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The Code of Capital
- How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins
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Publisher's summary
Capital is the defining feature of modern economies, yet most people have no idea where it actually comes from. What is it, exactly, that transforms mere wealth into an asset that automatically creates more wealth? The Code of Capital explains how capital is created behind closed doors in the offices of private attorneys, and why this little-known fact is one of the biggest reasons for the widening wealth gap between the holders of capital and everybody else.
In this revealing book, Katharina Pistor argues that the law selectively "codes" certain assets, endowing them with the capacity to protect and produce private wealth. With the right legal coding, any object, claim, or idea can be turned into capital - and lawyers are the keepers of the code. Pistor describes how they pick and choose among different legal systems and legal devices for the ones that best serve their clients' needs, and how techniques that were first perfected centuries ago to code landholdings as capital are being used today to code stocks, bonds, ideas, and even expectations - assets that exist only in law.
A powerful new way of thinking about one of the most pernicious problems of our time, The Code of Capital explores the different ways that debt, complex financial products, and other assets are coded to give financial advantage to their holders.
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- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 11 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Niall Ferguson follows the money to tell the human story behind the evolution of finance, from its origins in ancient Mesopotamia to the latest upheavals on what he calls Planet Finance. Bread, cash, dosh, dough, loot, lucre, moolah, readies, the wherewithal: Call it what you like, it matters. To Christians, love of it is the root of all evil. To generals, it's the sinews of war. To revolutionaries, it's the chains of labor. Niall Ferguson shows that finance is in fact the foundation of human progress.
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A mostly successful and interesting history
- By A reader on 02-24-09
By: Niall Ferguson
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Red Flags
- Why Xi's China Is in Jeopardy
- By: George Magnus
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Over the past four decades, China's remarkable transformation has garnered admiration but also sparked concern. George Magnus draws on his intimate knowledge of this dynamic nation to uncover the origins of its ascent and show why the economic traps it faces at home and the political challenges it faces abroad pose a serious threat to its continued rise.
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A pessimistic vision with western liberal bias
- By Jeronimo L. Jimenez on 10-23-20
By: George Magnus
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Battle for the Soul of Capitalism
- By: John C. Bogle
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
- Abridged
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There is no one better qualified to tell us about the failures of the American financial system and the grotesque abuses that have taken place in recent years than John C. Bogle, founder and former chief executive of the Vanguard mutual-fund group. This legendary mutual-fund pioneer has witnessed firsthand the innermost workings of the financial industry for more than 50 years and has set the standards for sound investment strategies and stewardship.
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Do You Own a Mutual Fund?
- By M. Kettell on 02-02-08
By: John C. Bogle
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The End of Alchemy
- Money, Banking, and the Future of the Global Economy
- By: Mervyn King
- Narrated by: Greg Wagland
- Length: 14 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Something is wrong with our banking system. We all sense that, but Mervyn King knows it firsthand; his 10 years at the helm of the Bank of England, including at the height of the financial crisis, revealed profound truths about the mechanisms of our capitalist society. In The End of Alchemy, he offers us an essential work about the history and future of money and banking, the keys to modern finance.
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Two books in one, both very fine
- By Philo on 07-13-16
By: Mervyn King
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The Mystery of Capital
- Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else
- By: Hernando de Soto
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 6 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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"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?
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Good global perspective on Capitalism
- By Nellie boi on 05-29-21
By: Hernando de Soto
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Fault Lines
- How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World's Economy
- By: Raghuram Rajan
- Narrated by: Richard Davidson
- Length: 12 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Raghuram Rajan was one of the few economists who warned of the global financial crisis before it hit. Now, as the world struggles to recover, it's tempting to blame what happened on just a few greedy bankers who took irrational risks and left the rest of us to foot the bill. In Fault Lines, Rajan argues that serious flaws in the economy are also to blame, and warns that a potentially more devastating crisis awaits us if they aren't fixed.
