For a long time, people have been concerned with the question: why do some states follow the path of development while others do not? James Robinson and Daron Acemoglu conducted research, and the result of their work was the best-selling book “Why Some Countries Are Rich and Others Are Poor.” Moreover, to create such a work, you need to study a lot of literature, delve deeply into the history of different countries, and understand different areas. For this reason, the book can be called unique in the topic it deals with, although, of course, books have been written previously regarding the political and economic structure of countries, but none of them covered the topic so widely and in detail.
Why do some countries follow the path of development and become rich, while others are in constant decline and poverty? What does this depend on? Is it possible to imagine that poor African countries will one day be able to colonize England, for example? What is the reason for strength, power and development? There are several schools that offer different answers to this question. Some consider geographic location and climate to be the main factors, others consider national characteristics, culture and religion. But at the same time, everyone can observe countries in the same climate zone, but with different levels of development. Why then are there countries with approximately the same level of culture and similar values, but with a large gap in living standards? So the answer lies in something else.
The authors of this book offer a different approach. They analyze the political and economic systems of different countries over several millennia. Moreover, countries were considered from all five continents. The scope of this study is very broad, allowing for valid conclusions to be drawn. The authors give their answers to the questions of how poor countries can achieve development and whether this is even possible. After reading the book, a lot becomes clear; you begin to look at the economics and politics of different countries differently. It is not surprising that this book is popular with politicians and economists and is often quoted in the media, because its value is undeniable.
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There is a widespread opinion that areas that are poor deserve it themselves - they did not want to work and so on, that is, mental characteristics are “to blame.”
There are several reasons why some countries remain poor, and Jeffrey Sachs, UN Secretary-General's Adviser for Sustainable Development, has identified seven:
- If a country cannot invest in its own economy to begin economic growth, it is in poverty trap;
- Misguided Economic Policies, for example, the closure of international trade, the absence of a market economy;
- Financial insolvency, disorder in spending, big spending, small taxes, wars;
- Poor management(corruption, inefficiency, incompetence).
Corruption Perception Index
- Disadvantageous geographical location: few useful resources, distance from water transport systems, high burden of disease (eg malaria).
Coal distribution map
Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Oil distribution map
The ability to trade is important for the economy, and for this goods need to be delivered (delivery by sea is approximately 2 times cheaper than by rail, 3 times cheaper than by road and 15 times cheaper than by air). Some countries are forced to move goods across the political borders of other states to access ports, which is not always easy.
And if in India the “green revolution” of the 1960s led to a food breakthrough and a developed network of railways played a huge positive role in this, then the railway network of Africa consists of separate open branches from mining sites to the nearest ports.
African Railways Today
and Indian Railways in 1947
Malaria is a climate-sensitive disease and is a drain on the economy. Because of it, children often miss school. In poor countries, people have large numbers of children out of fear that the children will die and there will be no one to work in the households.
Malaria and poverty are closely linked
World malaria report 2014We can see where and how many months of the year the threat of malaria transmission is relevant.
- Cultural barriers, For example, .
- Geopolitics, relations with neighbors, opponents, allies. In particular, the historical role of colonialism on the African continent, the development of which was hampered over the course of a century, is also important here.
Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson. Why are some countries rich and others poor. The origins of power, prosperity and poverty / Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson. Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty.
This book was published in Russian translation, but I read it in English, so all quotes and terms from the book are in my translation.
By the way, why did the translators distort the title of the book so much? What's wrong with the title: Why Nations Fail (or more simply, Why Do They Fail?)
Daron Acemoglu, one of the authors, in 2014. should have entered the so-called Reform Council under the President of Ukraine, together with Bendukidze. It's a shame that this didn't happen. Although the book did not convince me, a person who defends the expansion of citizens' rights and economic freedoms would be in his place in the Reform Council.
If we briefly convey the contents of this extensive book (529 pages), we get 4 theses:
1. Nations fail because of extractive institutions that prevent the entire people from being involved in critical political and economic decisions. A court in which only privileged layers can get their way, thanks to bribes or imperfect legislation, is an example of such an extractive institution.
