literature in the world, and his papers are surprisingly produced, making him the fiercest rookie in the field of economics.
James A. Robinson, a professor at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago, is both a political scientist and an economist.
He is a world-renowned expert on Africa and Latin America, currently leading research programs in Bolivia, the Congo, the Republic of Lion Rock, Haiti and Colombia, and teaches annually in the summer at the University of Andes in Bogotá, Colombia.
This book explores freedom, the process and reasons for the success or failure of human society to fight for freedom, and also examines the consequences that come with it, especially the impact on prosperity. We follow the definition of freedom by the English philosopher John Locke, who argued:
If man could arrange his own actions and dispose of his property and people very freely and freely... You don't have to ask for permission or look up to people, you have freedom.
Such freedom is a fundamental aspiration of all human beings, Locke emphasized:
No one should harm the life, health, freedom or property of others.
But it is clear that freedom is rare in history, and it is no different today. Every year, millions of people are born into death and flee their homes in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Central America, not in pursuit of higher income or a better life, but to find ways to protect themselves and their families from violence and fear.
Philosophers have mentioned many definitions of freedom, but Locke acknowledges that the most basic level of freedom must at least be that the people are free from violence, intimidation, and other derogatory acts, and that the people must be able to choose their own lives freely, and to live a life of their own choosing without the threat of unreasonable punishment or severe social sanctions.
The Narrow Corridor of Freedom (translated by Liu Daojie, Acropolis Publishing House)
One
In 1989, Francis Fukuyama predicted that "the end of history" would bring all countries to American-style political and economic systems, forming what he called "the convergence of economic and political liberalism." Just five years later, Robert Kaplan painted a very different picture of the future in his essay Coming Anarchy.
In 2018, yuval Noah Harari predicted the future in his article "Why Technology Favors Tyranny," arguing that advances in artificial intelligence predicted the rise of "digital dictatorships" that would have surveillance and control capabilities, and would even dominate our interactions, communications, and thinking.
Therefore, history can still end, but in a very different way than Fukuyama imagined. But how exactly will it end? Was it the democracy that Fukuyama envisioned to win, or was it anarchy or a digital dictatorship that won? Some state apparatus has increased control over the Internet, the media, and people's lives, which may indicate that we are moving in the direction of digital dictatorship; At the same time, the recent history of the Middle East and Africa reminds us that the prospects for anarchy are not out of reach.
But we need a systematic way to think about it all.
In this book, I would argue that if freedom is to flourish, the state and society must be strong. Only a strong State can control violence, enforce laws and provide public services that affect people's lives in order to empower them and make the choices they want to pursue. Strong states need strong, mobile societies to control and constrain.
Under the influence of fear and repression created by the arbitrary state, as well as violence and lawlessness, a narrow passage to freedom has emerged. It is in this corridor that society and the state check and balance each other. This check and balance is not achieved by a revolutionary moment, but by the continuing struggle between the two day after day. Such a struggle will bring benefits, and the state and society will not only compete with each other, but also cooperate with each other in this corridor, and this cooperation will increase the capacity of the state to supply the needs of society, and it will also strengthen the social mobilization forces that supervise this capacity.
Two
Why a corridor and not a gate? For freedom is a process: you have to walk the long corridors to subdue violence, to make and enforce laws, and before the state apparatus can begin to serve its citizens. This is a process that the state and its elite must learn, to coexist peacefully with the shackles that society imposes on them, and the different branches of society must learn to cooperate with each other and ignore their differences.
The corridor will be narrow because it will not be easy, and how can you suppress the state apparatus with its vast bureaucracy, a strong army, and a free decision on the content of the law? When people demand more responsibility for the state in a complex world, how can you be sure that the state apparatus will maintain a docile posture of being controlled? How do you keep society working together without being independent of each other at a time when differences and divisions tear apart society? How do you prevent all of this from becoming zero-sum competition? It's not easy at all, no wonder the corridor seems quite narrow, and it's no wonder that whether society steps into or leaves the corridor, it will have far-reaching effects.
All of these things are things you can't orchestrate. When the state and its elite are too powerful and society is docile and obedient, why should the governing classes grant rights and freedoms to the people? If they did, do you believe they would keep their word?
We can see the origin of freedom from the time of Gilgamesh to the history of women's liberation today. How society speaks from this epic poem "Every girl's hymen ... All belong to him" situation, progress to the possession of feminism? (Oh, anyway, there are places where women's rights do.) Is it possible that feminism is given by men? For example, in 2015, the United Arab Emirates established the Gender Balance Committee by Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the Grand Duchy and ruler of Dubai, and annually presented gender balance awards under the names of "the government entity that supports gender balance the most", "the federal authorities that support gender balance the most" and "the best gender balance action plan". In 2018, The awards presented by Muhammad have one thing in common, which is that they are all awarded to men! The problem with this solution for the Grand Duchy is that this practice was instigated by Muhammad and imposed on society without social participation.
