In the early 14th century, Venice was one of the richest cities in Europe. By 1500, Venice’s population was smaller than it had been in 1330. In the 17th and 18th centuries, as the rest of Europe grew, the city continued to shrink. The story of Venice’s rise and fall is told by the professors Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, in their book Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty, as an illustration of their theory that what separates successful states from failed ones is whether their governing institutions are inclusive or extractive. Extractive states are controlled by ruling elites whose objective is to extract as much wealth as they can from the rest of society. Inclusive states give everyone access to economic opportunity which means there’s a greater inclusiveness creates more prosperity, which creates an incentive for even greater inclusiveness. The history of the United States can be related to the story of Venice in the terms of how our government is ran. Elites that have prospered from inclusive systems can be drawn to pull up the ladder they climbed to the top. Eventually, their societies become extractive and their economies fail. That is the danger America faces today, as the 1 percent pulls away from everyone else and ultimately destroying the open system that made America rich and allowed its 1 percent to thrive in the first place. Karl Marx predicted such things, saying that capitalism contained the seeds of its own destruction. Historically, the United States has enjoyed higher social mobility than Europe. But several recent studies have shown that in America today, it is harder to escape the social class of your birth than it is in Europe. Educational achievement, which created the American middle class, is no longer rising. The super-elite want unlimited resources for their children, while public schools are in dire need of funding. An elite education is increasingly available only to those already at the top. Some...