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    The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else
    The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else
    The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else
    Audiobook6 hours

    The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else

    Written by Hernando De Soto

    Narrated by Bob Souer

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateMay 28, 2019
    ISBN9781515919636
    The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else

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    Reviews for The Mystery of Capital

    4/5

    157 ratings6 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Fascinating study of how the untapped wealth of the majority of humans and property rights are tied to each other. Rule of law and documentation have transformed western society and has potential to do the same in the developing world.
    • 4/5
      Hernando de Soto is a Peruvian economist. In this book, he provides an answer to the question of "Why capitalism triumphs in the West and fails everywhere else".The answer is that in third-world countries, poor people are unable to realise their potential as savers or entrepreneurs because they come up against laws that make it difficult for them to legally own property or run businesses. Of course, poor people in these countries do "own" property (houses in shanty towns, or smallholdings in the countryside) and run businesses, but they do so outside of the official legal system, which creates problems for them.To get an idea of just how difficult the migrant's life was, my research team and I opened a small garment workshop on the outskirts of Lima, Peru. Our goal was to create a new and perfectly legal business. The team then began filling in the forms, standing in the lines, and making the bus trips into central Lima to get all the certifications required to operate, according to the letter of the law, a small business in Peru. They spent six hours a day at it and finally registered the business - 289 days later. Although the garment workshop was geared to operating with only one worker, the cost of legal registration was $1,231 - thirty-one times the monthly minimum wage.The argument of the book is that Western economies took off as a result of having created property laws that led to large numbers of people (not just elites) being able to own property and run businesses.What I take from this book is that governments that don't provide real opportunities and incentives for poor people to save, invest, and run businesses are crippling their economies. The Mystery of Capital covers a lot of ground, looking at the issue of property rights for the poor from various angles. It's a relatively slim book (275 pages). I'm giving it four stars because I found it a bit boring in places (it is a serious book on economics, after all), but if you are interested in economics and development then I think it is a book you should read.
    • 5/5
      I have had the privilege of obtaining a copy of this book signed by Hernando de Soto himself, whom I met back in 2006 while attending training at his Institute for Liberty and Democracy in Lima. I not only have read this book: I was also a part of a joint policy research program led by de Soto and his team that implemented a reform on property rights in Albania based on the very theories that de Soto puts forward in the book. They are bold and require the right mix of factors to succeed and have a lasting impact. So I can count among those who have tested or put his theory in practice. It is an important book, enriching and fascinating to read, as well as well researched and written. I am also proud to have contributed to editing its translation into Albanian.
    • 5/5
      Excellent overview of how we use property to create capital and how most of the world does not have a system for documenting ownership. Most people live in an extralegal system. Has recommendations for changing the systems so that real capitalism can work.
    • 4/5
      Before I read this book I hadn't really thought about the legal and social structures that allow for economic development. It turns out, as was later reinforced to me in university, property rights are a key instrument in setting the stage for economic growth. This book not only highlights global legal property right deficiencies, but also investigates in depth the steps it could take to provide the legal foundations required to begin pulling the third world out of poverty. Why not four stars? It is missing some of the "exciting read" factors needed to make a book competitive in today's fast media culture.
    • 4/5
      This is a great book on the power of capitalism, and how its use outside the 'first world' is missing a key ingredient, namely, the legal right and acknowledgement of private property.