Daron Acemoglu - The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty

Also by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson

Why Nations Fail

Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy

PENGUIN PRESS

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Copyright © 2019 by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson

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Picture research by Toby Greenberg Maps prepared by Carlos Molina and Jose Ignacio Velarde Morales

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Names: Acemoglu, Daron, author. | Robinson, James A., 1960– author.

Title: The narrow corridor: states, societies, and the fate of liberty / Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson.

Description: New York : Penguin Press, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019009146 (print) | LCCN 2019981140 (ebook) | ISBN 9780735224384 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780735224391 (ebook) | ISBN 9781984879189 (international/export)

Subjects: LCSH: Liberty. | State, The. | Power (Social sciences)—Political aspects. | Direct democracy. | Decentralization in government. | Executive power. | Violence—Political aspects.

Classification: LCC JC585 .A188 2019 (print) | LCC JC585 (ebook) | DDC 320.01/1—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019009146

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019981140

While the authors have made every effort to provide accurate Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the authors assume any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Cover design: Christopher Brian King

Cover photograph: Joe and Clair Carnegie Libyan Soup Getty Images

Version_2

To Arda and Aras, even if this is much less than I owe you. —DA

Para Adrián y Tulio. Para mí el pasado, para ustedes el futuro. —JR

CONTENTS

Also by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Preface

Chapter 1 HOW DOES HISTORY END?

Chapter 2 THE RED QUEEN

Chapter 3 WILL TO POWER

Chapter 4 ECONOMICS OUTSIDE THE CORRIDOR

Chapter 5 ALLEGORY OF GOOD GOVERNMENT

Chapter 6 THE EUROPEAN SCISSORS

Chapter 7 MANDATE OF HEAVEN

Chapter 8 BROKEN RED QUEEN

Chapter 9 DEVIL IN THE DETAILS

Chapter 10 WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH FERGUSON?

Chapter 11 THE PAPER LEVIATHAN

Chapter 12 WAHHAB’S CHILDREN

Chapter 13 RED QUEEN OUT OF CONTROL

Chapter 14 INTO THE CORRIDOR

Chapter 15 LIVING WITH THE LEVIATHAN

Photographs

Acknowledgments

Bibliographic Essay

Sources for Maps

References

Photograph Credits

Index

About the Authors

PREFACE

Liberty

This book is about liberty, and how and why human societies have achieved or failed to achieve it. It is also about the consequences of this, especially for prosperity. Our definition follows the English philosopher John Locke, who argued that people have liberty when they have

perfect freedom to order their actions and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit … without asking leave, or depending upon the will of any other man.

Liberty in this sense is a basic aspiration of all human beings. Locke emphasized that

no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.

Yet it is clear that liberty has been rare in history and is rare today. Every year millions of people in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Central America flee their homes and risk life and limb in the process, not because they are seeking higher incomes or greater material comfort, but because they are trying to protect themselves and their families from violence and fear.

Philosophers have proposed many definitions of liberty. But at the most fundamental level, as Locke recognized, liberty must start with people being free from violence, intimidation, and other demeaning acts. People must be able to make free choices about their lives and have the means to carry them out without the menace of unreasonable punishment or draconian social sanctions.

All the Evil in the World

In January 2011 in the Hareeqa market in the old city of Damascus, Syria, a spontaneous protest took place against the despotic regime of Bashar al-Assad. Soon afterward in the southern city of Daraa some children wrote “The people want the fall of the government” on a wall. They were arrested and tortured. A crowd gathered to demand their release, and two people were killed by the police. A mass demonstration erupted that soon spread throughout the country. A lot of the people, it turned out, did want the government to fall. A civil war soon broke out. The state, its military, and its security forces duly disappeared from much of the country. But instead of liberty, Syrians ended up with civil war and uncontrolled violence.

Adam, a media organizer in Latakia, reflected on what happened next:

We thought we’d get a present, and what we got was all the evil in the world.

Husayn, a playwright from Aleppo, summed it up:

We never expected that these dark groups would come into Syria—the ones that have taken over the game now.

Foremost among these “dark groups” was the so-called Islamic State, or what was then known as ISIS, which aimed to create a new “Islamic caliphate.” In 2014, ISIS took control of the major Syrian city of Raqqa. On the other side of the border in Iraq, they captured the cities of Fallujah, Ramadi, and the historic city of Mosul with its 1.5 million inhabitants. ISIS and many other armed groups filled the stateless void left by the collapse of the Syrian and Iraqi governments with unimaginable cruelty. Beatings, beheadings, and mutilations became commonplace. Abu Firas, a fighter with the Free Syrian Army, described the “new normal” in Syria:

It’s been so long since I heard that someone died from natural causes. In the beginning, one or two people would get killed. Then twenty. Then fifty. Then it became normal. If we lost fifty people, we thought, “Thank God, it’s only fifty!” I can’t sleep without the sound of bombs or bullets. It’s like something is