(2005-10-25) Brin Property

David Brin on Hernando De Soto and Property Rights and Market Failure.

• For most of the rest of human history - 99% of urban cultures - the great enemy of accountability and market systems consisted of conspiratorial aristocratism. The deliberate collusion of those with power, money and influence to take over the organs of the state and use the state's power to enforce their family privileges. Their right to cheat and own other people. And then to ensure those privileges would be inherited. This happened so consistently, across all cultures, that it must be one of the core human traits that modern civilization is challenged to overcome.

• While this concept (Property Rights) has been proved and is generating excitement in development circles, it also faces towering difficulties, especially in corruption by local elites. (One reason for my claim that transparency and systems of universal accountability must precede any broad effort to register property titles.)

• Propertar Ian-ism, in contrast, is a quasi-platonist, quasi-religious, mystical Romantic cult with an underlying agenda aimed at destroying markets. The way that aristocratic wealth always destroyed markets, elsewhere and elsewhen... "It's not the government's money. It's my money."

• but increased Property Rights has to be accompanies by the Transparent Society - every person must register what they own, so their holdings/positions become clear. Nobody has a clue who actually owns most ships registered in Liberia, for example. One spilled oil all over Brittany a few years ago and the French could find nobody to sue.