The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty

by Daron Acemoğlu

The “Zulu” had originally been the descendants of a single man, but are now a massive society including millions of people who are completely unrelated genetically to the original Zulu.

Shevardnadze’s state must have accumulated a considerable amount of capacity to implement such measures. In a sense it did, but not in the obvious meaning of the word. In fact, these regulations, and thousands like them, were never intended to be implemented. Nobody really expected marshrutka drivers to have a daily medical exam, and they didn’t. But by creating such a rule, the Georgian state immediately created a pretext for prosecuting the entire fleet of marshrutka drivers. To avoid this, the drivers had to pay bribes. So did the petty traders. So did the gas stations.

In Costa Rica, the collapse of the Spanish Empire meant that there were no powerful central state institutions at all and four towns vied for control. Coffee helped them to stave off collapse and pushed Costa Rica into the corridor. The Red Queen effect was most evident in the emergence of a smallholder coffee economy bolstered by public services and improved property rights in land. Within a few decades, this process forged the social basis for a functioning democracy.

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me.

Human progress depends on the expansion of the state’s capacity to meet new challenges and combat all dominances, old and new, but that won’t happen unless society demands it and mobilizes to defend everybody’s rights. There is nothing easy or automatic about that, but it can and does happen.