Name: Political order and political decay
ISBN: 9781491584873

Political order and political decay

landmark work on the history of the modern state Writing in The Wall Street Journal, David Gress called Francis Fukuyama's Origins of Political Order "magisterial in its learning and admirably immodest in its ambition." In The New York Times Book Review, Michael Lind described the book as "a major achievement by one of the leading public intellectuals of our time." And in The Washington Post, Gerard DeGrott exclaimed "this is a book that will be remembered. Bring on volume two." Volume two is finally here, completing the most important work of political thought in at least a generation. Taking up the essential question of how societies develop strong, impersonal, and accountable political institutions, Fukuyama follows the story from the French Revolution to the so-called Arab Spring and the deep dysfunctions of contemporary American politics. He examines the effects of corruption on governance, and why some societies have been successful at rooting it out. He explores the different legacies of colonialism in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, and offers a clear-eyed account of why some regions have thrived and developed more quickly than others. And he boldly reckons with the future of democracy in the face of a rising global middle class and entrenched political paralysis in the West. A sweeping, masterful account of the struggle to create a well-functioning modern state, Political Order and Political Decay is destined to be a classic"

What Hacker News says

titheJun 2024

Here's a bunch that are on the bookshelf at the moment:

- Information Rules - Carl Shapiro & Hal Varian

- Normal Accidents - Charles Perrow

- Why Buildings Stand Up: The Strength of Architecture - Mario Salvadori

- Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief - Jordan Peterson

- The Power Broker - Robert Caro

- Political Order and Political Decay - Francis Fukuyama

- The Creators - Daniel Boorstin

- The Square and the Tower - Niall Ferguson

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solidsnack9000Dec 2018

This is explored by Francis Fukuyama in "The Origins of Political Order" and "Political Order and Political Decay". He presents compelling arguments for why we have failed states but more interestingly, he works through how we got successful ones. Non-failed states are far more rare in history, and they are the goal, after all.

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0x10101Aug 2017

I would take a look at Fukuyama's "Origins of Political Order" and "Political Order and Political Decay". The first hints of meritocracy were in China during the Qin and Han dynasties, where exams where used to provide positions in bureaucracy to those not of noble birth.

Prussia was really the first example of this in the west, where in 1770 all civil servants were required to pass a written exam.

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skilesareMar 2017

The Nature of Order by Christopher Alexander (also The Timeless Way of Building)

Lila by Pirsig (If you've read ZMM and left Lila unread you've left a lot on the table)

The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutch

Antifragile by Taleb

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Yudkowski. Particularly Chapter 39.

The two Political Order and Political Decay books by Fukuyama

Life's Ratchet - Hoffman

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hacknatJan 2017

Reading Fukuyama's "The Origins of Political Order" and part 2, "Political Order and Political Decay" is a really good sweep on political progress where it comes from and whether or not it's inevitable (hint: it's not).

Fukuyama is a real realist. What I mean by that is that he doesn't deny that progress has occurred (something some people believe), but he points out how precarious that progress is and that it can go away (something some people deny).

I don't understand why it's a controversial statement to say that progress isn't inevitable and that decay can sometimes happen, but for some reason it is. I think his books, among many other things, are useful for grasping that progress takes hard work and can, like anything in this world, be ruined by laziness, corruption, or simple accidental misfortune.

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internautOct 2016

Sure. For clarification: by G-space I meant 'how to govern well' or 'how to solve problems about, with, or in governance'.

This is obviously an enormous topic area. It is also a dangerous and highly contentious subject matter filled with many taboos, due to its nature and importance.

That said political scholars, like economists, have come to many consensus realizations. This is kind of amazing since Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are clones from a political science perspective, there exists a great diversity of thought.

This means that there is not as much of a gap between somebody like Francis Fukuyama and Moldbug as is popularly imagined. If you have a sincere interest in outcomes you find unexpected allies.

Here is a good start:

Volume 1: The Origins of Political Order by Francis Fukuyama Volume 2: Political Order and Political Decay by Francis Fukuyama

Seeing Like a State by James Scott

Exit, Voice and Loyalty by Albert Hirschman

The Problem of Political Authority by Michael Huemer

The Collapse of Complex Societies by Joesph Tainter

The majority of the time these authors are interested in outcomes, not in winning for whatever their home team is.

Outside of academia Silicon Valley itself is having a serious discussion on this topic from our perspective:

Balaji Srinivasan : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOubCHLXT6A

Peter Thiel : http://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3EBfS9IcB4

Patri Friedman : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasteading

Larry Page : https://techcrunch.com/2013/05/15/larry-page-wants-earth-to-...

Last but not least, the notorious Moldbug: Best explained by Scott Alexander : http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/03/03/reactionary-philosophy-...

If somebody is aware of an interesting line of thought around these issues I'll be happy to hear it.

One thing is perfectly clear and that is with the advent of the Internet we see the world differently and that this will lead to different forms of governance for the first time in several hundred years.

I also half seriously recommend you listen to audiobooks by Lovecraft to get into the appropriate mood for studying or reading about government.

"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."

I don't agree with his statement but it feels familiar after reading the books I recommended to you. This stuff has scale and is scary, the last person to seriously tinker with the subject on this level was Karl Marx.

That is why Patri's ideas may eventually win the day, but I leave you to it.

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