Institutions Matter

Matt Yglesias makes an (apt) point today in comparing the social and cultural differences between the U.S. and Canada.

Never enough Canada blogging! Matt Yglesias makes this (apt) point today:

But it is always worth looking at the other Anglophone settler-states that generally score very similarly on efforts to assess social values. If you compare the United States to Canada, for example, I think you’ll clearly see that the key difference has to do with Canadian political institutions. The US system just makes it difficult to pass major legislative changes. You can like that or not, but it’s a major source of different outcomes.

He's right about that - which I wish more Canadians would remember when they talk about how very, very different "Canadian values" are from "American values." The most dramatic demonstration of the power of institutions comes from Peter Brimelow's outstanding 1986 book on Canada, The Patriot Game. If the U.S. had Canadian institutions, it would have been governed through the 1980s not by President Ronald Reagan but by Prime Minister Tip O'Neill.