Nobel Laureate Douglass North is not a blogger or an op-ed columnist. But I can guess at his reaction to President Obama’s speech last night. The President said,
We’ll support Afghan ministries, governors, and local leaders that combat corruption and deliver for the people.
Here is how I think North would look at it. Think of Afghan leader Karzai as like Don Corleone in The Godfather. He controls some enterprises within a territory. Corleone obtains obedience in part because people fear him and in part because of his ability to dispense favors. One of the most important levers of power for Corleone is the fact that key judges and police officers are on his payroll.
Now, our President goes to Corleone with an offer to supply muscle to fight some of Corleone’s rivals. But the President says that Corleone has to stop dispensing favors and stop corrupting judges. Of course, if Corleone complies, his power base will unravel.
Corleone operates in what North calls a “limited-access order,” in which brute force and personal ties are the main source of order. In contrast, the President operates in a country that is an “open-access order,” where property rights and the rule of law tend to dominate.
The change from a limited-access order to an open-access order is like a phase change in chemistry–like going from liquid to gas. Afghanistan is nowhere close to the point of changing from liquid to water vapor. In that metaphor, it’s about 2 degrees centigrade in Afghanistan, when the boiling point is 100 degrees, and you need even more energy when you reach that temperature.
Of course, the President may only be paying lip service to the corruption issue. Perhaps his real plan is to deal with Corleone as he is.
North is one of the economists interviewed in Book 1.
READER COMMENTS
E. Barandiaran
Dec 2 2009 at 7:42am
Arnold,
Between the two types of North’s social order there are many combinations. You may be interested in reading (sorry it’s in Spanish) this article published today in La Nación, one of the main Argentinian newspapers:
http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=1206733&pid=7796235&toi=6262
Roberto Cachanosky’s analysis is based on Ayn Rand’s Atlas but it points to why social orders (in North’s sense) collapse and how Argentina is collapsing (again).
If I were to apply Cachanosky’s analysis to other countries that I know well, most likely I’d be ranking them as: Argentina 10, Spain (at least a large part of Spain) 7, Chile and California 6, rest USA 4-5. All are heading upwards but I don’t expect them to converge soon to Argentina’s level.
fundamentalist
Dec 2 2009 at 10:39am
Nice! Couldn’t agree more.
R. Richard Schweitzer
Dec 2 2009 at 4:54pm
Citation for the North, Wallis & Weingast working paper referred to above:
“A conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History”
NBER Working Paper 12795
http://www.nber.org/papers/w12795
All who linger here should read it!
Steve Sailer
Dec 2 2009 at 6:56pm
“Corleone operates in what North calls a “limited-access order,” in which brute force and personal ties are the main source of order. In contrast, the President operates in a country that is an “open-access order,” where property rights and the rule of law tend to dominate.”
I’m glad you put “tend to” in that sentence!
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