The 2024 Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to Daron Acemoglu, James Robinson, and Charles Johnson for their work on the economic and political factors that determine why some nations achieve wealth and stability while others fall into poverty and chaos.
Your article systematically elucidates the the hubris that's been plaguing the West, especially since the end of the unipolar moment around 2016-17. That the 2024 economics prize was awarded to someone totally undeserving in itself is hardly unprecedented. After all Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for making one speech in Cairo. Throughout his eight year term, predator drones were dropping bombs all over West, Central and South Asia and the Horn of Africa indiscriminately massacring thousands (for all that you know, some of them might have been pummelling Afghanistan and Pakistan as he was delivering that speech). Apparently the fact that the Oval Office had been occupied by one warmonger after another for the better part of half a century wasn't indicative enough that any US President is the LAST person that should get any prize with the word "peace" in it. And now Danielle Weiss, who's openly called for genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza is nominee for the same prize.
There might have been a time when a Nobel Prize actually meant something. Now however, it has been reduced to nothing more than a meaningless forum for Western neo-liberals and imperialists to bask in their self righteous, self aggrandizing delusions.
But I think the larger point actually is the West knows full well that it is falling behind, and there is a visceral fear lurking beneath the surface that the Global South to consign them to irrelevance once they start to fulfill their potential. Such insecurity shouldn't come as a surprise. After all, their economic advancement over the last 200-300 years was primarily based on plunder.
The Nobel foundation like almost all supposed international organisations have been captured and corrupted by the west. Look at Obama one of the most murderous American Presidents getting the peace prize. There is no credibility from even the UN so an organisation like Nobel was easy for the west to capture and corrupted. Other organisations which should have credibility like ICJ and ICC are not honest and fair are used for political means to prosecute African or Asian leaders not to bring to Justice western politicians or their friends who commit atrocities with impunity
I remember reading their book too, not long after its publication. It had academic respectability. (BTW, I do respect Acemeglou’s academic work.) Like you, the thesis (extractive vs inclusive) seemed plausible to me, but in the end I was unimpressed, as the data seemed unavoidably selective (even then, before witnessing China’s rise since the book’s publication).
First of all, ought we not control for the advantages that European imperialism gave to the West, and the corresponding burden imposed on non-Western societies? Isn’t the superior outcome of the so called inclusive societies (like Australia, Canada and US) due to their close integration with the European economies? And have these societies themselves not been extractive in how they dispossessed indigenous Americans and Aborigines?
If Acemoglu and his colleagues were truly objective academics, they ought to objectively review their original thesis in light of China’s recent rise. After all, China offers a unique opportunity to test their theory. A true scientific approach would welcome close study of Chinese society and see what can be learnt.
I don't really think these academics can be honestly called impartial unbiased scholars in pursuit of truth. Their primary function is to amplify the approved ideologies of the neoliberal ruling class and they get rewarded for doing that. They live in a classic echo chamber and derive their worth from within the system, instead of from being proven right empirically. this is the thesis of my essay on demeritocracy - the entire economic and political super structure in the west is a self licking ice cream, much like the west's insistence Ukraine is winning when the reality is the polar opposite. anyway, a dumbed down population cannot tell the difference between chicken salad and chicken shit.
There are some honourable exceptions (like Jeffrey Sachs), but I agree that it’s hard for American economists to look at the world objectively. Their prior identity as an American (first) and Western intellectual (second) is a cognitive barrier, which is disappointing because I had long felt that economists were inclusive about humanity than political scientists. After all, a central (if not the central) insight of economics going back to Adam Smith is that we can all gain from exchange and so economics has a win-win mindset (unlike the awful “realism” of international relations practitioners). But I guess our self-identity is very hard to overcome.
social science should be subject to the same rigor as natural science - proven or disproven by empirical data. the problem with Robinson and Acemoglu winning the Nobel is less their theoretical thsis but the data they quoted and the outcome of their predictions. they are divorced from reality and rewarding them with Nobel prize is perverse and ultimately harmful to social science or social studies (since they don't meet the standard of science)
> There are some honourable exceptions (like Jeffrey Sachs)
You mean the Jeffrey Sachs who, after the collapse of the USSR, went there to guide the dismantlement of the Soviet economic system for the benefit of the newly emerging oligarch class at the expense of the overwhelming majority of the population who were reduced to poverty?
