Barry R. Weingast

The authors suggest that historical and contemporary societies can parsimoniously be classified into natural states and open access orders. The former are characterized by a division of violent power and authority among competing elite factions and the intermixing of politics with both economic production and military objectives. The latter order is characterized by an impersonal state with a monopoly of violence, a separation of politics from other spheres, and freedom to form organizations which are independent of the state. Open access orders have only been in existence for the past 150 years and are not very common even today. The authors portray these two forms of social organization and the routes which lead from one to the other, with emphasis on the difficulty of manifesting durable open access.

In my view this is a trail-blazing theory of history, hopefully one that can finally lay to rest the tired old theories of ”capitalism” which are still being written today. It poses a new research framework for historians of all periods, and a new interpretive lens even for laymen who like to read political history. The historical examples the authors use to back up their theory are the least interesting parts of this book because they don’t really synthesize the theory very clearly. This may reflect the fact that this book had three co-authors, and the historian among them perhaps wanted to be careful not to overstate his generalizations. But this does not diminish the utility of the general framework. To readers interested in linking past political history with the present, I strongly recommend this book together with Fukuyama's Political Order and Political Decay. As for books with the word ”capitalism” in the title, just leave them on the shelf.… (plus d'informations)