It is quite unusual in this forum to see unsupported assertions posted. I’m more than happy to see a critical discussion of Mr. De Soto’s work, especially because there is much of value in it. I presume that some portion of this article was unintentionally omitted when it was posted. I look forward to seeing it in full.

First, a caveat: I have not yet read De Soto’s book–a state of affairs I intend to remedy in the near future.

But from the summaries I’ve seen, it appears that De Soto’s analysis obscures the actual historical role of the U.S. government’s recognition of property rights. As you describe his position, De Soto seems to be arguing that the U.S. government acted mainly on behalf of squatters, to regularize their possessory claims against older legal titles.

But it was much more often the case, I think, that the government preempted ownership of vacant land on behalf of land speculators and mining, lumber, and railroad companies. The situation was described much more accurately by Rothbard and Nock as political appropriation of land without the necessary admixture of labor (called for not only in Lockean, but in Georgist and mutualist theories of initial acquision). These political appropriators, the large-scale land barons and speculators, could then charge quasi-feudal taxes against the rightful appropriators who later homesteaded the land with their actual labor.

I also fear that, when ownership in Third World countries is formalized, the states will recognize the “ownership” of landlord oligarchies at the expense of the peasants who have occupied and cultivated the land since its first settlement.

Dear ILETITHOARW,

You claim that:

De Soto recognizes the Great Irony in modern right-wing development theory: the right wing clamours for protection of property rights in the third world, but is uneasy about extending this protection to the poor.

Would you care to back that silly assertion up with some actual quotes from authors who have written articles for this site? I can’t think of a single contributor to this site who would argue for anything less than equal protection of property rights for everyone. But, then again, I wouldn’t refer to them as right-wingers either.

You then went a bit frothy with this doozy:

This site’s appraisal of de Soto’s book confirms that Austrian Economics is just dogma used to defend established propertied interests. It rages against any sort of planned effort to improve the lot of the poor, even if that measure is suggested by the second theorem of welfare economics.

I’m sure, in lucid moments, you can recognize the difference between one author’s opinion and a site’s appraisal of a book. As far as raging against any sort of planned efforts goes, your invocation of the STWE implies to me that you equate planning with state coercion. Lacking the God-like power of interpersonal utility comparison that apparently enables you to order and select between Pareto optimal equilibria, the much more modestly endowed authors on this site do seem to prefer voluntary planning, but you have no advantage over them when it comes to empathy for the poor. You should dismount from your high horse and read some of the articles on this site before laying any further silly accusations.

I’m just a regular guy who likes to read the articles on this site, but even I can tell you are way off base in your broadside against Austrian Economics.

Mike

Dale,

Jeffrey Tucker added the article’s link after he noticed my response to your original comment. The link definitely wasn’t there at the time of your first comment.

Mike

Great article on De Soto. For Bruce Ramsey’s use of De Soto to “refute” anarchism, and my critique thereof. De Soto’s claim that “the Marxist tool kit is better geared to explain class conflict than capitalist thinking, which has no comparable analysis,” is outrageous. The capitalist version of class analysis has been around since at least the French industrial-radicals of the 1820s; see David Hart’s study on this.

Gary,

I agree, they can complement each other. The main shortcoming of Marxist class analysis is that it ignores the central role of the state in economic exploitation.

You might find it fruitful to check out free market socialists like the Ricardian Thomas Hodgskin, the individualist anarchist Benjamin Tucker, and the Georgist Franz Oppenheimer. All three place heavy emphasis on the state as the organized political means of transferring wealth from producers to ruling classes. Unlike the Marxians, they emphasize that, although the exploitative features of capitalism are real, they are only made possible by state laws that privilege the owners of capital and land and enable them to draw monopoly returns they couldn’t get in a free market. Economic exploitation is impossible in a free market.

Thomas Hodgskin. Labour Defended Against the Claims of Capital

Benjamin Tucker. Individual Liberty

Franz Oppenheimer. The State

I second Kevin Carson’s recommendations. Some other useful sources on libertarian class analysis are:

Walter Grinder and John Hagel’s Toward a Theory of State Capitalism: Ultimate Decision-making and Class Structure

Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s http://mises.org/journals/jls/9_2/9_2_5.pdf“>Marxist and Austrian Class Analysis

Leonard Liggio’s Charles Dunoyer and French Classical Liberalism

Joseph Stromberg’s The Role of State Monopoly Capitalism in the American Empire

Mark Weinburg’s Social Analysis of Three Early 19th-Century Classical Liberals

Ralph Raico’s http://mises.org/journals/jls/1_3/1_3_2.pdf“>Classical Liberal Exploitation Theory