Squatters vs Land Owners

[NALs]

People,

Please keep in mind that Hernando de Soto's thesis is based on an experiment he conducted in the slums of Lima, Perú.

Much like Karl Marx's theory and eventual development of the Communist Manifesto is based on a unique economic situation that was present in London at the time of his life - which he witnessed and heavily influenced his way of thinking and seeing the world, one needs to take this into account prior to criticizing an entire theory based on the notion that "one size doesn't fit all", in this case all the economic problems present in the world.

What works (or doesnt work) in the slums of Lima, Perú may or may not be representative of what works or not in the rest of the world.

Having said this, I don't fully agree with him, but he does have some strong points in his argument.

Much like Karl Marx, I definitely don't agree with much of what he wrote, but again, he does have some strong points in his argument as well.

The important thing is to keep in mind where these economists are coming from. It definitely helps in understanding their arguments and in correctly interpreting them within context.

-NALs

[George Holmes]

[quote=Manzana;534248]

DeSoto is asking: Why isn't capitalism working in the developing world? A question that didn't even arise until E.P. Thompson had been buried.

QUOTE]

This is not what De Soto was asking, he was asking a different question about the links between the capitalisation of land. Thompson wrote about the transformation of land from commons to private estates with the rise of industrial England, very similar to De Soto's topic, only about a period several centuries earlier. The question is what came first - industrial development or secure land rights. I suggest you actually read Thompson - the use of the work "apparently" gives you away!

Perhaps a better reference would be Polanyi (another dead writer, but that doesn't condemn him) and his ideas of land as "fictitious capital", because land (like other things such as labour) doesn't really exist to be used, bought or sold in the same way as say, a car. Anyway, the point about this and the DR is that De Soto would say that there is no "safe" real estate market, what with false titles, insecure tenancies, the expense of borrowing, inability of most of the population to get a mortgage etc, and hence the DR hasn't 'developed' too much.