The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty.

• Author: Williamson, Claudia R.

The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty

By Daren Acemoglu and James A. Robinson

New York: Penguin Press, 2019.

Pp. xvii, 558. $32 hardcover.

Amid heightened economic, social, and political divides, social unrest, and rising popularity of antiliberty arguments, Daren Acemoglu and James A. Robinson write a book that unapologetically emphasizes the importance of liberty. Liberty not only creates prosperity but also is the foundation that provides individuals with what they want--the opportunity to create and live the lives they want to live. Good old-fashioned liberty. The kind of liberty discussed by John Locke, where individuals can act, buy, sell, think, and speak without having to ask for permission as long as these actions do not directly harm others. People must be free from violence, intimidation, punishment, and social sanctions in order to make free choices about their lives.

Yet this kind of freedom is rarely observed across the world or throughout history. Acemoglu and Robinson ask why. Like many moral philosophers, political economists, and political scientists before them, this book addresses the age-old question "Why is liberty so hard to achieve and sustain?" To address this daunting political economy question, a crash course on the history of human societies is provided, focusing on when liberty has taken hold and where it failed to do so. The authors' key ingredient to making liberty last is the state. Liberty needs the state. But there's a huge catch. The state must be controlled. We must shackle Leviathan. And there's the problem.

Throughout history, individuals have not been very good at constraining Leviathan, which leads to a conundrum. People want liberty but need the state to provide necessary protections so that private citizens do not infringe on each other's rights. However, once the state is granted power, the main infringement on liberty is the state. Therefore, the authors title their book The Narrow Corridor because the pathway that avoids tyranny by the state or tyranny by statelessness is narrow indeed.

The book presents a framework to assess alternative forms of governance with the overall goal to attain and keep a free society. To summarize, societies are classified as (1) absent Leviathan, (2) despotic Leviathan, or (3) shackled Leviathan. Under the first scenario, statelessness, life is either "nasty, brutish and short" or peaceful but relies solely on norms to govern that can stifle...