Or the Jeffrey Sachs who pulled off similar stunts in Poland and Bolivia?
Nope, he is not an honorable exception, he is very much part of the system the Nobel Prize for Economics guys praised to high heaven. Oh sure, he has changed his tune to ride a new wave now the U.S. Empire is sliding towards disintegration.
I understand Sachs had nothing to do with the privatisation policies pursued in Russia and Eastern Europe. They were pushed by Western investors and local elites wanting to acquire Russian assets for cheap!
I know Sachs is widely regarded as having recommended the privatisation policies, but he has denied this. There are several YouTube videos where Sachs addresses his accusers. Sachs says his main contribution was to get debt relief for Poland. He also tried but failed to get debt relief for Russia.
So if I accuse you of being racist, and you disagree, it counts for nothing? . Just listen to Sachs and make up your mind. A minimum requirement of due process is to listen to the accused.
they literally describe the situation in the USA as being the inverse of what it actually is. For decades the USA has had exceptionally little “democratic participation” and, except for some cultural-social issues, very little actual “political pluralism” and it has had one of the most ““extractive” systems” that are “run by a self-serving ruling elite” since the middle ages, and even then in some cases its exceeds them. Large sections of our economy, such as health care, are long widely regarded as just being a scam.
Also, there is no such thing as a Nobel Prize in Economic, its actually called the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel which is a fake Nobel Prize a bunch in international bankers, through the person of the Swizz central bank, bribed the Nobel Committee members into awarding on their behalf so that they could give charlatans like Milton Friedman an air of credibility
“Academic work” in economics is closer to medieval practices in alchemy with a dash of sophistry. I took an Econ course under Krugman and his academic corpus will survive in importance to human society barely longer that his physical corpus.
Far more worthy of admiration is Angus Maddison who predicted and explained in 2004 why China’s GDP would surpass that of the US by 2015 (which it did on PPP and normalizing for financial maneuvers such as usury).
Professor Maddison was the old school macro economist who always took the long view through the lens of history. Krugman and the rest of the Chicago school are not much more than highly paid lobbyists for a particular neoliberal economic system that benefits financial capitalists. On that front, they have served their masters well.
I don’t think Krugman sees himself as part of the Chicago school. I recall a post by Krugman distinguishing the Saltwater schools (Harvard, Yale, Princeton) and the Freshwater schools (Chicago, Michigan). He lamented the Freshwater schools’ ignorance of neo-Keynesian insights (eg that fiscal expansion can work when prices are sticky), whereas the Saltwater schools teach their students both neo-Keynesian and Chicago school models of the economy. Krugman criticises his intellectual opponents for their lack of curiosity about ideas that they find unorthodox, stressing the need for listening to outsiders.
Alas, I wonder these days whether Krugman himself has become uncurious and ideological in his views. I never could understand why he blamed China for US trade deficits, and for forcing US investors to transfer technology as a condition of investing in China. In fact, there is plenty of orthodox teaching (eg Joseph Stieglitz) emphasising the importance of learning in development. Stiglitz (a member of the Freshwater school) in fact argues that keeping the currency low is a good way to encourage foreign investment and the learning and technology transfers that come with foreign investment. So Krugman should be more curious and cosmopolitan, and try to understand how China’s development model works.
