Why Nations Fail Essay

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Why nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty, is a captivating read for all college economic courses. Coauthored by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, they optimistically attempt to answer the tough question of why some nations are rich and others are poor through political economic theories. They lay it all out in the preface and first chapter. According to Acemoglu and Robinson, the everyday United States citizen obtains more wealth than the every day Mexican, sub-Saharan African, Ethiopian, Mali, Sierra Leonne and Peruvian citizen as well as some Asian countries. The authors strategically arranged each chapter in a way that the reader, whomever he or she is, could easily grasp the following concept. Extractive nations that have political leadership and financial inconsistencies within their institutions are the largest contributor to poverty and despair within most countries. It also states that countries with socioeconomic institutions that work ‘for the people and by the people’, or in other words, focus on the internal agenda of that …show more content…

The government of Korea is not dispersing the money throughout the country. Instead, the money is utilized for unnecessary expenses in which the revenues go toward South Korea. It is a displacement of finances for a nation which can also be seen in the book’s chapter “Why Nations Fail Today: how to win the lottery in Zimbabwe.” In this chapter we discover that the president of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, happened to have won the lottery. Acemoglu and Robinson argue that this was not just a coincidence. So with that being said, the real explanation for why some countries are poor and others are prosperous is because they are strategically constructed and organized differently. Rich countries have incentives such as more job availability, protection and monetary support from supporting countries. Poorer countries do not have these

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