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

PRAISE FOR THE MYSTERY OF CAPITAL

Hernando de Soto... is perhaps the worlds trendiest economist, a genius of property rights.

Slate.com

De Soto has a powerful message not only for the Marxists but also for capitalists.... His revolution cuts several different ways.

The Wall Street Journal

Fascinating.... After reading this book, it is hard not to feel hopeful about the potential waiting to be tapped in poor countries.

The Economist

In his smart new book, The Mystery of Capital, de Soto answers the question why capitalism succeeds in the West and fails in so many other places.

Thomas Friedman, The New York Times

For policy-makers, international investors, and those who care about the challenges of developing countries, this book will offer new perspectives onand possible solutions forproblems that have existed for centuries.

Former U.S. Senator Bill Bradley

Some books are good, some are bad, but very few are real gems. One of the few gems is the recently published book, The Mystery of Capital.

Thomas Sowell, author of Basic Economics

Fastidious in its search for the facts but passionate in spirit and language.... He turns the tumbledown shacks and rivulets of sewage that are typical of the worlds shanty towns into, as he memorably puts it, acres of diamonds.

The Times (London)

A revolutionary book... thrillingly subversive.

The Independent (London)

[De Soto] convincingly demostrates, the road to worldwide prosperity requires not restraining capitalism but making it universal.

Commentary

A pioneering book. Following on his extraordinary and highly original The Other Path... this book, too, is another tour de force.

Jeanne Kirkpatrick, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations

De Sotos powerful and immensely readable book is a very great weapon in the armory of freedom.

Policy

Fresh thinking is rarethis book has the capacity to transform the economies of those countries who have hitherto not been able to make capitalism work for their people.... [It] explains how economies fail that have not first created the vital legal structures nor let the black economy come into the mainstream economy.

David Owen, former Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom, E.U. Chairman of the Intl Conference on the Former Yugoslavia

The Mystery of Capital has put [de Soto] in the pantheon of great progressive intellectuals of our age.

New Statesman

What de Soto has done is to help solve the mystery of poverty.

The Times Literary Supplement

A crucial contribution. A new proposal for change that is valid for the whole world.

Javier Perez de Cuellar, former Secretary General of the United Nations

We must read de Soto for his acute insights and for his great eloquence with which he tells us a few important truths that we ignore at our peril.

Jagdish Bhagwati, The New Leader

A revolutionary book.

Neue Zrcher Zeitung (Switzerland)

The Mystery of Capital has the potential to create a new, enormously beneficial revolution, for it addresses the single greatest source of failure in the Third World and ex-communist countriesthe lack of a rule of law that upholds private property and provides a framework for enterprise. It should be compulsory reading for all in charge of the wealth of nations.

Margaret Thatcher, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

A very great book.... Powerful and completely convincing. It will have a most salutary effect on the views held on economic development.

Ronald Coase, Nobel Laureate in Economics

De Soto demolishes the entire edifice of postwar development economics, and replaces it with the answers bright young people everywhere have been demanding.... [The Mystery of Capital] is a significant contribution to understanding how the poorest nations can use their own legal system to manage their way out of poverty.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto)

This book is first class. It makes a very solid case for a way to improve the lot of people in the developing world.

Walter Wriston, Chairman emeritus, Citigroup

One of the most provocative and potentially important works on development to appear in some time.

Raleigh News & Observer

[De Soto] performs a valuable service by highlighting a problem thats often underestimated: the failure of the legal system to acknowledge and respect the property of the poor.

Business Week

Impassioned and thoughtful.

Los Angeles Times Book Review

De Soto has demonstrated in practice that titling hitherto untitled assets is an extremely effective way to promote economic development of society as a whole. He offers politicians a project which can contribute to the welfare of their country and at the same time enhance their own political standing, a wonderful combination.

Milton Friedman, Nobel Laureate in Economics

De Sotos book has captured the attention of the establishment.... An extraordinary book.... This is more than an observation. It is the articulation of a tragedy.

Liberty

This book changes our understanding of where capital comes from. The consequences could be world-shattering.

William F. Buckley, Jr.

As de Soto makes bolder assertions and broader prescriptions.... [He] defends his main points with convincing logic and documentary evidence.

International Affairs

De Soto has single-handedly been fomenting a revolution in the Third World.... The Mystery of Capital constitutes one of the few new and genuinely promising approaches to overcoming poverty to come along in a very long time.

Francis Fukuyama, author of The Great Disruption

Hernando de Soto has done useful work in alerting the world to the energies of informal economies that are too often ignored or dismissed as disreputable.

The New York Review of Books

Stunningly conceived, compellingly argued, and impressively written: de Soto offers a rare combination of vision and pragmatism is what will stand as one of the most important texts of our era.

Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

THE MYSTERY OF CAPITAL

ALSO BY HERNANDO DE SOTO

The Other Path

To Mariano Cornejo, who showed me how to stand firmly on the ground, and to Duncan Macdonald, who taught me how to navigate by the stars.

Copyright 2000 by Hernando de Soto

Published by Basic Books,

A Member of the Perseus Books Group

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address Basic Books, 387 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 100168810.

Designed by Mark McGarry

Soto, Hernado de, 1941-

The mystery of capital : why capitalism triumphs in the West and fails everywhere else /Hernando de Soto.

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN-13 978-0-465-00401-0

1. Capitalism. I. Title.