Why Nations Fail

T
HE
 U
NSTABLE
 E
XTRACTION
Farming emerged independently in several places around
the world. In what is now modern Mexico, societies formed
that established states and settlements, and transitioned to
agriculture. As with the Natufians in the Middle East, they
also achieved some degree of economic growth. The Maya
city-states in the area of southern Mexico, Belize,
Guatemala, and Western Honduras in fact built a fairly
sophisticated civilization under their own brand of extractive
institutions. The Maya experience illustrates not only the
possibility of growth under extractive institutions but also
another fundamental limit to this type of growth: the political
instability that emerges and ultimately leads to collapse of
both society and state as different groups and people fight
to become the extractors.
Maya cities first began to develop around 500 
BC
. These
early cities eventually failed, sometime in the first century
AD
. A new political model then emerged, creating the
foundation for the Classic Era, between 
AD
250 and 900.
This period marked the full flowering of Maya culture and
civilization. But this more sophisticated civilization would
also collapse in the course of the next six hundred years. By
the time the Spanish conquistadors arrived in the early
sixteenth century, the great temples and palaces of such
Maya sites as Tikal, Palenque, and Calakmul had receded
into the forest, not to be rediscovered until the nineteenth
century.
The Maya cities never unified into an empire, though
some cities were subservient to others, and they often

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appear to have cooperated, particularly in warfare. The
main connection between the region’s city-states, fifty of
which we can recognize by their own glyphs, is that their
people spoke around thirty-one different but closely related
Mayan languages. The Mayas developed a writing system,
and there are at least fifteen thousand remaining
inscriptions describing many aspects of elite life, culture,
and religion. They also had a sophisticated calendar for
recording dates known as the Long Count. It was very much
like our own calendar in that it counted the unfolding of
years from a fixed date and was used by all Maya cities.
The Long Count began in 3114 
BC
, though we do not know
what significance the Mayas attached to this date, which
long precedes the emergence of anything resembling Maya
society.
The Mayas were skilled builders who independently
invented cement. Their buildings and their inscriptions
provide vital information on the trajectories of the Maya
cities, as they often recorded events dated according to the
Long Count. Looking across all the Maya cities,
archaeologists can thus count how many buildings were
finished in particular years. Around 
AD
500 there are few
dated monuments. For example, the Long Count date
corresponding to 
AD
514 recorded just ten. There was then
a steady increase, reaching twenty by 
AD
672 and forty by
the middle of the eighth century. After this the number of
dated monuments collapses. By the ninth century, it is down
to ten per year, and by the tenth century, to zero. These
dated inscriptions give us a clear picture of the expansion
of Maya cities and their subsequent contraction from the
late eighth century.
This analysis of dates can be complemented by
examining the lists of kings the Mayas recorded. At the
Maya city of Copán, now in western Honduras, there is a
famous monument known as Altar Q. Altar Q records the
names of all the kings, starting from the founder of the
dynasty K’inich Yax K’uk’ Mo’, or “King Green-Sun First
Quetzal Macaw,” named after not just the sun but also two
of the exotic birds of the Central American forest whose
feathers were greatly valued by the Mayas. K’inich Yax
K’uk’ Mo’ came to power in Copán in 
AD
426, which we
know from the Long Count date on Altar Q. He founded a

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dynasty that would reign for four hundred years. Some of
K’inich Yax’s successors had equally graphic names. The
thirteenth ruler’s glyph translates as “18 Rabbit,” who was
followed by “Smoke Monkey” and then “Smoke Shell,” who
died in 
AD
763. The last name on the altar is King Yax Pasaj
Chan Yoaat, or “First Dawned Sky Lightening God,” who
was the sixteenth ruler of this line and assumed the throne
at the death of Smoke Shell. After him we know of only one
more king, Ukit Took (“Patron of Flint”), from a fragment of
an altar. After Yax Pasaj, the buildings and inscriptions
stopped, and it seems that the dynasty was shortly
overthrown. Ukit Took was probably not even the real
claimant to the throne but a pretender.
There is a final way of looking at this evidence at Copán,
one developed by the archaeologists AnnCorinne Freter,
Nancy Gonlin, and David Webster. These researchers
mapped the rise and fall of Copán by examining the spread
of the settlement in the Copán Valley over a period of 850
years, from 
AD
400 to 
AD
1250, using a technique called
obsidian hydration, which calculates the water content of
obsidian on the date it was mined. Once mined, the water
content falls at a known rate, allowing archaeologists to
calculate the date a piece of obsidian was mined. Freter,
Gonlin, and Webster were then able to map where pieces
of dated obsidian were found in the Copán Valley and trace
how the city expanded and then contracted. Since it is
possible to make a reasonable guess about the number of
houses and buildings in a particular area, the total
population of the city can be estimated. In the period 
AD
400–449, the population was negligible, estimated at about
six hundred people. It rose steadily to a peak of twenty-
eight thousand in 
AD
750–799. Though this does not
appear large by contemporary urban standards, it was
massive for that period; these numbers imply that in this
period, Copán had a larger population than London or
Paris. Other Maya cities, such as Tikal and Calakmul, were
undoubtedly much larger. In line with the evidence from the
Long Count dates, 
AD
800 was the population peak for
Copán. After this it began to decline, and by 
AD
900 it had
fallen to around fifteen thousand people. From there the fall
continued, and by 
AD
1200 the population had returned to
what it was eight hundred years previously.

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The basis for the economic development of the Maya
Classical Era was the same as that for the Bushong and
the Natufians: the creation of extractive institutions with
some degree of state centralization. These institutions had
several key elements. Around 
AD
100, in the city of Tikal in
Guatemala, there emerged a new type of dynastic
kingdom. A ruling class based on the