Talk:Capitalism/Archive 14

message: This entry has been a mess for most of the three years I have been on Wikipedia—disorganized, full of off-topic tangents, and lacking focus. For years, I have been hoping someone with some expertise would rewrite it. Having waited and waited, I eventually got around to rewriting the article myself.  
The new article features a general history of capitalism and an overview of its characteristics from the perspective of the leading scholarly traditions focused on the subject. Regarding the references, I deliberately inserted references mostly from major encyclopedias and sourcebooks. Although I have been marking down students for this practice for years (and generally prefer to include references from academic texts on Wiki as well), given the contentious nature of the subject, I'm making an exception. It's probably important to make just about every substantive point in the article as easy as possible for editors with limited background knowledge of the topic.
The new article can still be improved upon considerably, as it is tightly focused enough to provide a much better basis for major expansion upon the various sections than the old article. It is by no means a finished product. 
I welcome constructive feedback, comments, and suggestions. I will be watching this article closely over the next few days to address any comments and concerns. 172 | Talk 07:14, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think this is a huge step in the right direction, bravo!  I am not sure how to work this out but I would like to look at more recent discussions on "private" ownership of capital.  It is private in the sense that it is not owned by the state.  But not in the sense that it is individual - most capital is held collectively. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 09:43, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Well, there's nothing wrong with large changers per se, or even total re-writes, but User:172 probably should have made an example page somewhere of what his major change would have looked like so we could discuss it here before going forward with it. MrVoluntarist 15:43, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree. In addition, a rewrite should certainly not do a mass deletion of the sourced information and arguments in the prior version.Ultramarine 15:44, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

text: I am well schooled on all major approaches to the subject, being a historian. What you imply is absurd. This is what another user has to say on that matter: The "Marxist POV" charge is so silly as to be almost comical. My experience with 172 is that he's rather vehemently anti-Marxist (but generally pro-encyclopedic). Of course, 172's anti-Marxism is in an intellectual sense, not in a knee-jerk "say everything bad about Marxism you can, in a purely personalistic way". I guess it's a testament to the quality of 172's rewrite that readers cannot tell the perspective of its author. LotLE×talk 17:02, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Rewrite

message: One editor, 172, has without prior discussion removed the prior long-standing consensus version and inserted his own version. He has deleted almost all sourced information in the prior version. Instead, he has inserted a version containing factual errors and massive POV, essentially only describing capitalism according to ancient nineteenth century Marxist theory. He completely ignores how capitalism is used and researched in modern economic research this century.
For example, the article now states that there is one true defintion of capitalism and ignores the prior neutral text:  Capitalism has been defined in various related ways by different economic theoristsDefinitions of capitalism. Wikiquote, (2006)"
The following section completely removed:
====Index of Economic Freedom====
There are two controversial pro-business Indices of Economic Freedom sometimes used in economic research. The most popular of the two is published by the Washington, D.C.-based Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal.  A second such index is published by the Canada-based Fraser Institute. Both attempt to measure of the degree of economic freedom in countries, mostly in regard to rule of law, lack of governmental intervention, private property rights, and free trade. The Index of Economic Freedom defines "economic freedom"  as "the absence of government coercion or constraint on the production, distribution, or consumption of goods and services beyond the extent necessary for citizens to protect and maintain liberty itself." (This is otherwise known as laissez-faire).
They use statistics from independent organizations like the United Nations to score countries in various categories like the size of government, degree of taxes, security of property rights, degree of free trade and size of market regulations. Many peer-reviewed papers have been published using this material on the relationship between capitalism and for example poverty, mostly by researchers independent from the think tanks. The Fraser Institute argues that more advanced capitalist countries have much higher average income per person, higher income of the poorest 10%, higher life-expectancy, higher literacy, lower infant mortality, higher access to water sources and less corruption. The share of income in percent going to the poorest 10% is the same for both more and less capitalistic countries. Other studies have shown similar results.
Attempts to decide the importance of the subcomponents of the indices have often yielded contradictory results. Strong property rights may be important - the economist Hernando de Soto has argued that weak property rights, especially for the poor, play a major role in poverty and underdevelopment in developing countries  . Many developing countries are now trying to strengthen and simplify their property rights system after the successful application of his ideas in Peru . Others have emphasized the importance of a functioning credit system, especially in capitalism microcredit.
:Ultramarine, not a single major encyclopedia or sourcebook mentions the Wall Street Journal and Heritage Foundation Index of Economic Freedom in its entry on capitalism. The index should be discussed in a more specialized entry. You complain that "nineteenth century Marxist theory" is discussed in the article; yet this discussion is standard along with all other major encyclopedias and sourcebooks. There are also sections describing the classical, neoclassical, Weberian, German Historical, and Austrian School perspectives on the subject. 172 | Talk 17:18, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: So, you're saying Wikipedia's articles should be modeled off of those of other encyclopedias, or was there an additional premise you forgot to mention? MrVoluntarist 17:21, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: We should take them into consideration, not necessarily model our articles after other encyclopedias and scholarly authorities. 172 | Talk 17:30, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Good.   Then you agree that "other encyclopedias do it this way" does not suffice as a reason for using your format.  Could you provide additional reasoning now, to prefer your version right now over the one discussed and worked on for months, without further discussion as other major changes would require?  Thanks. MrVoluntarist 17:31, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

