[Marxism] Hernando de Soto's _Mystery of Capital_

[Sean Andrews]

On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 11:00 PM, steve sharra <sharrast at msu.edu> wrote:
> Hello,
>
>  Could somebody kindly recommend a good Marxist critique of Hernando
>  de Soto's _The Mystery of Capital_?
>

Mike Davis has several sections of _Planet of Slums_ where he takes on
DeSoto (and, though not as explicitly, microlending).  It isn't framed
in terms of Marxism per se, but his basic observation (gleaned from
seeing examples of this in action) is that giving people property
rights without some larger program of economic development basically
just fuels primitive accumulation and "flexible" informal labor which
does little to create the kind of development these programs promise.

s