To me, at least, the most important task of financial cryptography is to create and transfer property rights without relying on the state at all. Below, Hernando de Soto receives the Friedman Prize from the Cato Institute for making the state *enforce* property rights to begin with. Cheers, RAH ------- <http://online.wsj.com/article_print/0,,SB108079415338671377,00.html> The Wall Street Journal April 1, 2004 REVIEW & OUTLOOK Peru's Best Export April 1, 2004; Page A14 Today the Cato Institute will announce that its biennial $500,000 Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty goes to Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto. It is a fitting and timely tribute when global troubles so closely mirror the challenges that Mr. de Soto first tackled in his native Peru. Mr. de Soto founded the Institute for Liberty and Democracy in Lima in 1980 to understand the causes of Peruvian poverty and promote free-market ideas. In the 1986 "The Other Path" -- written with colleagues Enrique Ghersi and Mario Ghibellini -- he revolutionized development economics by chronicling the realities of Lima's shantytowns at a time when Shining Path terrorism was burgeoning. Peru's informal economies, it turned out, were already full of enormously capable entrepreneurs. What held them back was burdensome government regulation and a lack of property rights. There was no way for them to move into the formal economy. Mr. de Soto has since made it his life's work to spread the gospel of property rights in the developing world. His 2000 "The Mystery of Capital" advances the work done in Peru, looking at informal markets in places such as Egypt and the Philippines. The book also traces the evolution of property rights in the U.S., emphasizing the importance of an institutional and legal framework that recognizes and protects the value behind an ownership deed. Without such institutions wealth and creativity remain untapped and growth stagnates. The job of empowering the world's poor is far from done, especially in Africa and the Arab street. But thanks to Mr. de Soto's efforts, much has been added to our understanding of what is needed to unleash the entrepreneurial spirit that exists in every human society. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'