Why Nations Fail: FROM THE WINNERS OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN ECONOMICS: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty

by Daron Acemoğlu

In the economy, extractive institutions manifested themselves not just in the opposition to Lee’s invention, but in the form of monopolies, monopolies, and more monopolies. In 1601 a list of these was read out in Parliament, with one member ironically asking, “Is not bread there?” By 1621 there were seven hundred of them. As the English historian Christopher Hill put it, a man lived in a house built with monopoly bricks, with windows . . . of monopoly glass; heated by monopoly coal (in Ireland monopoly timber), burning in a grate made of monopoly iron . . . He washed himself in monopoly soap, his clothes in monopoly starch. He dressed in monopoly lace, monopoly linen, monopoly leather, monopoly gold thread . . . His clothes were held up by monopoly belts, monopoly buttons, monopoly pins. They were dyed with monopoly dyes. He ate monopoly butter, monopoly currants, monopoly red herrings, monopoly salmon, and monopoly lobsters. His food was seasoned with monopoly salt, monopoly pepper, monopoly vinegar . . . He wrote with monopoly pens, on monopoly writing paper; read (through monopoly spectacles, by the light of monopoly candles) monopoly printed books.