China Is an Experiment That We Have Never Seen in the World

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In many ways, if you look at growth of china in the 19 eighties, it's very fast, but it's not unusual. But what makes china exceptional is that like no other despotic extractof society in history, it has a complete obsession with innovation and technology. China wants to keep the despotic control of the chinese communist party while at the same time be a leader in digital technology. And the question is whether this is going to succeed. I'm not sure whether it's going to work. You really need individualism spark for most radical type of innovations to take place. The country is missing that. It's going to try to pour more and more resources

What determines the economic, social, and political trajectories of nations? Why were settlers in colonies like Jamestown and Australia able to escape the extractive systems desired by their British masters, while colonial subjects in Barbados and Jamaica were not? In his latest book, Daron Acemoglu elevates the power of institutions over theories centering on human capital, culture, or geography. Institutions help strike the balance of power in the constant struggle between state and society, creating a ‘narrow corridor’ through which liberty and prosperity is achieved.

Daron joined Tyler for a conversation about drivers of economic growth, the economic causes and effects of democratization, how Germanic tribes introduced “bottom-up politics” to the Roman empire, the institutional reasons that China’s state capacity and control has increased with its wealth, his predictions for the future of liberty in his birth country of Turkey, the biggest challenges currently facing the Middle East, what we can learn from the example of Lagos, why publishing in the “top five” is overrated, tips on motivating graduate students, and more.

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Recorded October 25th, 2019 Other ways to connect

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