Description
A renowned economist's classic book on capitalism in the developing world, showing how property rights are the key to overcoming poverty
"The hour of capitalism's greatest triumph," writes Hernando de Soto, "is, in the eyes of four-fifths of humanity, its hour of crisis." In The Mystery of Capital, the world-famous Peruvian economist takes up one of the most pressing questions the world faces today: Why do some countries succeed at capitalism while others fail?
In strong opposition to the popular view that success is determined by cultural differences, de Soto finds that it actually has everything to do with the legal structure of property and property rights. Every developed nation in the world at one time went through the transformation from predominantly extralegal property arrangements, such as squatting on large estates, to a formal, unified legal property system. In the West we've forgotten that creating this system is what allowed people everywhere to leverage property into wealth. This persuasive book revolutionized our understanding of capital and points the way to a major transformation of the world economy.
'A revolutionary book . . . may not be in the class of Das Kapital, Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations or Keynes's General Theory. But if the criteria for joining that exclusive club is a capacity not only to change permanently the way we look at the world, but also to change the world itself, then there are good grounds for thinking that this book is surely a contender.' -- Donald Macintyre, The Independent
'Few people in Britain have heard of Hernando de Soto . . . but The Mystery of Capital has already led the cognoscenti to put him in the pantheon of great progressive intellectuals of our age.' -- Mark Leonard, New Statesman
'A crucial contribution. A new proposal for change that is valid for the whole world' -- Javier Perez de Cuellar (Former Secretary United Nations)
"The hour of capitalism's greatest triumph," writes Hernando de Soto, "is, in the eyes of four-fifths of humanity, its hour of crisis." In The Mystery of Capital, the world-famous Peruvian economist takes up one of the most pressing questions the world faces today: Why do some countries succeed at capitalism while others fail?
In strong opposition to the popular view that success is determined by cultural differences, de Soto finds that it actually has everything to do with the legal structure of property and property rights. Every developed nation in the world at one time went through the transformation from predominantly extralegal property arrangements, such as squatting on large estates, to a formal, unified legal property system. In the West we've forgotten that creating this system is what allowed people everywhere to leverage property into wealth. This persuasive book revolutionized our understanding of capital and points the way to a major transformation of the world economy.
'A revolutionary book . . . may not be in the class of Das Kapital, Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations or Keynes's General Theory. But if the criteria for joining that exclusive club is a capacity not only to change permanently the way we look at the world, but also to change the world itself, then there are good grounds for thinking that this book is surely a contender.' -- Donald Macintyre, The Independent
'Few people in Britain have heard of Hernando de Soto . . . but The Mystery of Capital has already led the cognoscenti to put him in the pantheon of great progressive intellectuals of our age.' -- Mark Leonard, New Statesman
'A crucial contribution. A new proposal for change that is valid for the whole world' -- Javier Perez de Cuellar (Former Secretary United Nations)
Number of pages: 288
Dimensions: 198 x 127 x 17 mm
