Interesantísimos párrafos de Boettke sobre la cuestión:

An important question to ask, I think, is why so much theorizing in the social sciences in the 20th century saw the consequences of free choice as so fragile as opposed to robust.  Man is a “fragile” creature physically as opposed to nature ‘red in tooth and claw’.  But our mental faculties enable us to not only survive but thrive.  How?  I would contend that it is our ability to calculate and coordinate with on another to realize the benefits of social cooperation under the division of labor.  And this is a function of the “rules” we live by in our interactions with one another and with nature, and the effectiveness of the enforcement of those rules.  Rules can either steer humanity toward emphasizing the cooperative propensity to ‘truck, barter, exchange’ or the conflictual propensity to ‘rape, pillage, plunder’.  Those societies that reinforce our cooperative propensity thrive as members of that society experience peace and prosperity, while those societies that reinforce our conflictual propensity will languish in violence and poverty.

Véanse también los dos artículos recientes de John Stossel en relación la libertad y Ostrom: 1 y 2

She has studied, for example, self-governing irrigation systems in Nepal and found successes never anticipated in the textbooks. “Irrigation systems built and governed by the farmers themselves are on average in better repair, deliver more water, and have higher agricultural productivity than those provided and managed by a government agency. … (F)armers craft their own rules, which frequently offset the perverse incentives they face in their particular physical and cultural settings. These rules may be almost invisible to outsiders. …”

Muy recomendable es el artículo de Elinor Ostrom titulado “Institutions and the Environment” en The Journal of Institute of Economic Affairs.

En próximos posts más sobre el tema del desarrollo y las instituciones.