In contrast, the history of the British feminist movement is relatively successful, and the British feminist rights are not given by others, but won. At that time, women promoted the social movement of "women in politics", and the advocacy group was separated from the British Women's Social and Political Alliance, which was established in 1903 and was established only for women to participate in the social and political alliance of women, and was established to fight for women's right to vote. Instead of waiting for the men to award them the "Best Gender Balance Action Plan" award, they mobilized and took direct action to unleash civil disobedience, blowing up the summer house of David Lloyd George, then chancellor of the exchequer and later prime minister, and chaining themselves to railings outside the British Parliament. They refused to pay taxes and, after being sentenced to prison, launched a hunger strike and were forced to feed by the prison authorities.
Emily Davison was a key member of the women's political participation movement. On June 4, 1913, she broke into the track at the famous Yessen Racecourse and ran ahead of Anmer, a horse owned by King George V of The United Kingdom. According to several reports, she was knocked down by Ammeu, as shown in the photograph accompanying the book, and pressed against a fallen horse, holding a purple, white, and green flag for the right to vote. Four days later, she died of her injuries; Five years later, women can vote in the UK MPs elections. Women in Britain did not gain power by the magnanimity of (male) leaders, but by exerting their organisational and power-fighting power.
The story of the women's liberation movement is not unique. Freedom almost always depends on the mobilizing power of society and the ability of society and the state and its elite to strike a balance of power.
Three
Freedom and the ultimate capacity of the state depend not only on trust and cooperation, but also on the balance of power between the state and society. If the state and the elite become too powerful, they will eventually form a state of "authoritarian giants"; If the state and the elite are left behind, the result will be a country where "the giant spirit does not exist". Therefore, we need the state and society to go hand in hand, without each other gaining an advantage. This is like the Red Queen effect described by Lewis Carroll in Alice Through the Looking Glass. In this novel, after Alice meets the Queen of Hearts, the two race together. "In retrospect, Alice doesn't remember how they started the race," but she noticed that even though they all seemed to be running hard, "the trees and other things around them didn't seem to change their position at all; No matter how fast they ran, they never seemed to outdo anything." Finally, the Red Queen called for a pause.
Alice looked around in amazement and said, "Why do I really think we've been under this tree all along!" Everything is exactly the same as before!"
"Of course it is," said the Red Queen, "what would you say?"
"Oh, in our country," Alice said breathlessly, "if you run as fast, as we did, for a long time, you usually see something else."
"It's like a country that's a little slow!" The queen said. "Oh, here you're running, to stay where you are."
The "Red Queen Effect" is when you have to keep running forward in order to maintain your original status; Just as the state and society run fast, the purpose is to balance the two. In Carroll's novels, all the running is in vain, but not in the struggle between the social and national giants. If society slacks down and does not run fast enough to keep pace with the growth of the state, the constrained state may quickly become an authoritarian state. We need social competition in order to keep the national colossus constrained. The stronger and more capable the state, the stronger and more vigilant society must become. We also need the great spirits of the nation to continue to run, to strengthen their capabilities in the face of difficult new challenges, while maintaining autonomy, because this is not only about resolving disputes and enforcing the law impartially, but also about breaking the cage of norms. It all sounds rather disorganized (all this runs!). We will find that this is often the case: although disorganized, we must rely on the Red Queen effect to promote human progress and freedom. However, the Red Queen herself will create a lot of fluctuations in the balance of power between society and the country, when one of them is suddenly ahead and suddenly backward.
The way Solon managed to stimulate the Red Queen effect illustrates these broader problems, and his reforms not only laid the institutionalized foundation for popular political participation, but also helped to ease the norms of direct restrictions on freedom and prevent necessary political participation on the narrow corridor of freedom.
The cages of the Athenians were not as suffocating as those of many other societies, such as the Tiv society, which is discussed in this chapter, but still heavy enough to block the Red Queen's path. By breaking this part of the cage, Solon initiated a fundamental change in society and established a distinctive political form that could support the development of the constrained emerging nation.
Four
As we will find later in this book, all the races against the Red Queen are fraught with danger; But when this effect came into play, it created the conditions for the kind of freedom enjoyed by the Athenians and Americans. But then again, why are many societies still in a state where the giant spirit does not exist? Why don't they try to create central authority and then constrain it? Why not let the Red Queen effect be unleashed?
Sociologists usually associate the inability to establish central authority with the lack of certain important conditions for the establishment of a state apparatus, such as a fairly high population density, established agriculture, or trade. According to the view that some societies lack the necessary knowledge of nation-building, the establishment of state institutions is primarily a matter of "engineering" and that the introduction of correct knowledge and skills and institutional blueprints is necessary. While these factors have all played an influence in some cases, another factor is often more important: this factor is the willingness to avoid the evil features of the state's giants. If you are afraid of the great spirit of the state, you will prevent others from accumulating power and building the social and political classes needed to advance the state apparatus.
This article is excerpted from The Narrow Corridor of Freedom (translated by Liu Daojie, Acropolis Publishing House)