text: You have still not explained the two problems above. Please do.Ultramarine 17:22, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I have. I already addressed why the discussion of the Index of Economic Freedom is a discussion for a more specialized entry. By the way, I don't dislike the index. I've even cited it in Wikipedia articles, such as Cuba. 172 | Talk 17:30, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No it is used in hundreds of peer-reviewd articles and should be mentioned. Why is Marxist theoreis given great detail and modern economic theories used today excluded? Why do you insist on one true definiton of capitalism? Ultramarine 17:32, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I already answered these questions. You are repeating yourself. Non-Marxist perpectives are given much more attention than Marxist ones: classical political economy, neoclassical economics, Weberian political sociology, the German Historical School, and the Austrian School. The fact that the Index of Economic Freedom is cited in academic articles is neither here nor there. It may be encyclopedic, but it fits better in more specialized entries. 172 | Talk 17:56, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Obviously Wikpedia should mention what most economists use today.  Again, the index have been used in hundreds of peer-reviewed articles, so it is a significant POV. You may not like the POV, but that is no excuse for excluding it. In addition, why do you insist on one true definition of capitalism, ignoring the numerous variants? Regarding economic schools, why are citing mostly ancient ones? Why not the modern ones like Monetarist, New-Keynesian economics, and so on. Ultramarine 18:00, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The perspectives outlined are long-standing traditions, but they are still relevant across academic disclipines. Run a search on a database of academic journals, such as JSTOR and ProjectMuse and sort the results from the most recent to the oldest entries, and note how many articles are still making reference to the classic works, especially Max Weber. Also, there are still Marxists in academia. The American Sociological Association, for example, still has a Marxist Section.  (On that note, this article actually is short of references to recent Marxist scholarship, such as the work of Charles Tilly, David Harvey, and Immanuel Wallerstein. Still, I would resist the creation of a new section covering contemporary neo-Marxist sociology, such as a section on World Systems Theory.) 172 | Talk 21:49, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, Marxism is still popular in fields that do little quantitative research. There is almost nothing in the fields that actually have to test their theories to see if they work.Ultramarine 21:54, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I recommend that you read the 1994 Designing Social Inquiry by Gary King, Robert O. Keohane and Sidney Verba, which discusses how social science principles can be applied to qualitative research. While I'm not interested in defending Marxist sociology (I'm not a Marxist sociologist), I have to point out for the sake of reference that your suggestion that qualitative researcher do not "test their theories to see if they work" has been disputed. 172 | Talk 22:03, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I just have to point out that the absence of Marxists in quantitative social science fields is amazing.Ultramarine 22:29, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Let us not forget political scientists, environmentalists, and game theorists. Today many researchers use quantitative research and try to disprove or gain support for their theories by empirical methods. The article now has for too much weight given to nineteenth century thinkers and their opinions, as if not an enormous amount of quantitative empirical research has been produced, especially during the last few years.Ultramarine 10:04, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Markets existed under feudalism. It is not the same thing as capitalism. The discussion of this and many other characteristics were completely deleted by 172. See the earlier version which had many interesting discussions: . I would like an explanation for the deletion of these discussions.Ultramarine 11:33, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There is already a Market article.Ultramarine 11:51, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Research using for example the Index of economic freedom belongs primarily in this article.Ultramarine 12:48, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Disagree. Look for example at this.Ultramarine 13:52, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The Index is not used by one particular persons, but by hundreds in hundreds of peer-reviewed articles. As such it is arguable more important than the POV of a single person. Even more importantly, it what it is used today in quantitative research. As such, it should be prominently mentioned.Ultramarine 14:18, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Factual accuracy and neutrality 

