The Other Guevara
Published by Yazad Jal August 13th, 2003 in LibertarianI posted yesterday on a cult icon who was really a mass murderer. Ironically, the name is shared by the leader of a prominent Libertarian party in Costa Rica. Julian Sanchez of Reason interviewed Otto Guevara of the Movimiento Libertario — The Other Guevara.
A very interesting story of how free market ideas sprouted in a polity where all the parties were socialist whether in name or in program. Well, scratch the surface of any socialist country and you find …
There’s also a huge, subterranean informal economy that’s opposed by the larger, established companies. So I became the defender of the informal sector, “el diputado pirata.” Someone wants to import and sell a used car… we said, “what’s the problem?” Used clothing, used shoes, these are big markets, and we thought it was absurd that there should be legal obstacles to people trading in these things. Libertarian ideas became associated, not with big capital, but with the right of poor people to work. That allowed us to do a kind of end-run around one sort of prejudice against our ideas. [Italics mine]
Shades of Hernando de Soto and Peru?
Nice blog. What a coincidence. I mentioned De Soto in my blog yesterday!
Thanks Quizman. So’s yours (have added you to the blogroll!). I think De Soto’s work has a huge potential application in India. The web of unnnessary laws we have (35,000+) force many small businesses to operate in an “extra-legal” way. Unless this huge underground economy is brought into the mainstream, India economic potential will stay on paper.
We can be world #1. If only the politicians and their parasitic ilk get out of the way!
Thanks Yazad. Yes, Nani Palkhivalla once paraphrased George Santayana (methinks), “The job of the government is to deliver the mail, guard the frontiers and get the hell out of people’s lives”
Deliver the mail? My local courier guy does it faster and cheaper.
Reminds me of Jefferson. “That government is best which governs the least”