If I recall Mancur Olson suggests that one of the reasons that post WWII West Germany did so well is that all of Germany's special interest groups were destroyed.
I'm inclined to agree although I know that Germany had tremendous manufacturing ability even at the end of the war. However, why did the South fare so poorly after the US Civil War? Would the South have done better if the Freedmen's Bureau had been kept in place and Southern Bourbons were prevented from forming a powerful interest group? David Mitchell