Krugman is Jewish for one thing and a standard issue neoliberal Clinton dem for another. when he swapped economics to politics, he became just another ideologue, which is what nyt wants anyway
One of the most interesting moves of the West philosophically was how the 2008 transition to Obama succeeded in rolling the gullible "progressive" resisters of hegemony into the fold. Notable was how uber rich oligarchs like Soros and Fink adopted decorative identitarian themes to ensure the left was infiltrated and undermined. Resisters to the plutarchy are now atomized, with no real political home. "Leftists" now endorse all the things they protested in their college years.
the original concept of left and right was economic. these days, the "leftists" are basically cultural leftists focused on identity politics. there is no economic leftists for the most part. neoliberal economic theories have won over both the left and the right in the west. they have become orthodoxy and sacred cow.
The Nobel Prize has a big joke all these years. Awarding a 2012 outdated book in 2024? Holy Cow! Remember the Barack Obama and Maria Ressa Peace Awards, peace is the last thing they could represent.
"Acemoglu & Robinson for their book "Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty" written in 2012 contended China’s economic performance to date was unsustainable and would falter"😅😅😅😅
As an "an anti-semite" I would contend that nations who fail is because Jews have had a stranglehold on their politics and culture
Loved it! You point out wonderfully the hypocrisy of the Western elites, who have lost their mandate of rule, and will eventually pay the price of humiliation for it.
It is precisely this kind of mindset in the West that has brought them down. If they still could not wake-up to what has been really going-on, it will be too late.
The Nobel Prizes have become a joke, a sick, politically driven joke. The door was slammed shut for me when the newly inaugurated president Obama was given the Nobel Peace Prize when he had not done anything yet, but shortly thereafter he waged war on Libya and Syria.
Your comments about this particular Nobel Economics Prize is a confirmation of my statement.
Furthermore, you published and article today about China's AI industry and how it will upend and overtaken the Western one, if it has not already done so. DeepSeek proved beyond a shadow of doubt that U.S. chip/AI policies towards China have not only backfired but made a fool of subsequent U.S. Administration.
Lastly, although I have not read Ron Unz's 2012 article, I find he writes well thought through articles, although they tend to be a bit verbose 😀
This kind of science in the West, which basically cultivates the same narratives with scientific vocabulary as the political elite and the mainstream media, will ensure that those who want to open the eyes of the West will not be heard. And thus the West will not be able to adapt to the new circumstances. They simply do not understand. If it wasn't so dangerous, because the West seeks wars to stave off the inevitable and find explanations for its increasing failure, the global South could buy popcorn and enjoy the descent of its previous bullies.
Anything outside of hard science is just propaganda. The social science fields like economics are based on subjective facts. They need more data analysis, instead we get tainted views of reality with selective data. These fields need to be revamped with more analytic tools instead of hearsay. They are filled with humanities graduates with little back ground in STEM.
good point. regardless, if they still insist by 2012 that the US has an inclusive economic system, they are either dumb or dishonest. that should automatically disqualify them as serious scholars, let alone Nobel laureats. Nobel prize as is awarded today is a self licking ice cream so maybe I shouldn't be too hard on the "laureats"...
I am not familiar with that work. One western economist I consider as knowledgable about Chinese economy is Dr. Warwick Powell. You can find many of his talks about Chinese economy on social media channels including Youtube. He teaches in China and has some real insights.
Kroeber is a typical western scholar - he certainly has an ideological inclination which affects his judgement but he is honest enough to present the data. Just as you pointed out, the data shows China is actually very decentralized from a fiscal perspective. Political centralization is a reality that has been the Chinese tradition for 2000 years but economic management is largely decentralized even from the start of PRC. If you want to read more about China's economic model today, the New China Playbook by Jin Keyu, is a good starting point. Among other things, she highlighted what she described as the Mayor Economy, where local leaders make their decision what types of business to promote, how to attract foreign investment, and how to mobilize resources on their development priorities. Her analysis is a good take off point to understand the tech ecosystems in places like Shenzhen, Hangzhou, and Hefei.
