About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline

30 Harv. J.Racial & Ethnic Just. 131 (2014)
Listening to (Some) Barking Dogs: Assessing Hernando de Soto's Recipe for the Development of the Amazon Natives of Peru

handle is hein.journals/hblj30 and id is 135 raw text is: LISTENING TO (SOME) BARKING DOGS:
ASSESSING HERNANDO DE SoTo's
RECIPE FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF
THE AMAZON NATIVES OF PERU
Patrick Wieland' & Thomas F. Thornton2
ABSTRACT
The work of Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto is both influential and contro-
versial. His 2000 bestseller The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Tri-
umphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else posits that to solve poverty in
the developing world, the poor need to transition from the extralegal sector to the
official economy through formal property rights and incorporated businesses. In
the wake of the bloody clashes of indigenous peoples and law enforcement agents
in the Peruvian Amazon during 2009, de Soto suggested the extrapolation of The
Mystery of Capital to the Amazon as a solution for their underdevelopment.
He contended that the Amazon natives could only progress if granted formal,
individual title to land and allowed to create limited liability native corporations,
in the Alaskan tradition. This paper argues that the purported extrapolation of
The Mystery of Capital's propositions is problematic. It aims to show that
economic integration of the Amazon natives may further expose their land re-
sources to appropriation and, in actuality, trigger their cultural and social
disintegration.
1. Mr. Wieland graduated from Pontificia Universidad Cat6lica del Perd (2005, J.D.
equivalent), and holds a Master's of Laws (LL.M.) from Yale Law School (2011) and
a Master's of Science (M.Sci.) in Environmental Change and Management from the
University of Oxford (2012). Currently he works as an associate at Baker & McKen-
zie's Lima Office and is affiliated with Universidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas
(UPC) School of Law as a part-time law professor, pwielandf@gmail.com.
2. Dr. Thornton holds a B.A. in Sociology and Anthropology from Swarthmore Col-
lege (Pennsylvania, 1986), a Master's and Ph.D. in Anthropology from the Univer-
sity of Washington (1995). Currently, he works as a Director of the Environmental
Change and Management Programme and Senior Research Fellow at the Environ-
mental Change Institute, School of Geography and Environment, University of Ox-
ford. He specializes in political ecology and natural resource management of North
American and Arctic native peoples, thomas.thornton@ouce.ox.ac.uk.

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

profiles profiles most