When Extraction Goes Too Far

As exampled in this clip (starting around :20) from a documentary filmed in Africa, extractive political and economic institutions can and do go too far, resulting in total collapse of a nation.

If a leader, in this case the former king, keeps creative destruction in mind, he can keep his kingdom running smoothly. What’s important is that the former king realized that he had to maintain a balance between growth and harvesting in order for all walks of life to be comfortably sustained- he did not exploit the land for the sake of his own indulgences.

However, some people get greedy and want more out of the moment. As the rest of the documentary shows, the former king was overthrown in a coup by one of these greedy individuals. This new king focused too much on his personal benefit in the moment and failed to plan the allocation of resources for the future. For a while his new dynasty could run off the steam of the old, but this was mere destruction, and as AR states, “growth without creative destruction… (is) not sustainable” (94).

This example can be related to the USSR, which “achieved rapid economic growth (but)… little technological change” leading to the “abrupt end” of their period of prosperity, and eventually their total downfall (AR 94). Coming back to the dialogue of this clip, the new king wrung the land dry of its resources, leaving the kingdom’s inhabitants with no choice but to move on to more habitable lands, and hopefully do better with them, or perish.