ClippingKK

The real way to make money from a patent was to start your own business. But to start a business, you need capital, and you need banks to lend the capital to you.

powerful groups often stand against economic progress and against the engines of prosperity. Economic growth is not just a process of more and better machines, and more and better educated people, but also a transformative and destabilizing process associated with widespread creative destruction. Growth thus moves forward only if not blocked by the economic losers who anticipate that their economic privileges will be lost and by the political losers who fear that their political power will be eroded.

正如我们所见，地方政府的职能是非常具体繁杂的，最重要的是税收和司法。从所有这些职能都由州县官一人负责这一事实来看，他就是“一人政府”，而他的下属们显然只扮演着无关紧要的角色。在州县官和他的四个辅助群体（书吏、衙役、长随和幕友）之间，没有任何中间权力，四类人都直接向州县官负责

But its political and economic institutions were overthrown, and that prosperity went into reverse. Today Venice is rich only because people who make their income elsewhere choose to spend it there admiring the glory of its past. The fact that inclusive institutions can go into reverse shows that there is no simple cumulative process of institutional improvement.

具体来讲，幕友一职所拥有的较高社会地位、可观的收益，以及其他诱人的因素，对有能力的人从事这一职业产生了吸引力。相反，书吏、衙役和长随这些职业，由于缺乏上述令人艳羡的因素，就难以吸引能谋到更好职业的人。通常来讲，可以获得非法收入是从事这一毫无吸引力的工作的主要动机

地方官吏既然不能跟士绅争辩附加费的合法性，又无力确立一个更高的折算率，就只好根据惯例按较低附加费率向士绅征税。为了弥补征税成本和衙门其他开支，官员只好将税收负担转嫁到不能据法抗争、无力保护自己的普通百姓头上。因此，普通花户就承担了征税成本和衙门其他行政开支的最大份额比例。实际上，某些士绅地主欠缴的税银，只好通过附加费名义向庶民地主多收来弥补。这样一来，士绅的税负减少，就意味着普通百姓的税负按比例加重了

The schooling system in the United States enabled Gates and others like him to acquire a unique set of skills to complement their talents. The economic institutions in the United States enabled these men to start companies with ease, without facing insurmountable barriers. Those institutions also made the financing of their projects feasible. The U.S. labor markets enabled them to hire qualified personnel, and the relatively competitive market environment enabled them to expand their companies and market their products.

When nations break out of institutional patterns condemning them to poverty and manage to embark on a path to economic growth, this is not because their ignorant leaders suddenly have become better informed or less self-interested or because they’ve received advice from better economists.