2. Extractive institutions can generate limited wealth by distributing it to a small elite. In addition, E.i. strive to create monopolies. Therefore e.i. natural, logical and widespread throughout history. (149)
3. The only way to change these institutions is to force elites to create more pluralistic or inclusive institutions.
4. To force it, because the elites never give up their rights voluntarily.
Of course, this method cannot be called strictly scientific. There will always be examples that will contradict the main theory of the authors. For example, the Czech Republic. As part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Czech Republic was its most developed and richest part. Czechoslovakia was one of the most prosperous countries of the Warsaw Pact, second perhaps only to the GDR. Finally, the Czech Republic is the richest post-socialist country. What's the matter? Are Czech institutions really that much better than, say, Hungarian or Polish?
The second problem is that the authors nowhere provide a clear and consistent definition of extractive institutions. Let's say the authors talk about Chinese institutions as predominantly extractive. They conclude that “China has achieved impressive success not because of e.i., but in spite of it.” (443) But in reality, the Communist Party's monopoly on the supreme power in the country does not make all Chinese institutions inherently extractive. If you conduct a study of, say, the judicial systems of China, India, Brazil and Russia, it may well turn out that the Chinese judicial system is the most inclusive, to use the authors' terminology, i.e. ensuring maximum fairness in these four countries. The same may happen with property rights - this most important institution of modern society, we repeat, if research on ensuring property rights were carried out. Therefore, the hypothesis about the predominant extractivism of Chinese institutions hangs in the air, as does the conclusion about China’s impressive achievements in spite of e.i.
Once upon a time, Great Britain and Egypt had comparable standards of living. However, now Great Britain is a prosperous country, and Egypt is a poor country, shaken by social cataclysms. To understand why Britain is richer than Egypt, we need to look at history. 1688 is the point of divergence between Britain and Egypt. This year, a revolution took place in Foggy Albion, transforming the politics and, consequently, the economy of the nation. People received more rights and economic opportunities. Revolutions also took place in Egypt, which, however, did not bring anything good. The entire book is filled with similar comparisons and excursions into history.
The only way to change these institutions is to force elites to create more pluralistic institutions. The authors emphasize that the elites never presented democracy to the masses voluntarily, and the masses forcibly took away the right to participate in decision-making from the elites. Let's say, the Great French Revolution brought a lot of troubles and suffering, but thanks to it, France and with it half of Europe freed themselves from the shackles of extractive institutions and followed the path of progress, while the Russian, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires remained mothballed to demonstrate to the world its failure during WWI.
Is the book worth reading? Yes, it’s worth it, skipping numerous and extensive excursions into the history of Ancient Rome, the Venetian Republic, the Ottoman Empire, etc. Much can be learned about these countries and eras from the best sources, especially since the authors do not achieve their goals.
Current page: 1 (book has 46 pages total) [available reading passage: 26 pages]
Daron Acemoglu, James A. Robinson
Why are some countries rich and others poor. The Origin of Power, Prosperity and Poverty
Dedicated to Arda and Asu - D.A.
Para María Angelica, mi vida y mi alma – J.R.
Daron Acemoglu, James A. Robinson
WHY NATIONS FAIL
The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty
Back cover photo: MIT Economics / L. Barry Hetherington Svein, Inge Meland
Preface to the Russian edition
The book you have opened is certainly one of the most significant economic works of the last decade. I’m not sure that I, a person who has not been involved in professional economics for a long time, is the most successful candidate for authorship of the preface to it. Everything that I can write here will probably be subjective and passed through my own practical experience. It so happened that during a whole decade of Russian history I had to take an active part in large-scale social, economic and political transformations in our country. Therefore, I can consider myself more likely to be among the consumers of scientific knowledge in this area.
I am extremely interested in the fundamental discussion unfolding in world social science - why some countries prosper economically and others do not. If you look at the list of topics for which their authors have been awarded Nobel Prizes in economics in the last fifteen years, you will not see anything close to the topic I named. Nevertheless, it seems to me that this particular problem is, in some sense, the pinnacle of economic knowledge. After all, in order to take aim at it, you need professional knowledge of the history of peoples on all five continents for at least the last 10 thousand years. In addition, you need to deeply comprehend the most modern achievements of economic science, ethnography, sociology, biology, philosophy, cultural studies, demography, political science and several other independent areas of scientific knowledge. It’s also a good idea to master at least basic technological trends and understand industry relationships from medieval to modern economies. But the demand for results here is so great that several schools of scientific thought have formed in this area. Without claiming complete knowledge, I would describe them in the following form.
