Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty

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

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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 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

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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 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

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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.
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 ajaw (lord or ruler) took root
with a king called the k’uhul ajaw (divine lord) and, underneath him,
a hierarchy of aristocrats. The divine lord organized the society with
the cooperation of these elites and also communicated with the gods.
As far as we know, this new set of political institutions did not allow
for any sort of popular participation, but it did bring stability. The