My review of and 's new book "Persecution and Toleration" is up on .
Why did religious toleration become viable in the late 1700s in Western Europe in a way that it had never been before, anywhere in the world? → liberalcurrents.com/myth-and-moder
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This is my second time trying to read the article (got distracted the first time through), and once again I'm *really* enjoying it.
Gonna "live-blog" some thoughts and highlights as I read, if you don't mind.
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"Understanding just what made liberal values viable starting in the late 1700s, and why they were not before, will be crucial to their survival into the future."
I'm hooked
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This seems like a really underappreciated point. (Certainly it has been underappreciated by _me_, historically ;)
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Related to the above, my mind harkens to these paragraphs from unqualified-reservations.org/2009/01/gentle, which I'm still not sure what to make of
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"...defines state capacity as a combination of fiscal capacity, 'the state’s ability to raise tax revenue' in a regular, predictable, and non-distortive way, and administrative capacity, 'the state’s ability to enforce rules in a consistent way.'"
^^ seems a v useful distinction
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I've opened the North and Weingast article in a new tab, but may never get around to reading it. Would really love some examples to illustrate the self-binding/making commitments dynamic.
If I vaguely recall something about Aztec sacrifices here, would I be on base?
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"I find Michael Mann’s distinction between a state’s despotic power and its infrastructural power useful."
despotic P: ability of state actors to have their wishes obeyed (e.g., not countermanded)
infrastructural P: ability of the state to actually implement political decisions
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See Fukuyama relationship between state size and state effectiveness. He discusses this effect quite a bit. Empirical version of same point. Slides 15-16 here