Geographical determinism. The essence of the position of its supporters is that the most significant factor determining long-term trends in a country's economic development is geographical location. Probably, the climatic factor should also be included here, since, for obvious reasons, over centuries or even millennia of historical periods, these two factors are strictly interconnected. The most serious proponents of this approach include Jared Diamond, whose book “Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies,” translated into Russian in 2009, was a great success in our country. The authors of this book include Jeffrey Sachs in this same school. Quite rightly, in my opinion, they call Montesquieu the founder of this approach, who directly wrote about the influence of climate on laws. It must be said that the seriousness of this school in the eyes of professional Russian readers was somewhat undermined by one of its Russian followers, who was trying to understand why Russia is not America. However, I would not judge an entire school because of one graphomaniac, although I cannot at all consider myself one of its followers.
Another scientific school is cultural determinism, the essence of which is most aphoristically formulated by one of its leading Russian followers, Andrei Konchalovsky: “Culture is destiny.” I think that the founder of this school should be considered Max Weber with his main scientific work “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.” And although today, against the backdrop of the recent acute and not yet completed crisis in relations between the North and South of Europe, the ideas of his book are in renewed demand, it seems to me that much more important is not so much the Protestant component of his work as the basic idea about the significance of cultural values and traditions themselves for economic development, the level of well-being and, in fact, the destinies of peoples. This belief system has experienced a strong renaissance over the past two decades, especially since Samuel Huntington's 1993 classic The Clash of Civilizations. The works of Mariano Grandona and Lawrence Harrison (especially the recently translated into Russian “Jews, Confucians and Protestants: Cultural Capital and the End of Multiculturalism”) simply sweep away the poor framework of political correctness and undoubtedly put the school of cultural determinism among the most advanced and brightest.
This is probably why, for the authors of this work, it is the school of cultural determinism that, it seems to me, is the most serious opponent. They themselves, considering themselves among the supporters of the institutional school, repeatedly return to the dispute with “cultural determinists” in the text of their work. But institutionalists themselves, as we know, have great teachers - it is no coincidence that one of the fundamental categories on which the logical constructions of this book are based is “creative destruction”, introduced into scientific circulation by Schumpeter.
But there is another school with no less rich scientific roots, which proceeds from the fact that the main factor determining both the level of development of a society and the degree of maturity of its political institutions is the level of economic development itself. From the point of view of its supporters, it is the economy and its material basis that determine the trends of socio-political development. This approach brings together authors who sometimes have diametrically opposed political views. It is enough to name, say, the founder of Marxism and Yegor Gaidar, the theorist and practitioner of the largest transition in history from socialism to capitalism. According to Marx, as we remember, it is the development of productive forces that must inevitably lead to a change in socio-economic formations. And Gaidar, in his most important, from my point of view, work “Long Time”, has an entire chapter devoted to economic determinism and the experience of the twentieth century. The idea that the emergence of a middle class in modern societies creates a demand for democracy and creates the basis for its sustainability is very widespread both in the scientific community and far beyond its borders. Unfortunately, for reasons unknown to me, the authors of this work paid virtually no attention to this scientific school.
This could be the end of the list of schools, but the authors describe one more - the “school of ignorance,” as they call it. The basic idea is that authorities make erroneous decisions simply because they lack the necessary knowledge. Of course, it is pointless to dispute the thesis about the need for professional knowledge in government, however, in my opinion, this is so banal that it is hardly worth seriously proving this necessity. On this issue, I would definitely agree with the authors of the monograph, who placed a description of this school in the chapter entitled “Theories that do not work.”
In this, as we see, very thoroughly plowed scientific field with fundamental scientific roots and rapid development in the last one and a half to two decades, it is not at all easy to make an independent breakthrough. If from my description someone gets the impression that the authors simply indicated their place on it, attributing their work to an institutional school, then this, of course, is not so. The book, without a doubt, advances both the institutional school itself and scientific research in this area in general. The categories of extractive and inclusive institutions introduced by the authors themselves contain both scientific novelty and, probably, a certain predictive power. The intuitive “understanding” of these terms does not in any way reduce the level of fundamentality of the theoretical constructs based on them. The authors managed to overcome exactly what is the main difficulty of this kind of research, and offer a language that allows us to meaningfully reveal and describe the reasons for the prosperity of peoples and countries over a historical period of about 10 thousand years and with a geographical spread across all five continents. Paradoxically, their descriptions of the reasons for the relative success of the British colonization of North America and the relative failure of the Portuguese and Spanish colonization of South and Latin America look no less convincing than an analysis of the reasons for the success of the Glorious Revolution of William of Orange in England in 1688 or the failures of North Korea in our days. And although the logic of the authors, as was said, is based on the categories of inclusive and extractive political and economic institutions they introduced, it is, of course, not limited to them. If the author of the preface is allowed to significantly simplify the essence of the concept presented in the book, it looks something like this.
