Niall Ferguson The Great Degeneration.pdf [ Windows ]

Fukuyama, F. (2014). Political Order and Political Decay . Farrar, Straus and Giroux. (For counter-argument on institutional development)

Perhaps the most original section, Ferguson argues that the West suffers from hyper-legalism . He points to the exponential growth in the number of laws and regulations (e.g., the U.S. tax code’s millions of words). This “legal inflation” produces two degenerations: first, it makes the law incomprehensible to ordinary citizens, undermining its legitimacy; second, it creates a “lawsuit culture” that paralyzes innovation and risk-taking. The rule of law, once the West’s greatest advantage over autocracies, has become a straightjacket. Niall Ferguson The Great Degeneration.pdf

Ferguson, N. (2012). The Great Degeneration: How Institutions Decay and Economies Die . Penguin Books. Fukuyama, F

The Decay of the West: An Analysis of Niall Ferguson’s Institutional Diagnosis in The Great Degeneration Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Contemporary Political Economy / Western Civilization in Crisis Date: [Current Date]

Ferguson organizes his diagnosis around four institutional complexes that, he contends, have historically underpinned Western ascendancy.