Word: llosa
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...argument sounds familiar, it should: Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto expresses a similar view in “The Mystery of Capital,” which pinpoints a lack of formal property rights as a main culprit behind the developing world’s stagnation. Like his compatriot, Vargas Llosa heaps praise on the ingenuity of Latin America’s poorest, especially the shantytown residents who have organized to provide basic services to the disenfranchised. Still, he considers them incapable of generating the sort of structural change key to breaking the region’s cycle of misery...
...often, though, Vargas Llosa becomes bogged down in minutiae, rattling off figures of little interest to the ordinary reader. But just as frequently, he paints in overly broad strokes, providing analysis hardly trenchant enough to hold the interest of a serious academic...
...Vargas Llosa stumbles again when he tries to suggest reforms of his own. In a bland final chapter, he proposes a radical reduction in the size of government. But his plan assumes that change will originate at the top—from executive action—rather than through grassroots advocacy...
...difficulty in bringing the author’s ideals to life is illustrated in his description of the presidency of Peru’s Toledo, whom Vargas Llosa himself helped elect: “marred by corruption” and “the most unpopular in the nation’s history.” (At one point, Toledo’s approval rating was near 4 percent, with a 4 percent margin of error...
Though cumbersome and fraught with loopholes, even the environmental legislation that Vargas Llosa disdains as creating “diffuse responsibility” shows a shift away from the extractive mentality that has plagued Latin America since European contact...