A fourth implication of our theory is that there are many doorways into the corridor and quite a variety of societies inside. Think of all the ways a country can enter the corridor. Indeed, creating the conditions for liberty is a multifaceted process, involving the control of conflict and violence, the breaking down of the cage of norms, and the shackling of the power and despotism of state institutions. This is why liberty doesn’t emerge the moment a nation enters the corridor, but evolves gradually over time. Some will travel a long time in the corridor without fully controlling violence, some will make only limited progress in loosening the cage of norms, and for others combating despotism and making the state listen to society will be a work in progress. The historical conditions and coalitions that determine how a society gets into the corridor also influence what particular compromises are made in the corridor—often with major and long-lasting consequences.
The U.S. Constitution illustrates this point too. The Bill of Rights wasn’t the only concession that was necessary for ratification. The issue of states’ rights was a litmus test for Southern elites hell-bent on protecting slavery and their assets. To this end, the founders agreed that the Bill of Rights would apply only to federal legislation, not to state legislation. This “principle” gave free rein to all sorts of abuses at the state level, especially against black Americans. The Constitution itself enshrined this gross violation of the liberty of a large fraction of the population with the clause that agreed to count slaves as three-fifths of a free person when determining a state’s representation in Congress. Discrimination was not just woven into the very fabric of the Constitution; it was also forged by the deep-rooted norms in many parts of the country. The way in which the United States moved into and traveled in the corridor meant that the federal government did not attempt to weaken these norms and their institutional foundations in the South. So intense discrimination and dominance against black Americans lived on well after the Civil War and the end of slavery in 1865.
One of the many egregious manifestations of these discriminatory norms was the existence of “sundown towns,” towns where black people (and sometimes Mexicans and Jews) were not allowed after sunset. America is the country of the car, where people get their kicks “on Route 66.” But not everyone could get their kicks. In 1930, in 44 of the 89 counties that Route 66 wound through, there were “sundown towns.” What happened if you wanted to eat or maybe go to the toilet and the restaurants and bathrooms were only for whites? Even Coca-Cola machines had “White Customers Only” printed on them. Imagine the quandary of a black driver. The situation was so bad that in 1936 Victor Green, an African American postal worker in Harlem, New York, felt compelled to publish The Negro Motorist Green-Book, providing detailed instructions to black motorists about where they were allowed after dark or where they could go to the toilet (the last edition is dated 1966). So the U.S. experience exhibits the profound implications of how a society gets into the corridor. We’ll see in Chapter 10 that these have consequences not just for the extent of liberty but also for many policy and social choices, with far-reaching global significance.
A surprising, fifth implication of our theory concerns the development of state capacity. In Figure 1 the arrow inside the corridor is heading toward higher levels of state capacity than the Despotic Leviathan is achieving. This is because it is the contest between state and society that underpins greater state capacity. This notion runs counter to many arguments accepted in social science and policy debates, especially on the critical role of strong leaders, that contend that complete control of security and powerful armed forces are necessary for building state capacity. It is this belief that makes many argue that China may be a good role model for other developing (and perhaps even developed) countries because the lack of challenges to the dominance of the Communist Party enables its state to have such great capacity. But look deeper, and you will see that the Chinese Leviathan, despotic though it is, possesses less capacity than a Shackled Leviathan like the U.S. or Scandinavian states. This is because China doesn’t have a robust society to push it, cooperate with it, or contest its power. Without this balance of power between state and society, the Red Queen effect doesn’t come into play and the Leviathan ends up with less capacity.
To see the limitations of Chinese state capacity, you need to look no further than the education system. Education is a priority for many states, and not just because a nation would be more successful with an educated workforce. It is also because education is an effective way of inculcating the right sort of beliefs among citizens. So you would expect that a state with significant capacity would be able to provide affordable, high-quality, and meritocractic education and mobilize its public servants to work for that objective. But the reality is rather different. In the Chinese education system, everything is up for sale, including front-row seats near the blackboard or a post as class monitor.
When Zhao Hua went to enroll her daughter in a Beijing elementary school, she was met by officials from the district education committee who already had a list showing how much each family had to pay. The officials didn’t hang out at the school, but at a bank where Zhao had to deposit $4,800 to get the enrollment. The schools are free, so these “fees” are illegal and the government has banned them five times since 2005 (and it is telling that they had to be banned five times). In another elite Beijing high school, students receive an extra point for each $4,800 their parents contribute to the school. If you want to get your child into a top school, such as the one associated with the prestigious Renmin University in Beijing, the bribe could be as much as $130,000. Teachers also expect gifts—lots of gifts. Chinese news media report that many teachers now expect to be given designer watches, expensive teas, gift cards, and even vacations. More aggressive teachers welcome debit cards attached to bank accounts that can be replenished throughout the year. In an interview with The New York Times, a Beijing businesswoman summed it up: “If you don’t give a nice present and the other parents do, you’re afraid the teacher will pay less attention to your kid.”
How can public servants be so venal? Isn’t China the home of the world’s first meritocratic state bureaucracy? Yes and no. As we’ll see in Chapter 7, there is a long history of a complex, capable bureaucracy in China, but there is an equally long history of pervasive corruption in which many positions are given to the politically connected or auctioned off to the highest bidder. That history continues today. A 2015 survey of 3,671 Communist Party officials found that two-thirds of them thought that “political loyalty,” not merit, was the most important criterion for getting a government job. Once you’ve surrounded yourself with loyalists, you can get down to the business of shaking down businesspeople and citizens. You can also create compliant subordinates by selling government jobs. The political scientist Minxin Pei analyzed a sample of 50 court cases of Communist Party officials who had been found guilty of corruption between 2001 and 2013. On average, each had sold 41 positions for money. At the bottom of the pile were county bosses, like Zhang Guiyi and Xu Shexin of Wuhe County in Anhui Province. Zhang sold 11 positions for an average price of 12,000 yuan, a measly $1,500. Xu sold 58 positions at over $2,000 each on average. But higher up the food chain, for example in the prefectures, jobs were sold for a lot more, with some officials managing to get over $60,000 per position. In Pei’s sample the average corrupt official made about $170,000 from selling posts.