Book: 20231216 to 20240515, "The Narrow Corridor" by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson

20231216 - Preface xiii

Where does Liberty come from? It comes from cooperation and balance.

Divide up the work and cooperate lead to professions, which bring us high productivity.

Balance (checks and balances on power) make this social cooperation sustainable.

20231219 - Chapter 1 How Does History End? 1

It should not be called "corridor".

There are four stages of human society: Warre, The cage of norms (Absent), Despotic, and Shackled Leviathans.

Warre is not stable. I think it would evolve into the cage of norms in dozens of years.

The cage of norms is stable. Likely the countryside area of India.

Despotic Leviathans represents oligarchy countries.

Shackled Leviathans represents democracy countries.

I believe that only Despotic Leviathans can be turned into Shackled Leviathans. One of the most important factor is serious external threat.

I am curious that whether the authors would discuss political correctness in this book? I think it's one of the major challenge of developed countries.

20231231 - Chapter 2 The Red Queen 33

I think, political correctness belongs to "the cage of norms". Only the power of state(bureaucracy consists of elites) can break it.

Democracy is the balance between state and society. It's not formed overnight. For USA, the major part formed between The Declaration of Independence & the Constitution(1776), Bill of Rights(1791) and the latest the 19th Amendment(1992)

We need cooperation at state level, but also need fair cut of economical achievement for each individual.

How much damage that China can bring to the world? Russia seems didn't cause much problem.

20240205 - Chapter 3 Will to Power 74

Zulu reminds me of ancient China, Hawai was similar to Japan 250 years ago. The rise of Islam is unique.

They all transformed stateless society to central authorization.

Despotic Leviathan is much more powerful than its stateless neighbours, so it can easily conquer them like ancient Roman. Then, why there are still some stateless societies not long ago, especially in Africa? Ancient Roman use Mediterranean for transportation, Africa countries don't have this resource. Could that be the reason?

Any rule is better than no rule. Despotic Leviathan is much better than Warre, as it improves the social productivity. It's a stage that we have to go through before reaching Shackled Leviathan.

Is Shackled Leviathan the ultimate destination of Game Theory?

20240208 - Chapter 4 Economics Outside The Corridor 97

Caged and Despotic economics are both bad. But the latter provides the possibility to break through: it is capable of improve social productivity, and it would collapse after a period of time.

And, external environment may help to generate shackled leviathan. In my opinion, dreadful external threat is critical to turn a state from despotic leviathan into shackled leviathan.

However, nowadays, I don't see real "dreadful external threat" exist anymore, at least not from real democracy countries. Welfare system let democracy countries lost the desire to expand or help other countries.

20240224 - Chapter 5 Allegory of Good Government 126

Early stage good governments underestimated external threat. It's hard for any temporary leader to convince the people to develop local military power.

Another problem is that it evolved too slowly.

Same thing happened again in modern age, such as Europe Union. They are reluctant to build their defense system.

How to fix these two problems? 

20240228 - Chapter 6 The European Scissors 152

The authors believe that the European Scissors started from 1500 years ago. I think that's wrong. It started with ancient Greece at around 3200 years ago.

Ancient Greece and Roman Empire showed everyone that emperor is not necessary to maintain social order.

Europe is unique in geography. It has Mediterranean and a lot of mountains, and it's connected with Asia and Africa. That leads to diversified cultures.

UK is even more unique. It's not too big and not too small, not too faraway from Europe and not too close to it. It has many mountains and straits. It's impacted by other Europe countries and not controlled by them. So started from 1500 years ago, its society got enough power to go against state.

Sadly, this also means that China has no chance to become a democracy country. The current government has eleminated the power of society.

20240316 - Chapter 7 Mandate of Heaven 201

......around 1090, when we have reliable information, China had the highest level of average living standards in the world, about 16 percent above England's. p223

Despotism meant that society and the business community were unable to make demands and influence state policies. p226

In the around 3000 years of China's history, there are only two ways of social management: Shang Yang's Legalism and Confucius's Confucianism. Both believe that people(society) should not affect national policies.

Same today. It's Legalism before 1978, Confucianism between 1978 and 2014, and Legalism again since 2014. With the help of computer, internet and AI, CCP can finally control everything of people. Cash will be replaced by digital token, and smart monitoring cameras are everywhere.

