E362 - Ep 362 - Debunking the Institutional Theory of Economic Development with Erald Kolasi

Steve welcomes back Erald Kolasi, physicist-economist, author, and friend of the podcast. Erald is here to do a demolition job on “institutional” development fables like Acemoglu & Robinson’s Why Nations Fail. He argues that by treating good institutions as the master key (inclusive vs. extractive) they smuggle in a liberal moral scoreboard while dodging the real motors of history: power, class struggle, imperial systems, and material constraints like energy, trade dependence, war, and ecological shocks.

To “steelman” Acemoglu and Robinson’s position, Erald uses their favorite showcase case – North vs. South Korea. He lays out their comparison of the “tyrann...