Globalization is about capitalism. Hernando de Soto wrote in his book The Mysteries of Capital that most of the world is a capitalist failure because in cities in developing countries such as Cairo, Rio de Janeiro, Port-au-Prince, Moscow, Manilla, and Lima, lack basic property laws. De Soto brought into the news that it took people years to register a business or own a piece of land in these cities. In Canada we can do it in about a day.
This lack of a legal system for small companies in developing countries means that mail does not get delivered, shares cannot be sold in the business, they cannot advertise, they cannot export or import goods, get bank loans, companies cannot grow, or create web pages. They exist in a shadowy extralegal world and live hand to mouth. Banks will not touch them because they do not have legal title to their assets. Their assets have no legal protection and they sit on billions of dollars of dead capital.
The main reason many farmers grow coca and opium poppies is because drug lords are the only people that offer them credit-money to survive, so that is what they take. Farmers don't own their land so banks cannot give them loans because they cannot offer any collatoral in return.
De Soto scorns the IMF and the World Bank because they have a macro view of the world, an Olympian view of the world that does not relate to ordinary people who simply want to make a decent living.
Globalization is about capitalism, not AIDS, the weather, or protests. We don't think of ourselves as capitalists, but in our jobs we generate capital to live the good life and we want social democracy to go with it. Tax the rich.
This is what the G8, IMF and the World Bank should be working on, and over time the so-called terrorism problem might vanish as a result. Economic success is what it is all about these days.
This lack of a legal system for small companies in developing countries means that mail does not get delivered, shares cannot be sold in the business, they cannot advertise, they cannot export or import goods, get bank loans, companies cannot grow, or create web pages. They exist in a shadowy extralegal world and live hand to mouth. Banks will not touch them because they do not have legal title to their assets. Their assets have no legal protection and they sit on billions of dollars of dead capital.
The main reason many farmers grow coca and opium poppies is because drug lords are the only people that offer them credit-money to survive, so that is what they take. Farmers don't own their land so banks cannot give them loans because they cannot offer any collatoral in return.
De Soto scorns the IMF and the World Bank because they have a macro view of the world, an Olympian view of the world that does not relate to ordinary people who simply want to make a decent living.
Globalization is about capitalism, not AIDS, the weather, or protests. We don't think of ourselves as capitalists, but in our jobs we generate capital to live the good life and we want social democracy to go with it. Tax the rich.
This is what the G8, IMF and the World Bank should be working on, and over time the so-called terrorism problem might vanish as a result. Economic success is what it is all about these days.