1. Over a long period of time (decades, centuries, and sometimes millennia), peoples accumulate minor changes in the level of complexity of society and the social mechanisms operating in it, which may differ slightly even among geographically neighboring peoples.
2. At some historical moment, a large-scale change in the external environment occurs (for example, geographical discoveries create enormous trade opportunities, or, say, colonists who landed on new lands are faced with a completely new natural, climatic and ethnographic environment).
3. Some societies are able not only to accept these challenges, but to adapt and integrate them into their culture through inclusive institutions that are born at this moment, while for others this same process of assimilation occurs through the strengthening of pre-existing extractive institutions. This is how divergence begins—the divergence of states that are close in level of development, sometimes neighboring, into different historical trajectories. It is not always immediately obvious which option gives long-term results. For example, the Spanish colonization of Latin America led to a powerful flow of gold into the country, in contrast to the English colonization of North America. However, it was precisely this flow of gold that strengthened the extractivism of the Spanish state, and the separation of the growing Spanish crown (which, as we would say now, had a monopoly of foreign trade) from other classes became the “beginning of the decline” of the medieval Spanish monarchy.
4. The very emergence of inclusive institutions requires the coincidence of several prerequisites at the only correct historical moment in time (“turning point”). The main one of these prerequisites is the presence of a broad coalition of heterogeneous forces interested in creating new institutions, and the long-term recognition by each of them of the right of other forces to protect their interests. This, according to the authors, is the basis for the survival of inclusive institutions - the unconditional recognition by their participants of the absolute value of pluralism.
5. Inclusive and extractive institutions trigger complex feedback loops that can be either positive (“virtuous feedback”) or negative (“vicious circle”).
6. Inclusive institutions create sustainable long-term growth in wealth. Extractive institutions are also capable of triggering growth, but it will be unstable and short-term. Growth under inclusive institutions allows for “creative destruction” and thereby supports technological progress and innovation. Extractive institutions are only able to launch innovative processes on a very limited scale.
7. In any case, the most important prerequisite for the effectiveness of not only extractive, but also inclusive institutions, the authors consider the presence of a significant level of “centralization”, which allows the state to extend the action of the institutions themselves to its entire territory.
The authors are categorically against the concepts of “historical determinism” and therefore restrainedly assess the predictive power of their own theory. However, it was interesting to learn about their views (sometimes obvious, sometimes unexpected) on the possibilities of economic growth in a number of countries in the coming decades. Thus, optimistic forecasts include, say, Brazil and Botswana, and pessimistic forecasts include Venezuela and China. Russia, of course, was not the focus of the authors, but from their condensed analysis they draw a pessimistic conclusion about our future. Without entering into an argument, I will note that if the authors had made a more detailed analysis of our history over the last, say, hundred years, they would have found a clearly visible dominance in different periods of extractive or inclusive institutions. I think that both periods could be easily seen both in our history from 1917 to 1991, and in recent history.
For all the attractiveness of the intellectual design created by the authors, it is not without some weaknesses. In my opinion, the authors' underlying logic seems overly linear, implicitly or explicitly giving the term "inclusiveness" an inherently positive connotation. But even at the level of common sense, it is clear that the delay in the transition to inclusion for many countries had historical grounds. Thus, the authors themselves convincingly show that the victory of the northerners in the American Civil War, although formally ensured the adoption of an amendment to the Constitution prohibiting slavery in 1865, in fact, extractive political and economic institutions operated in the southern United States for about another hundred years. It is clear that such a complex and long period of history could not but have deep cultural, social and economic reasons. And the class structure itself of most modern states up to the 19th century also had its fundamental foundations. This means, at a minimum, that a historically premature “forceful” transition to inclusive institutions may simply have an unacceptable socio-economic cost. Consequently, “inclusiveness,” for all its natural attractiveness, cannot be elevated to an absolute. Actually, this is exactly what the very recent history of Iraq, Libya and Egypt shows us. It seems to me that the topic of “the trap of premature inclusion” awaits its research (by the authors or their followers), which may well be carried out not through destruction, but through the development of the concept proposed in the book.