message: Please, Ultramarine (or others), do not use an edit comment about "moving content to child article" as a euphemism for "delete without consideration".  I noticed that at least twice in the last hour or two, you claimed to move material to the Criticism of Capitalism article, but actuallly just deleted it: one was the Lenin/imperialism stuff, the other was the IWW poster.
In the concrete, I think the Lenin thing can indeed be reduced in length, as long as it's covered in the child.  But it does deserve at least a brief characterization.  I can get behind removal of the IWW poster, and don't really have an opinion on whether it should be in the child.  But moving means something different from deleting, and it's deceptive to try to pass off one as the other. LotLE×talk 18:06, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, I moved it to the criticism of capitalism section in this article.Ultramarine 18:08, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No! You did not! You deleted the entirety of the Lenin/imperialism paragraph, and you deleted the entirety of the IWW poster (obviously, there's no such thing as deleting part of an image).  As I say, I'm not even really disagreeing with the actions, but be honest. LotLE×talk 18:11, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah! In those cases I did not state I would move it to a subarticle.Ultramarine 18:14, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Moving" content 

message: Ultramarine just dumped a section on "Keynesian economics" ripped off entirely from the intro of (you guessed it) "Keynesian economics."  This is not how we organize encyclopedias. An intro to the discipline of Keynesian economics is not necessarily a discussion of the Keynesian perspective on the characteristics of capitalism. I'd appreciate it if someone would revert this edit. 172 | Talk 18:47, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have edited and clarified relevance to capitalism.Ultramarine 18:50, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You call that clarified relevance?! You have to be joking?! 172 | Talk 18:52, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: These are certainly very important questions for a capitalist economy.Ultramarine 18:54, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

text: I think a bit on Keynes is good. Copying from another article isn't necessarily a bad start, as long as we trim it down a bit in subsequent edits. Such trimming, however, should keep in mind the questino of "what is Capitalism" (and how Keynes would characterize it differently from other thinkers), not digress into technical disputes in Economics or policy issues. I don't think 172's commenting out the whole thing was the best approach; if a bit more verbosity exists for a couple hours, that's not the end of the world. For that matter, I think the Marxian section (and probably Weber too) could all use a bit of compacting. Those topics are all discussed at more length elsewhere, and this article should just give a glimpse of what the school is generally about. LotLE×talk 18:56, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it's a good idea to write a section on Keynes. Still, I think copying from another article is a bad start because, as you said, it does not keep in mind the question of "what is capitalism" and "how Keynes would characterize it differently from other thinkers." In the past on Wikipeida, when I've seen similar cut-and-paste text dumbs, I've noticed that the text gets left alone rather than refined. That's why I favor writing new text, rather than using the Keynesian economics as a basis for starting this section. 172 | Talk 19:05, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Keynesian economics

message: To keep all the fine editors here from violating WP:3RR I have protected the article...as the boilerplate states,  This page is protected from editing until disputes have been resolved. Please discuss changes on the talk page or request unprotection. (Protection is not an endorsement of the current page version.) I do not endorse any version.--MONGO 08:46, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Protected 

message: I'm definitely not in favor of 172s latest variation.  Both Slrubenstein's later prose suggestion, and Vision Thing's modification of it, read far better than the bullet points, as well as avoiding several problems with the content in the bullets.
I suggest, however, a slight modification of Vision Thing's last version.  His/hers left off the relevant concept about capital accumulation, and a few other minor wording tweaks clarify.  But basically, it's pretty close:
Capitalism refers to a economic system in which the means of production are privately owned and in which prices of capital goods, wage labor and money (see finance and credit) are determined in a free market through trade. Combination of economic practices recognized as capitalism became institutionalized in Europe between the 16th and 19th centuries and several theories developed in the context of the industrial revolution and the Cold War meant to explain, justify, or critique the private ownership of capital, to explain the operation of such markets, and to guide the application or elimination of government regulation of property and markets. (See political economy, laissez-faire).  Some thinkers have further identified accumulation of large amounts of capital (such as raw materials and machine equipment) as a defining property.
Yours, LotLE×talk 21:30, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: A definition requiring free markets and the determination of the price of money through a free market is too restrictive. It obviously rules out mercantism, and maybe even capitalist economies with fixed exchange rates. Given the objections to the bullet quotes, I'll go ahead and post Slrubenstein's suggestion that does not contain them. 172 | Talk 21:35, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I went ahead and inserted Slrubenstein's proposal that does not consist of the bullet points. I strongly object to Vision Thing's proposal. It's so retrictive, for example, I wonder if it could even describe the U.S. economy under Bretton Woods. 172 | Talk 21:43, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Free market is included in Slrubenstein's suggestion so I don't understand your objection. Determination of the price of money through a free market can be left out, even though I don't think it's necessary since no economic system has ever been 100% capitalistic (or socialistic for that matter). -- Vision Thing -- 21:51, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The version I posted says 'especially involving' free markets; it does not go as far as to imply that it is a necessary condition. I will not support introducting this article with a defition so restrictive that it rules out mercantilism, for example. By the way, quit insering a non-standard NPOV tag. 172 | Talk 21:58, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Are you willing to go with "largely free markets"? -- Vision Thing -- 22:04, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Vision Thing, here is a compromise for you.  Please work toward a lead sentence featuring a descrition of capitalism broad enough that it can fit the great variety of historical cases across time and politcal cultural scope to which the concept has been applied by economic historians. Capitalism and markets are closely related topics, but they are distinct, as Slrubenstein explained earlier to Ultramarine. 172 | Talk 22:08, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Synthesis 