Your article systematically elucidates the the hubris that's been plaguing the West, especially since the end of the unipolar moment around 2016-17. That the 2024 economics prize was awarded to someone totally undeserving in itself is hardly unprecedented. After all Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for making one speech in Cairo. Throughout his eight year term, predator drones were dropping bombs all over West, Central and South Asia and the Horn of Africa indiscriminately massacring thousands (for all that you know, some of them might have been pummelling Afghanistan and Pakistan as he was delivering that speech). Apparently the fact that the Oval Office had been occupied by one warmonger after another for the better part of half a century wasn't indicative enough that any US President is the LAST person that should get any prize with the word "peace" in it. And now Danielle Weiss, who's openly called for genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza is nominee for the same prize.
There might have been a time when a Nobel Prize actually meant something. Now however, it has been reduced to nothing more than a meaningless forum for Western neo-liberals and imperialists to bask in their self righteous, self aggrandizing delusions.
But I think the larger point actually is the West knows full well that it is falling behind, and there is a visceral fear lurking beneath the surface that the Global South to consign them to irrelevance once they start to fulfill their potential. Such insecurity shouldn't come as a surprise. After all, their economic advancement over the last 200-300 years was primarily based on plunder.
The Nobel foundation like almost all supposed international organisations have been captured and corrupted by the west. Look at Obama one of the most murderous American Presidents getting the peace prize. There is no credibility from even the UN so an organisation like Nobel was easy for the west to capture and corrupted. Other organisations which should have credibility like ICJ and ICC are not honest and fair are used for political means to prosecute African or Asian leaders not to bring to Justice western politicians or their friends who commit atrocities with impunity
I remember reading their book too, not long after its publication. It had academic respectability. (BTW, I do respect Acemeglou’s academic work.) Like you, the thesis (extractive vs inclusive) seemed plausible to me, but in the end I was unimpressed, as the data seemed unavoidably selective (even then, before witnessing China’s rise since the book’s publication).
First of all, ought we not control for the advantages that European imperialism gave to the West, and the corresponding burden imposed on non-Western societies? Isn’t the superior outcome of the so called inclusive societies (like Australia, Canada and US) due to their close integration with the European economies? And have these societies themselves not been extractive in how they dispossessed indigenous Americans and Aborigines?
If Acemoglu and his colleagues were truly objective academics, they ought to objectively review their original thesis in light of China’s recent rise. After all, China offers a unique opportunity to test their theory. A true scientific approach would welcome close study of Chinese society and see what can be learnt.
I don't really think these academics can be honestly called impartial unbiased scholars in pursuit of truth. Their primary function is to amplify the approved ideologies of the neoliberal ruling class and they get rewarded for doing that. They live in a classic echo chamber and derive their worth from within the system, instead of from being proven right empirically. this is the thesis of my essay on demeritocracy - the entire economic and political super structure in the west is a self licking ice cream, much like the west's insistence Ukraine is winning when the reality is the polar opposite. anyway, a dumbed down population cannot tell the difference between chicken salad and chicken shit.
There are some honourable exceptions (like Jeffrey Sachs), but I agree that it’s hard for American economists to look at the world objectively. Their prior identity as an American (first) and Western intellectual (second) is a cognitive barrier, which is disappointing because I had long felt that economists were inclusive about humanity than political scientists. After all, a central (if not the central) insight of economics going back to Adam Smith is that we can all gain from exchange and so economics has a win-win mindset (unlike the awful “realism” of international relations practitioners). But I guess our self-identity is very hard to overcome.
social science should be subject to the same rigor as natural science - proven or disproven by empirical data. the problem with Robinson and Acemoglu winning the Nobel is less their theoretical thsis but the data they quoted and the outcome of their predictions. they are divorced from reality and rewarding them with Nobel prize is perverse and ultimately harmful to social science or social studies (since they don't meet the standard of science)
> There are some honourable exceptions (like Jeffrey Sachs)
You mean the Jeffrey Sachs who, after the collapse of the USSR, went there to guide the dismantlement of the Soviet economic system for the benefit of the newly emerging oligarch class at the expense of the overwhelming majority of the population who were reduced to poverty?