To summarize, I will say that this book does not just pose questions, it gives answers that, of course, bring a new understanding of the reasons for the successes and failures of the development of societies and states over thousands of years of historical periods. Not only that, but it offers a universal key to understanding these reasons. At the same time, the authors managed to describe this enormous task in a very simple, lively language, which practically does not require serious professional training from the reader. I am sure that its translation into Russian (which, in my opinion, was done very well) will open up new knowledge about our country and the world to a wide circle of Russian intellectuals.
A. B. Chubais
Preface
This book focuses on the huge gap in income and living standards that separates the richest countries - such as the US, UK and Germany - and the poorest - countries in tropical Africa, Central America and South Asia.
While writing this preface, we were caught up in the Arab Spring, which began with the so-called “Jasmine Revolution” in Tunisia and affected many countries in North Africa and the Middle East. The Jasmine Revolution was sparked by the self-immolation of street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi on December 17, 2010, which sparked outrage and popular unrest across the country. Already on January 14, President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, who had ruled Tunisia since 1987, was forced to resign, which, however, did not calm the protesters, but, on the contrary, increased their dissatisfaction with the ruling elite of Tunisia. Moreover, revolutionary sentiments spread to neighboring countries. Hosni Mubarak, who ruled Egypt with an iron fist for almost thirty years, was removed from his post on February 11, 2011. The fate of the political regimes of Bahrain, Libya, Syria and Yemen was still unknown when we finished this preface.
The reasons for popular discontent in these countries are rooted in the poverty of the majority of the population. The average Egyptian earns about 12% of what the average American earns and has a life expectancy ten years less. Twenty percent of Egypt's population lives below the poverty line. But although the difference between the United States and Egypt is quite significant, it is still smaller than the gap that separates the United States and the poorest countries in the world, such as North Korea, Sierra Leone or Zimbabwe, where more than half the population lives in absolute, terrible poverty.
Why is Egypt so much poorer than the US? What prevents him from becoming richer? Is it possible to eradicate poverty in Egypt or is it inevitable? To find answers to these questions, it is worth listening to how the Egyptians themselves explain their problems and the reasons for the uprising against Mubarak. Noha Hamed, 24, an employee of a Cairo advertising agency, made her views clear during the demonstration in Tahrir Square: “We suffer from corruption, repression and poor education. We survive despite this corrupt system and we want to change it.” Another demonstrator, twenty-year-old pharmacy student Mosaab el-Shami, agreed: “I hope that by the end of this year we will have a popularly elected government, human rights and freedoms will be protected, and the corruption that is eating away at this country will be eliminated.” the end is over." Protesters in Tahrir Square were unanimous that the government was mired in corruption, unable to provide basic services to the population and achieve equality of opportunity for all citizens.
Those who came to the square were especially outraged by the lack of political rights and repression. Former Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Egyptian Mohammed ElBaradei, tweeted on January 13, 2011: “Tunisia: repression + social injustice + lack of channels for peaceful system change = time bomb.” The people of Egypt, like Tunisia, believed that their economic difficulties were primarily due to their lack of political rights. When the demonstrators began to put forward more specific demands, the first twelve points - formulated by programmer and blogger Wael Khalil, one of the leaders of the protesters - turned out to be exclusively political. Issues such as raising the minimum wage were supposed to be resolved later.
According to the Egyptians themselves, the problems that prevent them from developing are primarily an ineffective and corrupt government and ineffective social structures that do not allow citizens to use their talents, skills and education (even the one they manage to obtain). Economic difficulties are a direct consequence of the monopolization of power by a narrow elite and the way it wields that power. Therefore, the Egyptian demonstrators conclude, it is necessary to start with changing the political system.
