The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty. By Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson (New York, 2019) 576 pp. $32.00

Abstract

Acemoglu and Robinson’s new book starts with a preoccupation with threats to liberty and ends with a set of paeans to the capable state. In this sense, it is a testament to where public sentiment has been moving during the past generation. In the United States today, more than half of those born in the late twentieth century—the so-called millennials—consider themselves socialists, and more than half of the voting population want to see more state intervention, not less. Thus, it is not surprising that when the authors find the “narrow corridor”—the optimal balance between state and society—it is plastered with portraits of those who have built strong, democratic states that promote economic redistribution while encouraging political compromise. Most, but not all, are Scandinavian.While we undoubtedly have much to learn from the Scandinavians, it is also important to note, as the authors do throughout their book, that different histories result in different trajectories and different concerns. Historically, the Scandinavian countries have high levels of social equality, political participation, and cultural cohesion. In a European sense, and even more in a global sense, they are exceptions. What is more surprising, and therefore even more worthy of study, is how Germany and Japan—two big countries that suffered long periods of war and political oppression in the modern era—have moved into the narrow corridor in which state and society expand together and therefore jointly meet and handle challenges as they occur. This picture is of course not perfect; Germany experiences rising levels of right-wing nationalism and xenophobia, and Japan’s conservatism prevents necessary economic change. Nonetheless, the two countries are examples of how (and how quickly) countries can move from Thomas Hobbes’ “state of warre,” as defined in Leviathan (1651), to somewhere pretty close to the Stockholm archipelago.Acemoglu and Robinson emphasize the structural reasons why such transformations can happen, and they are undoubtedly right much of the time: the rule of law, the simultaneous expansion of state capacity and societal control (which they, after Lewis Carroll, call the “red queen effect”), the social and cultural ability to compromise, and the creation of economic surplus that benefits everyone (though not necessarily to the same degree). The book seems weaker, however, when discussing the kind of leadership that is necessary to embody and further these processes. Political courage (a rare commodity at the best of times) and the ability to construct narratives that promote necessary change from within are among them. Organizations matter in these contests, and the authors are entirely right in pointing to trade unions, for instance, as essential components for well-balanced social progress. But individual leadership also matters, because it can at times mean the difference between a shackled Leviathan, a state that does its society’s bidding, and state collapse or tyranny.A more serious flaw in the book is its relative inattention to interests, material or otherwise, as a motive for moving outside the narrow corridor. Acemoglu and Robinson seem to indicate that the main reasons for not achieving the productive equilibriums that they cherish are weak institutions, lack of rights, and economic concentration. But what if the main problem today is that the basic economic system has created entrenched interests that go well beyond the inequalities and Wall Street malfunctions to which the authors refer? Could it be that the form of capitalism practiced in much of the world today, especially in the United States, is contrary to the balance that Acemoglu and Robinson seek, because it keeps producing private interests so strong and so effective that no state or society can control them? The authors hint at such a more fundamental problem at the end of the book, but they do not discuss it in full.This bring us back to the book’s starting point about whether human freedom can be balanced against overmighty governments. Crucial as this issue undoubtedly is, concepts of freedom are culturally determined and come in many forms. But more important today, as witnessed by the recent pandemic and the social disasters that followed in its wake, is that too much preoccupation with individual freedom can prevent rational, collective responses to public-health emergencies, embedded economic inequalities, or racist oppression. Acemoglu and Robinson’s book is a rich and fascinating inquiry into the criteria for good government and, in the end, delivers a much-needed defense of a strong, capable state. It will serve as a good starting point for discussion, even after the ground has shifted further with regard to their main preoccupations.