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without a centralized state to provide order and enforce rules and property rights, inclusive institutions could not emerge.

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.”

Extractive institutions then not only pave the way for the next regime, which will be even more extractive, but they also engender continuous infighting and civil wars. These civil wars then cause more human suffering and also destroy even what little state centralization these societies have achieved. This also often starts a process of descent into lawlessness, state failure, and political chaos, crushing all hopes of economic prosperity,

然而无论出身如何卑贱，宦官一旦被皇帝宠信，权倾一时，就常常会忘乎所以，做出一些糟糕透顶的事。对此，当然不能用“阶级分析”说事：因为他们是穷苦出身，就会为穷人维权。宦官如此，朝官亦然，程度不同而已。“布衣卿相”绝不是“代表布衣的卿相”。从常识判断，皇权爪牙对无缘皇宠的百姓（“布衣卿相”对一般的“布衣”），比贵族对自己的附庸更无情，这不说是规律，也应是大概率现象

所谓的酷吏、所谓的法吏，不是以伦理为中心的，不是道德挂帅的，但必须强调，他们的治理不是以法律为准绳，也不是提倡在法律面前人人平等的。所谓酷吏，实际上是一种权力中心主义的法家政治观，强调的是对权力的垄断。这种对权力的垄断与强调道德其实都属于人治，但是酷吏对法治的破坏作用——确切地说是对建设法治的阻碍作用，应该说要比伦理型的儒家人治更甚一筹。 我们清楚现代意义上讲的法治是什么。其实现代意义上的法治，说穿了就是以人权为基础的一种法律秩序，每一个人都有他的合法权利，应该得到保障。法律就是为了保障人权的，因此，法律对社会上的每一个人都构成约束，之所以约束就是因为害怕有人侵犯别人的权利。那么谁最有可能侵犯别人的权利呢？就是那些有权有势的人。法治首先要限制谁？首先是要限制政府，限制有权胡作非为的人。至于限制老百姓，那是次要的事。 但是秦代的法家不是这样。我前面已经从理论上澄清了所谓法家主张“王子犯法与庶民同罪”、法家“守法”、法家虽然残酷但“恶法亦法，胜于无法”、法家的性恶论有利于法治，等等，都是完全没有根据的奇谈怪论。秦代法家讲的“法”治就是我前面讲的——“法、术、势”，主要是管老百姓的，不是管皇帝的；是维护皇权，而不是维护人权的。与现代法治精神恰恰相反，法家只讲权力（power），不讲权利（right）。因此不仅皇帝是不受制约的，任何有权者对于无权者都是不受制约的。法家的做法可以说它是不讲道德的，但绝不能说它是讲法律的。更准确地说，它只讲“权力意志”，是靠赤裸裸的无限权力来进行治理的

The consequence of all this absolutist control of the economy was predictable: the Chinese economy was stagnant throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries while other economies were industrializing. By the time Mao set up his communist regime in 1949, China had become one of the poorest countries in the world.

he set up extractive institutions to cement his power and extract the output the rest of society would produce. But even extractive institutions with central authority concentrated in his hands were an improvement over the situation without any law and order, central authority, or property rights that characterized the Lele society on the other side of the river Kasai. Such lack of order and central authority has been the fate of many African nations in recent decades, partly because the process of political centralization was historically delayed in much of sub-Saharan Africa, but also because the vicious circle of extractive institutions reversed any state centralization that existed, paving the way for state failure.

The consequences of these extractive political and economic institutions in Spain were predictable. During the seventeenth century, while England was moving toward commercial growth and then rapid industrialization, Spain was tailspinning toward widespread economic decline. At the start of the century, one in five people in Spain was living in urban areas. By the end, this figure had halved to one in ten, in a process that corresponded to increasing impoverishment of the Spanish population. Spanish incomes fell, while England grew rich.