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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: frankw1900 who wrote (59729)	12/3/2002 6:33:29 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

There is a school of economics that deals with the problems of governing behaviour. The "invisible hand" model that doesn't take government into account is unrealistic for the reasons DeSoto and you describe -- some government is needed in order to protect property rights. People who love government think of it as the "helping hand." But those of us who own businesses or think private property and private business are good things realize that sometimes government is "the grabbing hand." Do a google search using "the grabbing hand: google.com I haven't read these papers from the World Bank but the summaries look interesting: Dodging the Grabbing Hand: The Determinants of Unofficial Activity in 69 Countries worldbank.org Beyond the ‘Grabbing Hand’ of Government in Transition worldbank.org

To: frankw1900 who wrote (59729)	12/4/2002 11:46:20 AM
From: Dennis O'Bell	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

"Not everything can be left to the market," he said. "Law enforcement for example. Lord! Every policeman in Mexico is in business for himself." That, of course, was an unfair exaggeration but did lead to an interesting discussion. What's particularly ironic about this remark is that Mexico is in fact suffering from many decades of Communist one party rule -- that "ultimate stage of democracy" which is supposed to cure all the ills of leaving things to the market... I never thought of the legal difficulties of property ownership as the real source of problems such as you cite with Mexico, though this is certainly another symptom of Communism, with its legendary kilometers of "red tape" ( what other color could it be?)