this is also great. the rest of what did you do before i played the tenant. she survived the ocean bits. thanks to music. he was the nazis favorite conductor. positions under the swastika, a documentary about the sounds of power and inspiring story about survival. music in nazi germany, watch now on youtube dw documentary, the why do some nation succeed and some fail economics nobel prize winner james

a robinson has spent his career trying to answer that question. i spoke to him at his home in chicago to find out more. congratulations on having won the nobel prize for economics. at the risk of being, i don't know, the one building is person to have ask you how do you feel? a little shell show for the 1st few days actually have to say it was sort of out to about the experience. i wasn't really thinking about it, but you know, but obviously it's kind of marvelous and yeah, what's being so nice is just talking to so many students and colleagues on like so many other people kind of have piecing other people happy about, know about me. but about the ideas and about the research and so that, that, that's being very reward thing. i have to say, you know, to someone who might not be familiar with your work. how would you explain what you've been doing and what got you, the price sort of this relationship between the colonial strategies and how

institutions developed and economic prosperity? yeah, we, we were fundamentally, you know, so 2 years ago we were fundamentally interested in understanding these massive differences in prosperity around the world. and we thought that economists were just not thinking about this in the right way. and they were kind of using the right concepts to think about this. so, you know, uh, the main idea that we developed is that this is really related to the institutions of different societies and how people themselves, kind of organize the societies and by institutions. i just mean the rules that create incentives and opportunities for people. and if you look around the world, you see these huge differences in these institutions. but what was it those differences come from? and then to us, just talking about that this wasn't anything that called them is talked about. so 2 years ago, colonialism obviously had to have a big had to be a big part of that story. you know, many of the societies were site profoundly by colonialism. so then we started

investigating the role of colonialism in creating institutional variation in the world historically and the extent to which that really accounted for these differences in prosperity today. you talk about the difference between inclusive and extractive institutions, inclusive institutions having setup nations more for success that extractive ones have? what is the difference? yeah, so, so that's, that's a, that's, that's the dichotomy is sort of simplistic. obviously the world is full of shades of gray, but it's very useful for sort of understanding that kind of approach that we say inclusive institutions are institutions that crate. broad based incentives and opportunities for people and extractive institutions concentrate incentives and opportunities in the hands of a few people. and so that's crucial for prosperity because what drives economic growth and economic development is innovation. it's people's creative, it to you and talents and, and you know,

you don't know where that is. you don't know where those people in society. you don't know whether you innovate as all, whether you own from the us, all. and so you need to create a set of institutions that allows old color to come to the top. but we also currently have this ongoing competition enlighten america in asia. in an effort golf you have countries like the us, russia, and china. so sort of talking for influence in these places. how do you apply your theory to that phenomenon? you know, the way the way off every works is there are moments in world history where, you know, whole continents and you know, get reshaped by colonialism. all these sort of global full says, and then we put a lot of emphasis on that kind of internal dynamics, internal political dynamics of societies. you know, we're often accused of not having a really good, well take away to theory of international relations. you know, i, you know, the way i look into it, you know, which it comes a lot from my experience of working in, in, you know, in the global south is that,

you know, many people still see, you know, the united states. so the western powers is called the noises you know, like western powers come, they tell you what to do. you know, they kind of, you know, they, they boss you about, they say if you do this and that will give you money, you know, what you should really do is like, be more like us, you know, and that's very annoying for people in the global south i would say, you know, i'm, i'm not sure it's such a bad thing if that was a re balancing of that. you know, so i think the rise of china, of course, has created a sort of idea of, you know, there's going to be a different world system. i'm not quite sure if that's actually going to happen because, you know, my own view about chinese economic growth is you called to actually have a mold in the end of a to be calling me on the right side, solitary and dictatorship. there's no precedent for that. world history, and i think you see a lot says mechanisms. so why that's not going to happen. look at jack mall, you know, jack mall, you know, one of the symbols of chinese economic success. what's happened to him? he was cancelled, you know,

he disappeared because he criticized the government. you call it have a society like that you called to have a modem in this society like that. so i don't think the chinese really have the political foundations to be economically successful. so of course the scale of china was so impressive that you know, it's difficult not to be charge way by it. but i'm old enough to remember when the soviet union was an economic success story. you know, we lived but maybe it's school high school university. russia was going to be the future. what. and now you tell young people that they cut that into what you're talking about. so, you know, there's nothing left english are except natural resources but, but i think, you know, we, we point out to, in the book, there's many experiences in world history like china, where you have, you know, periods a very rough economic growth in particular circumstances. you know, but you comp extrapolate that into the future. you know, we call that extractive growth. so that means, you know, i think it was probably be a good thing to re balance the will system, you know, to stop this head gemini,

of western powers and international institutions everywhere. but i'm not sure what's gonna happen. actually taking your definition of institutions being a set of rules and incentives. how would you rate the institutions of the united states today? well, you know, i still see, you know, that's huge elements of inclusion. you know, in the sense that united states, you know, for me, the biggest edge in the economic ads united states has had, for the last 200 years, is this ability suck to suck talents out of the rest of the world. you know, think about how long must squared it. i would mess with that. well, most people in south africa, you know, steve jobs. why did steve jobs? father? somebody come from syria, you know, said gaping. what was he from russia, you know, like, so if that's still going on, you know, so that's still going on and obviously look at all this innovation sending a, all i need are digital, you know, so, so that, that kind of machine is still doing that. but i think what you've seen in the united states, and of course you have much of the other stuff is that to the long shadow of

