VINDICA

Hernando de Soto, whom we first met in PBS' pathbreaking documentary Commanding Heights has presented the world with some very interesting theories on who certain communities remain poor. He is the darling of both the left and the right. But he is no darling of Slate magazine! The magazine carries this story about the failure of de Soto's theories on the ground.

Time does this story about Bush's proposed Social Security Reforms. It concludes that the plan is a political hard sell, and very hard to achieve. Well, thats what they said about the election too. In anycase, from a non-partisan standpoint, I love the plan. I would rather take the money and invest it myself than have the government do it for me.

Once in a while, I come across a piece such as this, which is so radically different from what I am used to, and yet somehow manages to convice me of its essential correctness. This piece bye Theodore Darymple is one such piece. He writes from 14 years of social work among the poorer sections of the British society. His essential thesis is the following: - For evil to flourish, there has to be Economic and Societal conditions that allow it (people will do whatever they can get away with). - Liberals on the left have created the societal conditions by their stress on "non-judgementalism". - Conservatives have pushed the idea that personal choices of individuals will lead to eutopia, thereby letting people do things like having kids and not taking responsibiltiy for them.

Two articles today, one by Monbiot which is a ringing endorsement of the Swedish model, the other by Daniel Brook, which is a more balanced view, . The basic idea of both the pieces is that there are infact two kinds of capitalism. The free wheeling "Washington Consensus" and the "Swedish Model". Monbiot considers the later to be the correct way, but adds that the IMF and world bank impose the former on the nations of the world. Daniel, on the other hand, does not indulge in such conspiracy theories. He notes that growth oriented policies necessarily tend towards the Washington Consensus. Sweden has accepted these policies (reducing taxes on money that is to be invested), while it maintains large public spending and egalitarian ideal (by taxing individual income and consumption). Daniel says that choosing between the two models is a matter of choosing the problems that the government should address.