Two weeks ago, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced its decision to award the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economics Sciences to Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson of MIT and James Robinson of the University of Chicago for their research illuminating the causes of the differences in prosperity between nations. I’ve critiqued aspects of the early work for which they were awarded that prize, but am a huge fan of Acemoglu and Robinson’s 2019 book The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies and the Fate of Liberty, which I discussed in For High Quality of Life, Accountable Government a Necessity soon after its publication. The relevance of their work to the U.S. election less than a week from today could scarcely be greater.

Acemoglu and Robinson focus on the question of political democracy and the role of the government as a partner in fostering economic well-being. They adopt the image of government as a terrifying and potentially domineering power, portrayed as the Leviathan of Biblical myth in Thomas Hobbes’ political philosophy tract of the same title (1651). Fear of an unshackled Leviathan bestriding a society’s territory and wielding its control over armed police and soldiers according to its own interests and whims is entirely understandable, they agree. They argue, however, that societies need governments to provide important goods and services that cannot be made profitable for the private sector to supply, except as a government partner or contractor. These goods and services........

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