ClippingKK

Soon the Cultural Revolution, just like the Great Leap Forward, would start wrecking both the economy and many human lives. Units of Red Guards were formed across the country: young, enthusiastic members of the Communist Party who were used to purge opponents of the regime. Many people were killed, arrested, or sent into internal exile. Mao himself retorted to concerns about the extent of the violence, stating, “This man Hitler was even more ferocious. The more ferocious, the better, don’t you think? The more people you kill, the more revolutionary you are.”

Mao himself retorted to concerns about the extent of the violence, stating, “This man Hitler was even more ferocious. The more ferocious, the better, don’t you think? The more people you kill, the more revolutionary you are.”

inclusive political institutions support and are supported by inclusive economic institutions. This creates another mechanism of the virtuous circle. Inclusive economic institutions remove the most egregious extractive economic relations, such as slavery and serfdom, reduce the importance of monopolies, and create a dynamic economy, all of which reduces the economic benefits that one can secure, at least in the short run, by usurping political power.

每天深夜时分，高处的密林里会传来阵阵风声，配合这周遭的地形可谓阴森恐怖，夜间军队驻扎在这里，哪怕只是遭到小股敌人的骚扰，也很容易诱发在古代让主帅为之色变的营啸。所谓“营啸”，指古代军队行军作战中，由于士兵精神长期处于紧张状态等因素，在小股敌人骚扰、气候变化这类外界刺激下集体逃跑甚至互相践踏、自相残杀的现象。如梁武帝初年北伐时，梁军声势之大在整个南北朝期间都数一数二，初期

国为杜绝假钱想尽了办法，可是官府自己就带头造“假钱”，又怎么禁绝得了别人跟着作伪呢？正是基于这样的背景，人们选择布帛作为主流货币。布帛再不方便，它该值多少钱就能值多少

Because of the party’s control over economic institutions, the extent of creative destruction is heavily curtailed, and it will remain so until there is radical reform in political institutions. Just as in the Soviet Union, the Chinese experience of growth under extractive political institutions is greatly facilitated because there is a lot of catching up to do. Income per capita in China is still a fraction of that in the United States and Western Europe. Of course, Chinese growth is considerably more diversified than Soviet growth; it doesn’t rely on only armaments or heavy industry, and Chinese entrepreneurs are showing a lot of ingenuity. All the same, this growth will run out of steam unless extractive political institutions make way for inclusive institutions. As long as political institutions remain extractive, growth will be inherently limited, as it has been in all other similar cases.

it is again the underlying extractive institutions that make politics so attractive to, and so biased in favor of, strongmen such as Perón and Chávez, rather than an effective party system producing socially desirable alternatives. Perón, Chávez, and dozens of other strongmen in Latin America are just another facet of the iron law of oligarchy, and as the name suggests, the roots of this iron law lies in the underlying elite-controlled regimes.

现在的唐帝国，距离安禄山起兵叛乱已经半年多了，各地部队都面临着失控的风险，尤其是眼皮底下的西北边镇精锐，哥舒翰甚至已经公开处死皇帝新派来的官员，皇帝怎么还敢对这种试探无动于衷呢？唐玄宗此刻能做的，就是趁着还控制得住潼关守军，赶紧命令他们出战，争取一举消灭洛阳方向的燕军，打通漕运线。只有漕运回归正常，唐帝国才有可能像以前一样，通过牢固控制全国军队的后勤，来约束住各地蠢蠢欲动的军头