Arnold Kling argues that Iraq’s Natural State — indeed, the natural state of any state — is not an “open access” democracy like our own but a traditional “limited access” society with a privileged elite:
NWW [North, Wallis, and Weingast] claim that there are three types of societies. Primitive orders are small bands of hunter-gatherers, and they are of little concern here. Limited-access orders are societies that provide meaningful political and economic rights only to narrow elites. Open-access orders are capitalist democracies that give political and economic rights to most citizens. NWW argue that limited-access orders are the natural state: they are stable, they resist economic progress, and they only rarely make the transition to open-access orders.
[...]
The limited-access order achieves stability by providing each potentially violent group with a valuable concession. For example, the ruling general of a military junta, in order to forestall attempted coups, has to give capable colonels plenty of opportunity to profit personally from corruption. Powerful figures who cannot be bought off must be jailed, exiled, or killed.
[...]
A key insight of NWW is that the rulers of a limited-access order must restrict the rights of the masses. If everyone has economic and political rights, then the rulers have nothing special to offer to pacify would-be usurpers. Potential political competitors can only be bought off if they receive rights that are exclusive. But giving exclusive rights to one group necessarily entails restricting the rights of other groups. To say to the rulers of a limited-access order, “We insist that you get rid of corruption” is to ask them to commit political suicide.
Societies may transition from limited-access to open-access after achieving three “doorstep conditions”:
- rule of law for elites
- perpetual life for organizations
- political control of the military
Read the whole article. When you’re done, read Juntas vs. Open Societies.