However, this conclusion is completely at odds with the generally accepted theory explaining Egypt's difficulties. When scholars and commentators speculate about why Egypt and similar countries are so poor, they give completely different reasons. Some argue that Egypt's poverty is due to geographical factors: most of the country is desert, the soil is poor, there is not enough rainfall to irrigate the land, and in general the climate is not conducive to the development of efficient agriculture. Others point to Egyptian cultural practices that they view as unfavorable to economic development and wealth accumulation. Egyptians, these critics say, lack the work ethic that has allowed other nations to prosper. Moreover, the majority of Egyptians are Muslim, a religion that is also incompatible with economic success. Finally, still others (the majority among economists and experts on economic reforms) claim that Egypt’s rulers simply do not know what exactly will bring prosperity to their country, and are disentangling the consequences of their own erroneous policies in the past. Now, if these rulers received the right advice - from the right advisers - the country would be on the path to prosperity, these analysts are sure. All these scholars and experts do not at all believe that the key to understanding the economic problems facing Egypt is the fact that the country is governed by a narrow stratum of elites who enrich themselves at the expense of the rest of the population.
In this book we will show that it was ordinary Egyptians who took to Tahrir Square, and not economists and experts, who were right. In fact, Egypt is poor precisely because it was ruled by a narrow elite who organized the economy in such a way as to enrich themselves to the detriment of the rest of the population. Political power in the country was concentrated in one hand and used to enrich the power elite, such as President Mubarak himself, whose fortune was estimated at $70 billion. The losers in this system were the ordinary people of Egypt. And it was they, the Egyptians, and not outsiders, albeit well-educated observers, who understood what was going on.
In our book we will also demonstrate that this explanation of the causes of a country's poverty - the explanation given by the citizens themselves - is universal and can be applied to any poor country. It doesn't matter whether it's North Korea, Sierra Leone or Zimbabwe, we will show that all poor countries are poor for the same reasons as Egypt. And countries like the US and UK have become rich because their citizens have overthrown the elites who controlled power and created a society in which political power is much more evenly distributed, government is accountable to citizens and responsive to their demands, and economic incentives and opportunity broad sections of the population have the opportunity to get rich. We will try to explain why, in order to find the origins of the huge inequality in the modern world, we need to go deeper into the past and trace the dynamics of historical processes. In particular, we will see that today Great Britain is richer than Egypt because in 1688 a revolution took place in it (in England, to be precise), which changed the political system and then the economy of the country. Its citizens won political rights and used them to expand their own economic opportunities. The result was two fundamentally different trajectories of political and economic development for Great Britain and Egypt. For Britain, its trajectory soon led, in particular, to the Industrial Revolution.
But in Egypt, the Industrial Revolution did not occur and the technologies it brought to humanity did not spread - because Egypt at that time was under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, which ruled it in much the same way as Hosni Mubarak would rule centuries later. The rule of the Turks in Egypt ended after Napoleon's Egyptian campaign (1798), but the country soon fell into the orbit of influence of the British colonial empire, which was no more interested in the prosperity of Egypt than the Ottoman Empire. And although the Egyptians were eventually able to get rid of British rule, as they had gotten rid of Ottoman rule, and in 1952 they overthrew their king, it was still not like the “Glorious Revolution” in England: instead of fundamentally changing the political regime in In Egypt, this coup only brought to power another group of elites, equally narrow and no more interested in the economic development of the country than the Turks and British were interested in it. As a result, the social structure of society and the economic system remained the same, and this condemned Egypt to poverty, which has not yet been overcome.
In this book we will see how a variety of countries begin to move along a development trajectory similar to that of Egypt over and over again, and why only in some cases does this trajectory give way to another, upward one - as happened in 1688 in England and in 1789 in France . This will help us understand whether the situation in Egypt has changed now and whether the revolution that overthrew Mubarak can lead to the creation of political and economic institutions that will ensure prosperity for Egypt. The revolutions that took place in Egypt in the past did not change the situation in the country, because those who came to power as a result simply took the place of the overthrown elite and recreated a system of self-enrichment at the expense of all other inhabitants.
It is indeed not easy for ordinary citizens to concentrate real power in their hands and change the economic system in the country. However, it is possible, and we will see how it worked out, not only in England, France or the USA, but also in Japan, Botswana and Brazil. Changing the political regime is the key to getting out of poverty and, ultimately, the key to prosperity. There are signs of just such a political transformation in Egypt. Here's what Reda Metwali, another protester in Tahrir Square, says: "Now Muslims and Christians, young and old, are gathered here together, and they are all moving towards one common goal." As we will see later, it was precisely such a broad social movement that became the engine of successful political transformations. If we understand where and why these transformations were successful, we can better assess the potential of today's revolutionary events - whether after them everything will return to normal, as has happened so many times in the past, or the system will fundamentally change and bring success and prosperity to millions of people.