Or the Jeffrey Sachs who pulled off similar stunts in Poland and Bolivia?
Nope, he is not an honorable exception, he is very much part of the system the Nobel Prize for Economics guys praised to high heaven. Oh sure, he has changed his tune to ride a new wave now the U.S. Empire is sliding towards disintegration.
I understand Sachs had nothing to do with the privatisation policies pursued in Russia and Eastern Europe. They were pushed by Western investors and local elites wanting to acquire Russian assets for cheap!
I know Sachs is widely regarded as having recommended the privatisation policies, but he has denied this. There are several YouTube videos where Sachs addresses his accusers. Sachs says his main contribution was to get debt relief for Poland. He also tried but failed to get debt relief for Russia.
Sachs is unlikely to agree to accusations, wouldn't you agree?
I am more inclined to believe what Naomi Klein (Jewish also, so cannot be accused of anti-Semitism) writes about him in her book "Shock Doctrine".
So if I accuse you of being racist, and you disagree, it counts for nothing? . Just listen to Sachs and make up your mind. A minimum requirement of due process is to listen to the accused.
they literally describe the situation in the USA as being the inverse of what it actually is. For decades the USA has had exceptionally little “democratic participation” and, except for some cultural-social issues, very little actual “political pluralism” and it has had one of the most ““extractive” systems” that are “run by a self-serving ruling elite” since the middle ages, and even then in some cases its exceeds them. Large sections of our economy, such as health care, are long widely regarded as just being a scam.
Also, there is no such thing as a Nobel Prize in Economic, its actually called the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel which is a fake Nobel Prize a bunch in international bankers, through the person of the Swizz central bank, bribed the Nobel Committee members into awarding on their behalf so that they could give charlatans like Milton Friedman an air of credibility
“Academic work” in economics is closer to medieval practices in alchemy with a dash of sophistry. I took an Econ course under Krugman and his academic corpus will survive in importance to human society barely longer that his physical corpus.
Far more worthy of admiration is Angus Maddison who predicted and explained in 2004 why China’s GDP would surpass that of the US by 2015 (which it did on PPP and normalizing for financial maneuvers such as usury).
Professor Maddison was the old school macro economist who always took the long view through the lens of history. Krugman and the rest of the Chicago school are not much more than highly paid lobbyists for a particular neoliberal economic system that benefits financial capitalists. On that front, they have served their masters well.
I don’t think Krugman sees himself as part of the Chicago school. I recall a post by Krugman distinguishing the Saltwater schools (Harvard, Yale, Princeton) and the Freshwater schools (Chicago, Michigan). He lamented the Freshwater schools’ ignorance of neo-Keynesian insights (eg that fiscal expansion can work when prices are sticky), whereas the Saltwater schools teach their students both neo-Keynesian and Chicago school models of the economy. Krugman criticises his intellectual opponents for their lack of curiosity about ideas that they find unorthodox, stressing the need for listening to outsiders.
Alas, I wonder these days whether Krugman himself has become uncurious and ideological in his views. I never could understand why he blamed China for US trade deficits, and for forcing US investors to transfer technology as a condition of investing in China. In fact, there is plenty of orthodox teaching (eg Joseph Stieglitz) emphasising the importance of learning in development. Stiglitz (a member of the Freshwater school) in fact argues that keeping the currency low is a good way to encourage foreign investment and the learning and technology transfers that come with foreign investment. So Krugman should be more curious and cosmopolitan, and try to understand how China’s development model works.
Krugman is Jewish for one thing and a standard issue neoliberal Clinton dem for another. when he swapped economics to politics, he became just another ideologue, which is what nyt wants anyway
well said!
