Daron Acemoglu on the Struggle Between State and Society | Conversations with Tyler

[@maxheadrom3088]

You know, in the case of Brazil, the Portuguese monarchy prohibited the creation of universities and industry until when, in 1808, fleeing Napoleon, the monarchy made Brazil into part of the metropole and moved here. Brazil would become independent in 1822. Harvard was founded in 1638. I find History is also important: the settler colonialist system of the US produced a lot of wealth and a lot of horror - including segregation that lasted up to the 1970s. Brazil had an exploration (exploitation?) system that made us like we are - the bad and the good: there never was segregation in Brazil not even when slavery was legal. History is so important that to this day - 1,000 years after the Franks left - southern UK is still richer than northern UK.

[@maxheadrom3088]

All this talk about Christianity, I should remember that Jesus said "give God waht belongs to God and give Caesar' what belongs to Caesar". I believe what the host is talking about is protestantism - Max Weber. About Asia: Malcom Gladwell makes an interesting point: the dedication required to grow rice. In the case of China, there was a centralized control of the waters for irrigation and, at the same time, distributed administrations for everything else. On Russia/USSR: though it was a largely agricultural nation, the Russian empire produced Mendeleiev, Pavlov and Ivanovsky. These are 19th century guys ... and I'm not going into the arts. I find the point of view of the host (probably playing Devil's advocate, btw!) tends to go into fatalistic diagnostics while Prof. Acemoglu looks for common characteristics that we can be worked around. I should also remember that mass democracy is a 20th century phenomenon - and the most famous example was actually tainted from the beginning (Lippmann's Public Opinion). A last one: women got the right to vote in Turkie before women in the US. A Muslim country, btw.