As Washington weighs how to regulate artificial intelligence, it is worth revisiting a classic question in political economy: why did the Spanish Empire — the world’s largest and richest state in 1600 — decline into oblivion by 1900, while plucky England ascended to liberal democracy, industrialization, and world superpower status in the same time frame? According to the economists Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James Robinson, the answer lies in Albion’s relative lack of monopoly.
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