The Rise and Decline of Nations
Economic Growth, Stagflation, and Social Rigidities

17 Oct. 2017 I remember reading this book somewhere between 1982-85, since my Uncle Chuck had loaned me his copy after he read and liked it. I remember liking it quite a bit too, and being convinced of the argument - that developed nations tended to start growing slower and stagnating due to the spec......more

A genuine classic. Mancur Olson starts with a three chapter summary of his “Logic of Collective Action,” where he explained how stability breeds special interest groups (e.g. cartels, guilds, unions, oligopolies etc.) and how those groups acquire influence in an economy. Some of the most basic obser......more

It's pretty rare that you find a book, particularly in a well-trodden field like economics, that manages to feel both original and important. Its main thesis is simplicity itself - that societies over time accumulate interest groups like ships' hulls accumulate barnacles, and over time these groups......more

TL;DR: parasitic coalitions - unions, subsidized industries, licensed professions, etc - multiply, causing distributive conflicts and allocative inefficiency, and those coalitions can’t be destroyed unless there is radical institutional change, like foreign occupation or totalitarianism. There are lo......more

Five-star ideas and two-star writing. Olson is brilliant but this book is a terrible slog - meandering, verbose, unstructured, unfocused. Spare yourself the trudge and pick up the useful cliffs notes here: [URL not allowed] The main takeaway of this book is that special interes......more