message: Slrubenstein, stop editing and censoring my edits. You refuse to answer my question, so I repeat them.Ultramarine 13:17, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have not censored you.  When you say the exact same time three times, and I delete the last time so only two repetitions of your views remain, that is not censorship.  Moreover, I have answered your questions, and you have not answered mine.  But don't worry, i will not keep repeating my questions.  if you cannot answer them, so be it. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 13:24, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

text: NOWHERE have I written "this article should violate NPOV."  NOWHERE have I said this article should exclude a good summary of well-researched research by anyone.  Nowehere.  Don't like about me. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 13:34, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The exclusion violates NPOV. The argument that it is a research method is ridiculous. The research is probably the main argument used by pro-capitalists. They should also be allowed to have a view in an article about capitalism.Ultramarine 13:37, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Furthermore, the statement that it belongs to the Austrian school of economic is very strange. They reject many empirical statistical methods. You will not find much, if any, advocacy for this research on for example Mises.org. The indices are used by mainstream economists, among other researchers.Ultramarine 14:00, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't see where Slrubenstein said that the index "belongs to the Austrian school of economic[s]." You seem to be attributing to him stuff that he has not claimed. Yet you have not responded seriously to the substance of his comments explaining why the Wall Street Journal and Heritage Foundation index merits any more coverage in the article than the paragraph in which it is currently mentioned (as a compromise to you). 172 | Talk 20:43, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "The substantive claims underlying the IEF, that identifies capitalism with freedom, come directly out of the German/Austrian set of approahces (which is already in the article)." I have not seen any explanations for the exclusion except stating that is part of the "German/Austrian set" already covered in the article or that it is research method. The first is false as noted above, if the second is valid, then we should also exclude the Marxist views since  it uses a method, historical materialism.Ultramarine 04:06, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

text: You are once again misrepresenting me, verging on lying.  You report only half of what I said.  I said that you were making two points, one involving the identification of capitalism with freedom, the other involving quantitative methods.  i said that your first claim is already in the article.  I suggested adding a section on "quantitative versus qualitative researchon capitalism."  Such a section would address your second concern.  But it would do so in an encyclopedic way, instead of spending paragraphs on one of hundreds of quantitative instruments used to study economies, it would discuss the general issue of methods, summarize or provide links for many quantitative studies, as well as qualitative ones.  Slrubenstein   |  Talk 08:56, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It misleading to mention all studies of economics. Very few study capitalism as a system compared to others. What other methods are thinking about? Ultramarine 15:01, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Censorship 

message: I added a few.  I felt von Mises was more iconic of the Autrians than Schumpeter.  I'd like to put a picture of Keynes, but I really don't like the one in his article (it's not just Keynes, and it's not portrait style).  The individual thinkers don't really do much to illustrate the text and theories, but they add a little splash of... well, not color, since they're B&W pictures, let's say "visual interest". LotLE×talk 19:30, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pix 

message: On this edit.  It makes much more sense to move that paragraph to the "criticism" section as a way of offering a response. I think we're starting to make progress. 172 | Talk 22:37, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh well, I don't agree here (that's why I moved it where I think it makes more sense).  But I'll go along with the common opinion of 172 and Vision Thing, and leave the "capitalism alleviates poverty" claim under the criticism section. LotLE×talk 02:45, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Nice work, Vision Thing

message: Without discussion on the talk pages, most of the prior verions with many interesting and referenced discussions was deleted. There is still not explanation. I again ask for one. The prior version can be seen here..Ultramarine 15:05, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Large scale unexplained deletions 

message: What's the story with that? An editor recently added a slew of such special typography, that's been out of widespread use in English-language publishing for the last 100 years.  Stuff like 'œconomics' rather than 'economics'.  What's that about? I guess it has a certain historical "verisimilitude" in writing about Smith, but by the time we get to Keynes it seems antiquated.  Was the editor actually H.G.Wells, transported to Wikipedia using his famous Time Machine? LotLE×talk 19:03, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, I first wondered if it was a joke, with someone editing the article pretending to be an 18th century British political economistæconomist. 172 | Talk 21:32, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