Will China attack other countries? Less likely. Corruption and absence of incentives reduces the social productivity. It will not be strong enough to go against US, Japan, etc.

20240318 - Chapter 8 Broken Red Queen 237

Why this only happened in India? Is it because of the huge mountain area in the center of the land?

What's the best way to break the restriction of caste system? Let people move to cities.

Will India be turned into a real democracy country? I highly doubt it. More likely it will be a despotic Leviathan soon, because there is no dreadful external pressure.

20240401 - Chapter 9 Devil in the Details 266

Montenegro, Poland, Russia, Costa Rica and Guatemala.

When huge external shock come in, the good one will become better, and the bad one will become worse.

How about external threat?

Montenegro? No

Poland? Yes

Russia? No

Costa Rica? No, or maybe Filibuster War?

Guatemala? No, or maybe Filibuster War?

What's going to happen in front of AI and global warming?

20240405 - Chapter 10 What's the Matter with Ferguson? 304

This chapter explains so much weird stuff of USA.

What's going to happen in the next decade in US? Will US resign from global policeman position?

States want to provide more social welfare to people, and society want to pay less tax. The result is the quickly piled up of national debt.

China may challenge US with huge navy power in 5 or 10 years. Can Taiwan, Japan and US handle it?

NATO is weak if US not get involved. Can NATO protect Europe and Africa?

What will happen to South America countries?

20240415 - Chapter 11 The Paper Leviathan 338

"Ought I to have sacrificed the internal peace of the country for the constitutional rights of a few individuals?" p358

All despotic state leaders are same. What does "internal peace" mean? It's not just "a few individuals", but actually everyone.

Healthy society should have small conflicts everywhere, all the time.

Paper Leviathan is stable. Is it possible to turn it into Shackled Leviathan? I am perssimistic.

It's worse than Despotic Leviathan.

20240416 - Chapter 12 Wahhab's Children 370

The cage of norms is used by despotic ruler to exploit people? It's perfect negative feedback loop, which is much worse than Paper Leviathan.

US stopped trying to save other countries, and no other developed country has the capability to do that, and no one has interest of doing that.

So, all developing countries are doomed? Smart and lucky one may migrate to developed countries, how about others. No wonder more and more people prefer to become illegal immigrants.

20240501 - Chapter 13 Red Queen Out of Control 390

The key is the compromise between elite group and society. Or else, it's zero-sum game, and a dictator will emerge, disguised as the leader of society against elite group.

The author is quite pesimisstic about the future of China, as there is no power of "society".

20240512 - Chapter 14 Into the Corridor 427

The critical factor is external threat: different groups have to compromise with each other to handle existential crisis.

Labor coercion became unnecessary because of the rise of internal combustion engine. This is proved in US and South Africa. It's better to train and pay laypeople to operate machines.

Then how about the rise of AGI robots? Will it brings more states into corridor, or will it take more states out of corridor? If elites don't need labor anymore, they have no reason to compromise with laypeople.

This is bad news to people in despotic states.

Is it good to people in democracy states? I think it's not too bad.

There are four different types of states.

1. Strong state, strong society

All rich develped countries are in this area.

2. Strong state, weak society

China, Russia, etc.

China is exceptional. It's actually "State only, no society".

3. Weak state, strong society

India, etc.

4. Weak state, weak society

Agentina, Africa countries, etc.

20240515 - Chapter 15 Living with the Leviathan 464

Just like horses, most of people were moved,

1. From the First Industry (agriculture) to the Secondary Industry (manufacturing), at around 500 years ago with Industry revolution. To some extent, we finally got too much food.

2. From the Secondary Industry (manufacturing) to the Tertiary Industry(services), at around 100 years ago, starting from the Great Depression in 1929. To some extent, we got too much goods.

3. From the Tertiary Industry(services) to retirement, starting from now. Maybe, we got too much services?

With the rise of AI, most of people will lose their jobs. When that happens, can most of people still stay calm and happy?

To maintain the balance between state and society, I think everyone should follow the two principles:

1. Insist that we have freedom of choices

2. Defend other people's freedom of choices

Most of people may have to work unless UBI can cover living cost, but we still can maximize our freedom if we follow the principles above.

What principles we should follow to balance our mind and external environment?

Is there some principles we can follow to keep the balance between our cells and our body?