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A REAL SNOOZER
- By Frank on 12-02-10
By: Raghuram Rajan
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Dead Aid
- Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa
- By: Dambisa Moyo, Niall Ferguson - foreword
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 6 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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A national best-seller, Dead Aid unflinchingly confronts one of the greatest myths of our time: that billions of dollars in aid sent from wealthy countries to developing African nations has helped to reduce poverty and increase growth. In fact, poverty levels continue to escalate and growth rates have steadily declined - and millions continue to suffer. Debunking the current model of international aid promoted by both Hollywood celebrities and policy makers, Dambisa Moyo offers a bold new road map for financing the development of the world's poorest countries.
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Dangerous / Right Wing US view
- By David O'Donovan on 03-05-19
By: Dambisa Moyo, and others
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The End of Normal
- The Great Crisis and the Future of Growth
- By: James K. Galbraith
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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The years since the Great Crisis of 2008 have seen slow growth, high unemployment, falling home values, chronic deficits, a deepening disaster in Europe - and a stale argument between two false solutions, “austerity” on one side and “stimulus” on the other. Both sides and practically all analyses of the crisis so far take for granted that the economic growth from the early 1950s until 2000 - interrupted only by the troubled 1970s - represented a normal performance.
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Wall Street
- A History, Updated Edition
- By: Charles R. Geisst
- Narrated by: Stephen McLaughlin
- Length: 27 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Wall Street is an unending source of legend - and nightmares. It is a universal symbol of both the highest aspirations of economic prosperity and the basest impulses of greed and deception. Charles R. Geisst's Wall Street is at once a chronicle of the street itself - from the days when the wall was merely a defensive barricade built by Peter Stuyvesant - and an engaging economic history of the United States, a tale of profits and losses, enterprising spirits, and key figures that transformed America into the most powerful economy in the world.
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Many books in one; best linking of stories, eras
- By Philo on 03-23-14
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Why Save the Bankers?
- And Other Essays on Our Economic and Political Crisis
- By: Thomas Piketty, Seth Ackerman - translator
- Narrated by: LJ Ganser
- Length: 5 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Thomas Piketty's work has proved that unfettered markets lead to increasing inequality. Without meaningful regulation, capitalist economies will concentrate wealth in an ever smaller number of hands. Armed with this knowledge, democratic societies face a defining challenge: fending off a new aristocracy. For years Piketty has wrestled with this problem in his monthly newspaper column, which pierces the surface of current events to reveal the economic forces underneath.
By: Thomas Piketty, and others
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What listeners say about The Code of Capital
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Philo
- 10-11-19
Capital's cream rises, and here's just how it does
This is a book of just a sort and focus I've long been waiting for. It gets right to the crux of the nuts and bolts of wealth and power, the maps and charters, if you will, lifting these layers to a deep level which digs beyond the PR mythos and justifications offered by the rich and powerful, for their station in life. I might not be perfectly politically in sync with (where I think) this author is, but for me, having lived at the crossroads of law and business and the intellectual and philosophical examination of same (now finally as a professor), her chosen focus is right where mine is. The roots of power and control can be obscured by various opaque concepts and documents, and it is all laid bare here, concept by concept, piece by piece. I appreciate her digging through some history and delivering some takes I hadn't seen or imagined yet. We must travel back some to see what congealed into our present system. The author explores the different paths and ways of life that were shunted aside, along the way, whose ideas might yet be useful for us, in the search for a future political economy, land use, and planetary footprint that is survivable and good.
The book gets better and better. We get a grand tour of the state of play in today's globalized corporate law world. Then, the corporate lawyer-coders are matched against the digital coders with such tools as smart contracts.
Some other books here which touch on similar themes, but from different angles, include Property by Raymond Frey (going back into great thinkers on property's underlying concepts), and White Shoe, by Jon Oller (on the elite lawyer-history side). I found both of those more backward-looking but informative works excellent in their own ways, and reviewed them here.
