Douglas North, an American, won a Nobel Prize in economics by pioneering work on the value of institutions in economic development. The higher the quality of institutions, he argued, the better the result. If Cameroon could lift the quality and efficiency of its public institutions to the giddy heights of Uruguay, it would more than double its per capita income, according to the World Bank.
Governments do matter, despite the right-wing mantra that government is the problem. It's the quality, predictability and honesty of governments and their agencies that matter. And if you think globalisation has meant the death of government and that governments no longer matter, explain the difference between Chile and Argentina, North and South Korea, or Myanmar and Thailand.
The self-correcting genius of democracy holds bureaucracy and the powerful to account. But democracy is not enough without an effective, honest, well-paid bureaucracy and predictable, transparent institutions.
Professor North recently made that case in a most profound way to a UN commission. He said China's biggest problem is not energy, inequality or the environment, but the capacity of its system to handle these problems with neither a responsive, accountable bureaucracy nor a competitive democracy.
In Australia, there's no doubt that policies to enhance the conditions of Aboriginal people have seriously failed. The government sends money, devolves power and authority to Aboriginal peoples who lack a professional class of civil servants: under the guise of democracy, tribal leaders exploit their positions. This is not democracy, but feudalism and tribalism.
It is painfully absurd when people can be excused from civilised behaviour because of customary rights. The privileged will inevitably exploit their positions, which always turns to tears in any society.