Posted online: Saturday, October 27, 2007 at 0000 hrs IST
When in the year 2000, Hernando de Soto came up with his magnum opus The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else, it was a fundamental shift in thinking about an economic system
that has had as many cheerleaders as critics. The book examined capitalism through the prism of legal rights and how they needed to change in order that the rest of the developing world, particularly the poor, engages in the creation of capital.
Since then this Peruvian economist has been turning his think tank, Institute of Liberty and Democracy, into an 'action tank'; he serves as co-chair of UNDP-supported Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor, the first global initiative to focus on the link between exclusion, poverty and law. Gautam Chikermane and Sandeep Singh questioned Hernando de Soto on the subject, and its relevance to ideas that India is currently grappling with - land rights, squatters, SEZs, development and eminent domain.
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| Whether you are democrat or dictator, on the left or right, exclusion will sooner or later destabilise you | 45.29 KB |