Basic Books
The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else
Key Metrics
- Hernando de Soto
- Basic Books
- Paperback
- 9780465016150
- 7.9 X 5.3 X 1 inches
- 0.6 pounds
- Business & Economics > Free Enterprise & Capitalism
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
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.
Author Bio
Hernando de Soto is a Peruvian economist, scholar, and founder of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy.
De Soto has served as an economist for the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, as a principal of the Swiss Bank Corporation Consultant Group, and as a governor of Peru’s Central Reserve Bank. De Soto currently serves as honorary co-chair on various boards and organizations, including the World Justice Project.
In 2005, the president of Peru appointed de Soto as his personal representative to design and implement Peru’s free trade program. De Soto is the author of “The Other Path” and “The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else.” Both books are international bestsellers and have been translated into 30 languages.
The work of de Soto and ILD has been featured in the documentaries “The Power of the Poor with Hernando de Soto,” “Globalization at the Crossroads with Hernando de Soto,” and “Unlikely Heroes of the Arab Spring.” Time magazine named de Soto as one of the five leading Latin American innovators of the century in 1999 and included him among the “100 Most Influential People in the World” in 2004. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including The Economist’s Innovation Award, the Freedom Prize, and the Fisher Prize. Former U.S. president Bill Clinton has described de Soto as “the world’s most important living economist.”
Source: Oslo Freedom Forum
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