Robber Barons and Stationary Bandits | Bird's Eye
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Join the editors as they apply the theoretical and historical lessons from our past two episodes on the "stationary bandit" to the United States!
Are there latent authoritarian characteristics in the political and economic institutions of the US?
To what extent have we eliminated them, and to what extent to authoritarian legacies persist?
How can democracy both assist a political and economic rebalancing of social forces in favor of citizens over elites?
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Further Reading
- "Dictatorship, Democracy, and Development," by Mancur Olson, in The American Political Science Review.
- Why Nations Fail, by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson.
- The Narrow Corridor, by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson.
Table of Contents
00:00 - Intro & Housekeeping
00:32 - Today's topic and questions
05:50 - Starting at the Founding
08:42 - Dangers of federalism
14:14 - Robber barons, the Gilded Age
15:41 - Political leadership
19:15 - Active failures of power-checking
26:00 - Creeping totalitarianism
30:57 - Conclusion
32:44 - Signing Off
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