Why Nations Fail, Prisoners of Geography, The Bottom Billion 3 Books Collection Set Quotes

“Why does the path of institutional change differ across societies? The answer to this question lies in institutional drift. In the same way that the genes of two isolated populations of organisms will drift apart slowly because of random mutations in the so-called process of evolutionary or genetic drift, two otherwise similar societies will also drift apart institutionally—albeit, again, slowly. Conflict over income and power, and indirectly over institutions, is a constant in all societies. This conflict often has a contingent outcome, even if the playing field over which it transpires is not level. The outcome of this conflict leads to institutional drift.”
― Daron Acemoğlu, Why Nations Fail, Prisoners of Geography, The Bottom Billion 3 Books Collection Set