slavery, you know, discrimination and racism in this country, the marginalization of indigenous people. that's all this to, you know? so, but i think what you've seen in the last 50 years is this is all coming off the rails in many ways, you know that most americans are not better off now. i was on, they were 50 years ago. that's a fact. you know, social mobility is slowed down dramatically. there's been a massive increase in, in the quality, you know, so, so that's, that's challenging whole the institutions today. look, you know, probably next week we're going to elect the president who, who doesn't respect institutions, who basically tried to fix the last election in his own favor. so. so that's, that's a massive, childless to inclusive institutions in this country. but, you know, the way i think about that is, that's because of the failures of the, the system. you know, that the system, the democratic system has failed to adapt to globalization,

to technical change. it's fail to kind of listen to people's problems. you know, i do think why nice and so what we show is that, you know, us institutions to be child has many times and if you look at historically you see in the 19th century, these robot, byron's vanderbilt roc a fella, you know, they definitely challenged institutions they tried to undermine the political system, you know, but the system managed to fight back. people managed to fight back. i think at the moment we don't, we don't know if that's going to happen. you know, we're in the middle of a kind of very historic moment. i think in the past, you know, we show the all many moments like this. but somehow the system has come back on the rails. will it come back on the rails not? why don't know, you know, we also talk about many examples where inclusive institutions and inclusive societies became more extract if you have read this is also of the leading is also venice was probably the richest part of the world in the late middle ages. and then everything went into reverse, you know, only inclusion in the economics fair in the political sphere. so it could not

happen here. yes, of course it could happen here. when you see donald trump and you could very well be the next president of the united states, you talk a lot about the importance of institutions. and this is someone who suppose that agenda is to, to, is to re make government is to overall institutions. what do you think will happen if all of this comes to pass, like, what does that say about the, the fortunes of this country? well, i don't like to think president trump is in favor of changing institutions. i think he's in favor of destroying and personalizing institutions, actually. i think it's a name policy. see all over latin america. it's been going on in mexico for the last few years. it's a very common sort of scenario. so i think, you know, he'd like to undermine institutions and he doesn't like institutions. he wants to personalize everything he wants to make everything discretionary. and so i think that's, that's going to be at those last to for this country. honestly, it's going to be a calamity, you know, can, we can always revise that for 4 years. i don't know. federalism either helped us

last time. it saved this last time. he tried to interfere with the counting of votes, but he couldn't really do that because the federal government called really do that, you know, so, so, so the federalism is very important, you know, and you know, if you go back to the founding of the united states, and the writing of the constitution, the james madison, these people understood this, you know, the constitution wasn't designed for like barack obama, you know, like something really nice person. well, the constitution was designed for somebody who wanted to destroy it. you know, that's why there were these checks and balances. that's why there were the separation of powers. last, why does federalism, you know that because of people like this. so, and that's happened before. as i said, we survived the, we're going to survive it now, you know, i was impressed with president trump what sort of things removed from power by people's willingness to kind of act in the favor of the country as well for what, even when the own jobs and likelihood, so on the line, you know, people were willing to kind of to work with the institutions and to support them

and believe in them. but i think that's what we're relying on not we know already that funding pallet boxes, you know, and so people, whatever happens, you know, if president trump loses, he's never going to accept the results. and then i think, you know, many people are concerned about violence and sort of political instability. and i, you know, we also what we don't know. and what we don't know, i think is what's happening. what's really happened to the republican party. you know, like i'm emphasizing we're talking about president trump, but i 1st of all started talking about the social problems in this country there. let's not forget the social problems. that's why president trump is so powerful that he understood that these people felt that they would not being listened to, not represented in the political system. and you know, he was clever enough to understand the democratic policy didn't understand it so. so those problems either if there's problems that go away, this type of politics may not go away and we need to stop step up to the plate. you know, so, and you're not going to step up to the plate if you all can place them on the

recognize the challenges. thank you very much. so professor james from the kitchen is good us. i never would have thought this day would count. that's fine. so convinced i'm of the right of an interesting victim deciding she wants to live. that's part of sophie's daily routine. she's open about her mental illnesses sharing with others, how they impact for life. and in doing so, she gets there. and one thing about me choosing my next on d w. every morning i go to my grandmother. i don't know so no matter says so you probably know we're going to go to my university. this is my car, this is our school. otherwise you have 7 years.

what does it like to grow up in europe to young and european euro macs? no one's understanding is the view. the name is the calls back said wow, thank you so much for joining and welcome to don't hold bad. a lot of people do that, it's all about saying it aloud. as would it be nosy bay? like good everyone to king, to check out the award winning called called the called back the the

document in the tides in dallas during those really difficult times myself arrangements funding. it's about to fly, and the spies on i called it my problem is on the spring and miss with it. i promised myself that i'm not today. i wouldn't take my own life and these and talk monday miss nemo student if i still make that promise every day. and that has a very special meaning for me is to have a thoughts on for me is.