It was in a discussion of de Soto, whose books i yet to read, that we were talking there ... that is one of his points too, that much of the fundamentals of free enterprise exist naturally among the population - taking responsibility for one's own actions in daily life [but not political, which is seen as separate, which is right there the problem], the full understanding of supply and demand, 'find a need and fill it', the art of negotiation, the recognition of something for something, always ..... and it's not all barter by any means, actually in the case of which we were speaking there are small coins going round and round with great velocity and to impressive effect - the campesino is often not as poor as he would appear on a list of statistics, because much of the economy does not show up on records, in some places virtually none of it
Quite a good interview of de Soto - reason.com
He is very right imho, that the dichotomy between the legal/political system and the minds of the souls it rules is harmful ..... however it is strong, comes about through long entrenched attitudes ... question is, how do you get from here to a reconciliation of politics with economics .... education, imho ... so a couple of days ago i printed this out for said friend, Ludwig von Mises saying something with which i absolutely agree, though the adjective 'inferior' i think unfortunate and a tad impolitic -
' If the small minority of enlightened citizens who are able to conceive sound
principles of political management do not succeed in winning the support of
their fellow citizens and converting them to the endorsement of policies that
bring and preserve prosperity, the cause of mankind and civilization is
hopeless. There is no other means to safeguard a propitious development of
human affairs than to make the masses of inferior people adopt the ideas of
the elite. This has to be achieved by convincing them. It cannot be
accomplished by a despotic regime that instead of enlightening the masses
beats them into submission. In the long run the ideas of the majority, however
detrimental they may be, will carry on. The future of mankind depends on the
ability of the elite to influence public opinion in the right direction. '
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