Readers discuss a theory proposed by Nobel Prize winners to explain countries’ prosperity, and how China, India and Russia could benefit from cooperation
Even Nobel laureates stumble. Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson, winners of the 2024 Nobel Prize in economics, argue that nations with extractive and non-inclusive institutions – where elites monopolise power – are doomed to stagnation. Democracies, by contrast, are cast as economically superior. It is a tidy theory, elegant in design. But it falters in the face of China.
To square the circle, the trio invoke “critical junctures”. China’s post-Mao reforms under Deng Xiaoping, they argue, unleashed growth despite extractive institutions. Poor countries can grow quickly for a while, they add, until the contradictions of authoritarian rule catch up.
And if China’s rise seems exceptional? Perhaps it may be attributed to historical luck. But “luck” is not analysis. It is an evasion.
Whether framed as unsustainable or dismissed as a historical accident, such arguments sidestep the deeper question: why has China’s authoritarian system sustained growth for four decades while others have failed?
