WNF
October 24, 2024
The authors of Why Nations Fail, Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson, have been awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economics. This recognition is long overdue. As the Nobel committee of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences stated during the announcement in Stockholm, their work "demonstrated the importance of societal institutions for a country’s prosperity." Since 2014, I have used their insights to explain that our extractive elite will never bring shared prosperity to our Small Island Developing State. I hope this acknowledgment will lead more people to reconsider this theory and apply it where needed.
The core of their work is simple: successful nations thrive on inclusive institutions, where both the leadership and the population benefit from prosperity. In contrast, extractive systems—where a small elite prospers at the expense of the majority—cause stagnation. Many countries with colonial histories, including ours, are still operating under extractive systems.
A current example of this theory’s relevance to Curaçao is the push to give public beaches a so-called “facelift.” This effort will not make the beaches more inclusive but rather more exclusive. There is a growing misconception that beaches belong to locals or nearby villagers. In reality, they are part of the world’s shared heritage, not the private property of any community or even the island.
This theory isn’t new to me. Over a decade ago, I wrote about how Acemoglu and Robinson's framework could explain the deep-rooted issues facing Curaçao. Their work is incredibly relevant here, yet the intellectual framework has primarily been ignored locally. Considering this, the Nobel Prize is encouraging—perhaps it will spark renewed interest in studying and applying these ideas.
Still, my optimism is cautious. In the past, influential people here have dismissed the book without even reading it, rejecting it as just another trend in social science. I believe this is their way of resolving cognitive dissonance. There are none so blind as those who refuse to see: Curaçao remains an extractive system, a colonial outpost in everything but name.
Miguel Goede
Comments