One of the most interesting moves of the West philosophically was how the 2008 transition to Obama succeeded in rolling the gullible "progressive" resisters of hegemony into the fold. Notable was how uber rich oligarchs like Soros and Fink adopted decorative identitarian themes to ensure the left was infiltrated and undermined. Resisters to the plutarchy are now atomized, with no real political home. "Leftists" now endorse all the things they protested in their college years.
the original concept of left and right was economic. these days, the "leftists" are basically cultural leftists focused on identity politics. there is no economic leftists for the most part. neoliberal economic theories have won over both the left and the right in the west. they have become orthodoxy and sacred cow.
The Nobel Prize has a big joke all these years. Awarding a 2012 outdated book in 2024? Holy Cow! Remember the Barack Obama and Maria Ressa Peace Awards, peace is the last thing they could represent.
Even for economists, being 100% wrong is quite an achievement.
"Acemoglu & Robinson for their book "Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty" written in 2012 contended China’s economic performance to date was unsustainable and would falter"😅😅😅😅
As an "an anti-semite" I would contend that nations who fail is because Jews have had a stranglehold on their politics and culture
eg UK US
Loved it! You point out wonderfully the hypocrisy of the Western elites, who have lost their mandate of rule, and will eventually pay the price of humiliation for it.
It is precisely this kind of mindset in the West that has brought them down. If they still could not wake-up to what has been really going-on, it will be too late.
Excellent article, thank you.
The Nobel Prizes have become a joke, a sick, politically driven joke. The door was slammed shut for me when the newly inaugurated president Obama was given the Nobel Peace Prize when he had not done anything yet, but shortly thereafter he waged war on Libya and Syria.
Your comments about this particular Nobel Economics Prize is a confirmation of my statement.
Furthermore, you published and article today about China's AI industry and how it will upend and overtaken the Western one, if it has not already done so. DeepSeek proved beyond a shadow of doubt that U.S. chip/AI policies towards China have not only backfired but made a fool of subsequent U.S. Administration.
Lastly, although I have not read Ron Unz's 2012 article, I find he writes well thought through articles, although they tend to be a bit verbose 😀
This kind of science in the West, which basically cultivates the same narratives with scientific vocabulary as the political elite and the mainstream media, will ensure that those who want to open the eyes of the West will not be heard. And thus the West will not be able to adapt to the new circumstances. They simply do not understand. If it wasn't so dangerous, because the West seeks wars to stave off the inevitable and find explanations for its increasing failure, the global South could buy popcorn and enjoy the descent of its previous bullies.
The Nobel is generally reserved for Village Idiots and court jesters.
Anything outside of hard science is just propaganda. The social science fields like economics are based on subjective facts. They need more data analysis, instead we get tainted views of reality with selective data. These fields need to be revamped with more analytic tools instead of hearsay. They are filled with humanities graduates with little back ground in STEM.
good point. regardless, if they still insist by 2012 that the US has an inclusive economic system, they are either dumb or dishonest. that should automatically disqualify them as serious scholars, let alone Nobel laureats. Nobel prize as is awarded today is a self licking ice cream so maybe I shouldn't be too hard on the "laureats"...
I am not familiar with that work. One western economist I consider as knowledgable about Chinese economy is Dr. Warwick Powell. You can find many of his talks about Chinese economy on social media channels including Youtube. He teaches in China and has some real insights.
Kroeber is a typical western scholar - he certainly has an ideological inclination which affects his judgement but he is honest enough to present the data. Just as you pointed out, the data shows China is actually very decentralized from a fiscal perspective. Political centralization is a reality that has been the Chinese tradition for 2000 years but economic management is largely decentralized even from the start of PRC. If you want to read more about China's economic model today, the New China Playbook by Jin Keyu, is a good starting point. Among other things, she highlighted what she described as the Mayor Economy, where local leaders make their decision what types of business to promote, how to attract foreign investment, and how to mobilize resources on their development priorities. Her analysis is a good take off point to understand the tech ecosystems in places like Shenzhen, Hangzhou, and Hefei.