A Third(-World) Superpower
De Soto, a free marketeer, wants to release the “dead capital” that squatters’ property and entrepreneurship represents by immediately granting legal title deeds. Then the credit cards and consumerism will come. Marcuse, looking from the left, surprisingly seems to have rather less hope for squatters. As a result of their selfish pursuit of their own betterment, Marcuse says that squatters’ communities — if they can be called that — are disorganized and inefficient, no model for a radical urban future.
At first sight, De Soto’s ideas always seem appealing. I’m sure they love him over at the Cato Institute. The growing number of ‘free’ people, living in a parallel economy (one billion plus), however inadequate, is starting to keep those power-moguls up at night. It’s a good thing (for them) that these people are so busy looking after their own needs, so they don’t have the time to reflect (philosophically) on their situation.
And now the intellectual left is starting to notice. This could become an interesting debate sometime in the next decade.
