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Did you watch the recent BBC documentary on Eritrea? Whoever you may be – hater, lover of Isayas and his regime - it is good for you to see it. Not really to watch a “success” story because there is none of that sort in our country temporarily held hostage by PFDJ gang. But it is good to watch the documentary because one can get a clue about how and why nations fail. The ‘how’ part of a nation’s path to failure is concretely provided in the documentary – of course in the clearly noticeable fear, repression and shaken confidence of the people, including the minders watching over BBC’s Yalda Hakim. You better watch or re-watch a YouTube version of the documentary.

But of more interest here is the ‘why’ part in the painful process that leads towards total failure of nations. The documentary does help us where to find the answer: just displayed in the room where Mr. Yemane Ghebreab was interviewed. Look carefully at the BBC screen and you will find the title of a wonderful book on Why Nations Fail. Although one can be amazed to learn that the book is in Mr. Yemane Ghebreab’s book shelf, one can for sure remain assured that this senior political advisor of the Eritrean leader did not yet read a single page out of it.

Yemane Ghebreab’s bookshelf and the unread book

One dare say this because a person who read could have valued that book and its contents and would not dismiss the usefulness of national elections and talk about “a fixation” on “useless” elections. Simply put, he was saying there is no value in democratic participation and inclusiveness, and this will never see the light of the day in PFDJ’s Eritrea.

However, the book, Why Nations Fail, first published in 2012 as authored by MIT economics professor, Daron Acemoglu and Harvard’s political scientist James Robinson, is all about democracy, inclusiveness, freedom and the rule of law that build the right institutions. One of the eloquent reviewers of the book summed the content of the book when he wrote: “It is freedom that makes the world rich”.

It is a review of the past 400 years in the life of nations and why some prosper while others get poorer and poorer. The why, analyzed in the 529 pages of the book, can be captured in this quotation from the book: “Nations fail when they have extractive economic institutions supported by extractive political institutions that impede and even block economic growth”. It is obvious that the thesis is that economic growth and prosperity are associated with inclusive economic and political institutions, while extractive institutions eventually lead to stagnation and poverty a la nostra Eritrea.

In other words, the good authors believe that the choice of institutions – the politics of institutions – is central to our quest for understanding the reasons for the success and failure of nations.

It is asserted that it is inclusive and not extractive institutions that shape the incentives of businesses and individuals: the incentive to be educated, to innovate, and to adopt new ways of doing things.

The book argues that it is not geography, or culture or ignorance of putting down the right policies that matter in the success or failure of nations but freedom. This freedom allows space for “creative destruction” or replacing the old with the new. It allows for the good use of critical junctures – like the (lost) opportunity for change Eritrea had in 2000-2001.

All absolutist and participatory systems that existed in the world (east, west, north, and south, including old Abyssinia) since the historic 1619 Virginia General Assembly of new settlers in America are narrated to tell the story of success or failure of nations. It is a must read book to many, including to Mr. Yemane Ghebreab, who already has it collecting dust in his bookshelf.