Renowned Latin-American author and innovator Hernando de Soto discussed applications of Western-style economics for developing countries Wednesday night before a mixed audience of students, professors and local residents in Filene Auditorium.
De Soto's speech, entitled "Liberty and Democracy in the Developing World," focused on bringing prosperity and democracy to developing countries through property rights, business organizations and documentation and identification of business transactions and residents.
"Trust in the U.S. and Europe runs on paper and plastic," de Soto said.
In developing countries, however, people are forced to work outside the legal system, de Soto said as he showed how residents of the developing world create their own extralegal systems to cover up for their countries' deficiencies.
De Soto used examples from Peru, Mexico and Tanzania to illustrate that by creating legal and governmental systems responsive to the needs of the majority of the population, governments could reduce poverty and other problems plaguing the developing world.
De Soto, whose work restructuring property rights helped defeat the leftist terrorist group "Shining Path" in Peru, reflected on his experience there as a successful example of policy implementation.
De Soto also said he considers his economic and legal philosophy applicable to the all countries, a view he directly contrasted with economist Samuel Huntington's belief that Western-style democracy and capitalism are applicable only in the developed world.
"Civilization is written plural," de Soto said in an effort to link developed and undeveloped nations. "It's written without an 's.'"
De Soto, the Rockefeller Center's Class of 1930 Fellow, is well decorated for his public service.
Among other honors, Time named him one of the five leading Latin-American innovators of the century, and Forbes included him in their list of 15 innovators "who will reinvent your future." The Economist named the Institute for Liberty and Democracy in Peru, of which de Soto is the founder and president, as one of the world's two most important think tanks.
De Soto's two books, "The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else" and "The Other Path," are also fast becoming the best renowned in their fields.
De Soto ended the lecture on a positive note by advising Dartmouth students to "keep the long view" in regard to the struggle of capitalism and democracy in the developing world.
The struggle of the Western economic system, he said, began with the enlightenment and has continued ever since.
In an interview with The Dartmouth earlier in the day, de Soto said students wishing to follow in his career path should think independently.
"Subject whatever you have learned continually to criticism to pound the truth out of it," de Soto said.
