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0 pointsspecialist10y ago0 comments

Good link, thanks.

Hernando de Soto makes a similar case that societies need some cultural achievements unlocked before their market-based economies can work well. Stuff like property rights, fair and impartial courts, contract law, enforced regulatory authority, professional civil servants, etc.

The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else

Hernando de Soto (Author)

http://www.amazon.com/The-Mystery-Capital-Capitalism-Everywh...

I have friends that work in development who criticize de Soto: a good start, but as one would expect, the story isn't that simple. Alas, I don't recall their upgrades to de Soto's insights.

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eru10y ago

Exactly.

The thesis of the book I mentioned is exactly that you should very carefully economize on the amount of `cultural capital' required to run your economy. A mostly market-based economy is one way to do that, if regulation is chosen carefully.

Societies that have lots of cultural capital, like the Nordic countries, can get away with more socialism without everything becoming corrupt. (It might still be inefficient for them to go that route, but at least they can bear the costs.)

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