Hernando de Soto’s Third World framing gave his ideas credibility Geneva-based voices lacked

Evidence

The point here is not that de Soto’s cosmopolitan background disqualifies his views. It is that his return to Lima and presentation as a person from the Third World gave his opinions a credibility and a usefulness to the neoliberal movement that they could not have had coming from Geneva. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1999

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader historiography of how the neoliberal network recruited non-Western spokespersons to legitimize its program — analogous to later cultural-authority dynamics. — connects to: De Soto’s authority rested on his Third World identity endorsing self-blame — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1948; De Soto’s theory of informal property grew from a failed Peruvian mining venture — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1947