Once this book gets past the basics, about an hour or so in, some things show up I appreciate, I have not seen much of elsewhere (in audio), giving heaps of context and background, for example:
- A neat map of the financial and corporate structure of latter-day Lehman Brothers, and a sketch of some of its post-bankruptcy experiences (especially rare in the literature). This is a shell game and sleight-of-hand at its best!
- A deeper dive into the parts and operators of a pretty typical collateralized mortgage structure, pre-2008, and its place in mortgage finance (going beyond the simplicities that popular books have stuck with), and
- A journey back into the origins of financial instruments, since about the 1450s, and the evolution of innovations in that area. From that, the listener can follow the bread crumbs right to where we are.
These are relatively unusual things to find at a good price in any form. Each, for me, is worth the price of admission here.
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- J. Craig
- 06-23-22
Groundbreaking
This book provides a powerful new way of thinking about the relationship between the creation of wealth and the law. The emphasis, however, is heavy on wealth and not the “inequality” aspect of the title. There is little treatment of the role in law of increasing inequality. It appears that the assumption is that growing wealth and valuable assets leads to others having less wealth, but the problem isn’t so simple. There is also some avoidance of the role of race, like the law’s role of allowing slaves, people, to become sources of wealth.
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- John K. Reed
- 04-09-20
A peek behind the curtain...
Most unsettling is the notion that what I (most lay-people) considered as essentially universal regarding ‘the law’ is anything but. In short it seems to be far more subjective, dynamic, customized, and private than it is standard. What I will take away most from this book is that individual contracts and the terms thereof are far more binding and discretionary than the laws of any particular jurisdiction. Through this text I want (NEED) to know a whole lot more about the relationship between legal coding and capital. I only wish my eyes had been opened much earlier. Highly recommended.
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- Sarah Reid
- 02-11-20
Heavy but hearty read for capital market participants
Professor Pistor cycles the points of her premise that the legal system codes capital with privileges that ensure its viability for owners in the first several chapters. She could do more to make the text attractive to the layperson, but overall The Code of Capital hits its mark. The ending in particular finishes with pith by outlining potential remedies and the big picture.
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- Amazon Customer
- 08-07-21
insightful
The book was well written, and gave a view into capital rarely given, thank you.
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- Jimmy
- 03-08-23
Must for law students and social justice advocates
Please listen to this even if it’s difficult. The big picture makes sense eventually. The larger struggle from corporate control needs more books like this and people like you to understand the real depth of inequality.
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- David
- 01-14-21
Brilliant insights from a rare, novel perspective
while the narrator makes a few mistakes in pronunciation and phrasing that are irritatingly disruptive, this is a well produced audio version of the book.
the book is fantastic overview of the ways the legal system has evolved the rights we call capital. upon reading it, one becomes quite clear that the treatment of "capital" as a concept in economics of all flavors is incredibly at variance with reality. Marx clearly misfocused economists attention, as did Adam Smith.
I'm now struck by the ad hoc nature of the legal frameworks around capital, clearly elaborated in this book. you don't need a JD or PhD to understand this presentation, it is so well done.
personally, I learned a lot about private law and its usurpation of public law, in for example the discussion of how Lehman Bros. existed as a legal structure, and why it was so fragile in its collapse. but also, how capital moves so fast.
the final chapter brings the book to a powerful close building on the entire book. that's a rare thing in many otherwise good books on such topics.
one of the best books I've read this century.
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- Kindle Customer
- 06-08-22
opened a whole new world for me
very insightful. sometimes difficult to follow the financial jargon but in a highly complex subject it would be hard to make it more digestible without losing substance. have me a new appreciation for and understanding of the maneuvering of capital
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- matthew
- 04-17-24
Excellent info although a little dry
Great book with very relevant information but the narrator is a little dry to listen to.
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- S. Kwame Okpattah
- 01-12-20
Very Telling
This is the script for the body politic of all countries to take their countries, economies, and destinies back into their own hands.
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