This book,
Violence and Social Orders by North, Wallis, and Weingast, attempts
to explain their concepts of how a society develops in three
central ideas, the transitional phase from a pre-1800 Natural State
to an Open Access Order, the permanence of a Natural State during
the modern period, and the difference between societies on how to
handle the issue of violence. What becomes clear throughout this
book is that natural states have not, as one would expect with 200
years of global development, have not disappeared. Rather, they
have evolved from fragile and basic natural states to mature
natural states, a distinction which is expanded upon later in the
book. Most importantly, the change associated with the creation of
open access orders has
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Open access to
organisations in all systems in an open access society sustains
competition in all systems in this order. The authors themselves
state in Chapter 4, Competition in all systems, in turn, helps
sustain open access. One of the most significant differences
between Open and Limited access orders lies in this expansion of
impersonal rights. As the authors state themselves in Chapter 4
regarding open access orders, political management of violence is
based on impersonal rules and organizations, not, as in the natural
state on the manipulation of economic privileges. However it ought
to be noted that while open access orders are, by definition, more
open to the public then limited access orders, there does exist a
miscommunication regarding the position of elites. Open access
orders, as is noted by the review of this book by John G. Haaga, do
not necessarily entail an assertion that social mobility is easy,
that membership in elites is open to all, still less that elites do
not exist. In other words, open access orders provide
opportunities which are more socially level; this is by no means
equal. Elites do exist. This transition from natural states to open
access orders does not so much rely upon the idea that elites have
been eliminated between these two states,
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There do also
exist several stages of development within the Natural state,
namely those of fragile, basic, to mature forms of natural state.
Fragile Natural states are characterised by the simplicity of the
institutional structures. Fragile states are under a significant
amount of pressure, both internally and externally, in terms of a
constantly shifting commitment of the dominant coalition of
elites, producing a volatile position of power and direction which
exists in a state of constant flux. Fragile natural states can
contain violence, "but all politics is real politics: people risk
death when they make political mistakes. T. Basic natural states
emerge from this fragile natural state; support for organisations
is vested in powerful members of the dominant coalition. Elites
can exert strong controls to focus labour and trade to support
their own interests. These elites actually tended to develop their
interests in relationship to one another. Namely, if the strongest
elites were pushing for, in example, an increase in the production
of potatoes then this would be the main focus of the society, at
least until this coalition of elites either falls apart through a
change in opinion or a stronger coalition pushes for a change in
focus, say from potato production to the production of wheat.
The
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