text: It’s an attempt to make the article a little less America-centric in its spelling. Though American English has all but abolished Œ, œ, Æ, & æ, they remain in use elsewhere (though they are not as widespread as they were). I thought that retaining them here and there would make the article more suitable to an international audience. Doremítzwr 19:56, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The use of the dipthongs is pretty rare nowadays in Commonwealth English as well (though admittedly even rarer in American spelling).  I think you'd have a hard time finding many WP articles that use CE, and also include such dipthongs.  I tend to dislike the archaism in a modern reference work, but I won't remove them unless other editors opine. LotLE×talk 20:05, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Just for examples: Taking the rather obvious example of England (which I presume uses CE spelling), forms of "economy" occur twice, neither time with dipthongs.  For whatever reason, the word occurs many more times in Australia, all without dipthongs.  One of them, in fact, is a link to that very British journal The Economist (i.e. no dipthong).  Outside of WP, I took a look at the London Times, a "newspaper of note"; I find that at least in their web edition, they eschew dipthongs for "economy", e.g. . LotLE×talk 20:13, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Actually, one more bit of evidence pretty much brings me to the point of insisting the dipthongs go:  Searching using the Wikipedia engine for 'œconomics' produces zero hits (not even this article).  I'm guessing that is a problem or limitation in the search tool; but it is one that matters to readers.  FWIW, if you do the same on Google, 'œconomics' produces 9,700 hits; 'economics' produces 590,000,000 hits.  Google is probably detecting my USA region, so that may influence those numbers somewhat: but five orders of magnitude difference in frequency sure suggests the dipthong is "non-standard". LotLE×talk 20:22, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmm, you have a point. Perhaps it is best that most instances of ‘œconomy’ and its derived forms are removed (however, in agreement with your above point, the form should perhaps be used in discussing Adam Smith - not only for that sense of “historical verisimilitude”, but also to show that there is an alternative spelling, be it a minority one). However, I still feel that words like rôle, Mediæval and coördination should stay; the former because they are still very much standard spellings (or at least they are over here in the UK), the latter because it is a good alternative to the unphonetic cooperation and the awkward co-operation. Is this agreeable to you? Doremítzwr 21:04, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, the quick "Google test" on Mediæval vs. Medieval gives 5.8M to 136M.  A bit more than one order of magnitude, but less than two.  I'll let you do the "London Times" test yourself (I think it will favor the orthographic simplification, but I'm not sure). LotLE×talk 21:11, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I got 550 articles both times. It seems unlikely that I performed the search correctly. Either that, or it treats mediæval and medieval as the same word. As an an extra justification for its use, mediæval clearly shows that it should be pronounced me-di-æ-val, whereas people who are unfamiliar with the term may be liable to pronounce medieval as me-die-val (id est, as three syllables instead of four). Doremítzwr 21:28, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

text: I have removed every instance of the œ diphthong, which I instituted. Doremítzwr 02:07, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dipthongs and diacritics 

message: As could be expected, the last remnants of modern pro-capitalist arguments has been deleted, leaving only Marx and Lenin's ancient views. Now nothing remains of this:
 
:.	 
	 
:In economic and political research two controversial Indices of Economic Freedom are often used. They are published by pro-business organisations. Both attempt to measure of the degree of economic freedom in countries, mostly in regard to rule of law, lack of governmental intervention, private property rights, and free trade. The Index of Economic Freedom defines "economic freedom"  as "the absence of government coercion or constraint on the production, distribution, or consumption of goods and services beyond the extent necessary for citizens to protect and maintain liberty itself." (This is otherwise known as laissez-faire).	 
	 
:Many peer-reviewed papers have been published using this material on the relationship between capitalism and for example poverty, mostly by researchers independent from the think tanks. More advanced capitalist countries have much higher average economic growth, income per person, higher income of the poorest 10%, higher life-expectancy, higher literacy, lower infant mortality, higher access to water sources and less corruption. The share of income in percent going to the poorest 10% is the same for both more and less capitalistic countries. Other studies have shown similar results.	 
		 
:Attempts to decide the importance of the subcomponents of the indices have often yielded contradictory results. Strong property rights may be particularly important - the economist Hernando de Soto has argued that weak property rights, especially for the poor, play a major role in poverty and underdevelopment in developing countries  . Others have emphasized the importance of a functioning credit system, especially microcredit.Ultramarine 03:15, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Marxist pov