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The Mystery Of Capital Why Capitalism Succeeds In The West And Fails Everywhere Else
 
 
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The Mystery Of Capital Why Capitalism Succeeds In The West And Fails Everywhere Else [Hardcover]

Hernando De Soto (Author)
4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (89 customer reviews)

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It's become clear by now the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism in most places around the globe hasn't ushered in an unequivocal flowering of capitalism in the developing and postcommunist world. Western thinkers have blamed this on everything from these countries' lack of sellable assets to their inherently non-entrepreneurial "mindset." In this book, the renowned Peruvian economist and adviser to presidents and prime ministers Hernando de Soto proposes and argues another reason: it's not that poor, postcommunist countries don't have the assets to make capitalism flourish. As de Soto points out by way of example, in Egypt, the wealth the poor have accumulated is worth 55 times as much as the sum of all direct foreign investment ever recorded there, including that spent on building the Suez Canal and the Aswan Dam.

No, the real problem is that such countries have yet to establish and normalize the invisible network of laws that turns assets from "dead" into "liquid" capital. In the West, standardized laws allow us to mortgage a house to raise money for a new venture, permit the worth of a company to be broken up into so many publicly tradable stocks, and make it possible to govern and appraise property with agreed-upon rules that hold across neighborhoods, towns, or regions. This invisible infrastructure of "asset management"--so taken for granted in the West, even though it has only fully existed in the United States for the past 100 years--is the missing ingredient to success with capitalism, insists de Soto. But even though that link is primarily a legal one, he argues that the process of making it a normalized component of a society is more a political--or attitude-changing--challenge than anything else.

With a fleet of researchers, de Soto has sought out detailed evidence from struggling economies around the world to back up his claims. The result is a fascinating and solidly supported look at the one component that's holding much of the world back from developing healthy free markets. --Timothy Murphy

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The author, president of an influential Peruvian think tank and a prominent Third World economist, sets out to solve the mystery of why some people in the world can create capital and others cannot. Outside the West, in countries as different as Russia and Peru, it is not religion, culture, or race issues that are blocking the spread of capitalism but the lack of a legal process for making property systems work. Implementing major legal change so as to establish a capitalist order involves changing peoples' beliefs, and de Soto contends this is a political rather than a^B legal responsibility. He believes such a change can be achieved if governments seriously focus upon the needs of their poor citizens for a legally integrated property system that can convert their work and savings into capital. Political action is necessary to ensure that government officials seriously accept the real disparity of living conditions among their people, adopt a social contract, and then overhaul their legal system. Mary Whaley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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Customer Reviews

89 Reviews
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4.3 out of 5 stars (89 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Food For Thought, Jun 9 2002
By 
"tagreacca" (Modesto, CA USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Mystery Of Capital Why Capitalism Succeeds In The West And Fails Everywhere Else (Hardcover)
The last book I read by an economist was over thirty years ago. The book, Das Kapital by Karl Marx, pretty much did me in at wanting to read writings by an economist, so I wasn't sure what to expect when I began this text by Hernando De Soto. I was pleasantly surprised at both how readable it was and the simple power of what is being said. Having earned a Masters in Management with a specialty in International Development, I have to admit at being surprised that I could have missed something so basic as the need to legitimize underground economies, the value of property ownership, and the ability to leverage property ownership, thus creating capital and capital in turn being the life blood of capitalism.

My hat is off to Hernando De Soto and I recommend this book to anyone who cares about the problems of the other two thirds of the world. I especially want to recommend it to people involved in International Development. I have already contacted some of my grad school professors to alert them to this work. I believe that it has serious value in the academic world as a means to create talking points and challenge long held views. If you are looking for answers to one of our planet's more lingering problems (why well meaning International Development efforts continue to fail despite the billions of dollars we pour into them), read this book!

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5.0 out of 5 stars Le chemin de Damas, Feb 12 2012
This review is from: The Mystery Of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else (Paperback)
Cet exposé de réalités et de magouilles économiques m'a ouvert les yeux sur les véritables principes qui condamnent une si grande proportion de l'humanité à la dépossession permanente et les laisse en proie à la corruption.
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2.0 out of 5 stars Mediocre, May 10 2002
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This review is from: The Mystery Of Capital Why Capitalism Succeeds In The West And Fails Everywhere Else (Hardcover)
I would have given 3 stars to this book but coming from a recognised economist as Hernando de Soto I give it only two. Although the book explains in what consists his proposal for the development of the third world, he repeats his idea too much through out the chapters. The examples and methods mentioned didn't satisfy my curiosity for his theory. The book looks more a marketing scheme for selling his idea, which isn't a bad thing, but considering the seriousness of the theme, I would have expected a more professional layout.

After reading this book,go and buy The Myth of Development : Non-Viable Economies and National Survival in the 21st Century, written by Oswaldo de Rivero, a peruvian as Hernando de Soto. Although not advertised as The Mystery of Capital, it has a better book structure and an excellent analysis of the world's current situation and ways to solve it.

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