Why Nations Fail

parties at the table sharing power, it was natural to have
laws and constraints apply to all of them, lest one party start

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amassing too much power and ultimately undermine the
very foundations of pluralism. Thus the notion that there
were limits and restraints on rulers, the essence of the rule
of law, was part of the logic of pluralism engendered by the
broad coalition that made up the opposition to Stuart
absolutism.
In this light, it should be no surprise that the principle of
the rule of law, coupled with the notion that monarchs did
not have divine rights, was in fact a key argument against
Stuart absolutism. As the British historian E. P. Thompson
put it, in the struggle against the Stuart monarchs:
immense efforts were made … to project the
image of a ruling class which was itself
subject to the rule of law, and whose
legitimacy rested upon the equity and
universality of those legal forms. And the
rulers were, in serious senses, whether
willingly or unwillingly, the prisoners of their
own rhetoric; they played games of power
according to rules which suited them, but they
could not break those rules or the whole
game would be thrown away.
Throwing the game away would destabilize the system
and open the way for absolutism by a subset of the broad
coalition or even risk the return of the Stuarts. In
Thompson’s words, what inhibited Parliament from creating
a new absolutism was that
take 
away 
law, 
and 
the 
royal
prerogative … might flood back upon their
properties and lives.
Moreover,
it was inherent in the very nature of the
medium which they [those aristocrats,
merchants etc. fighting the Crown] had
selected for their own self-defense that it
could not be reserved for the exclusive use
only of their own class. The law, in its forms
and traditions, entailed principles of equity

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and universality which … had to be extended
to all sorts and degrees of men.
Once in place, the notion of the rule of law not only kept
absolutism at bay but also created a type of virtuous circle:
if the laws applied equally to everybody, then no individual
or group, not even Cadogan or Walpole, could rise above
the law, and common people accused of encroaching on
private property still had the right to a fair trial.
W
E SAW HOW INCLUSIVE
economic and political institutions
emerge. But why do they persist over time? The history of
the Black Act and the limits to its implementation illustrate
the virtuous circle, a powerful process of positive feedback
that preserves these institutions in the face of attempts at
undermining them and, in fact, sets in motion forces that
lead to greater inclusiveness. The logic of virtuous circles
stems partly from the fact that inclusive institutions are
based on constraints on the exercise of power and on a
pluralistic distribution of political power in society,
enshrined in the rule of law. The ability of a subset to
impose its will on others without any constraints, even if
those others are ordinary citizens, as Huntridge was,
threatens this very balance. If it were temporarily
suspended in the case of the peasants protesting against
elites encroaching on their communal lands, what was there
to guarantee that it would not be suspended again? And
the next time it was suspended, what would prevent the
Crown and aristocracy from taking back what the
merchants, businessmen, and the gentry had gained in the
intervening half century? In fact, the next time it was
suspended, perhaps the entire project of pluralism would
come crumbling down, because a narrow set of interests
would take control at the expense of the broad coalition.
The political system would not risk this. But this made
pluralism, and the rule of law that it implied, persistent
features of British political institutions. And we will see that
once pluralism and the rule of law were established, there
would be demand for even greater pluralism and greater