Peru’s neoliberal shock policy and pilot property titling drove de Soto’s global influence

Evidence

In 1990 Alberto Fujimori was elected president of Peru. De Soto, who had abandoned Vargas Llosa’s faltering candidacy in favor of the populist rival, became his principal political adviser. The new government instituted one of the most drastic neoliberal financial stabilization plans yet seen, and the country fell into recession. In 1992 de Soto resigned from the government, after a dispute over Fujimori’s refusal to challenge the armed forces. De Soto pursued his pilot titling program in Lima, with Japanese funds; but by 1994 the breakdown of the relationship between the government and the ILD stalled the project. He looked abroad and embarked on work advocating programs to end world poverty through property titling in Egypt and several other countries (Mitchell 2007). He used this work as the material for his second book, The Mystery of Capital (De Soto 2000). With endorsements from Margaret Thatcher, Milton Friedman, and other prominent neoliberals and prizes from neoliberal organizations, the book became another international bestseller. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1953

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to de Soto’s broader intellectual biography and the ‘property titling as poverty cure’ thesis, a classic neoliberal claim interrogated throughout this book. — connects to: Peru’s titling program was itself a large-scale neoliberal project — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1976; USAID funded de Soto’s titling initiatives as poverty programs. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 2008

Broader Connections

• Peru’s titling program was itself a large-scale neoliberal project #expands (0.90) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1976