The Code of Capital

How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality

Katharina Pistor

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Hardback

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English

Princeton University Pres
28 May 2019

Central government policies; Economics; Law; Comparative law; Law & society; Capital markets & securities law & regulation

"A compelling explanation of how the law shapes the distribution of wealthCapital 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. This provocative book paints a troubling portrait of the pervasive global nature of the code, the people who shape it, and the governments that enforce it."

By: Katharina Pistor
Imprint: Princeton University Pres
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 235mm, Width: 155mm,
ISBN: 9780691178974
ISBN 10: 0691178976
Pages: 320
Publication Date: 28 May 2019
Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Primary , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Katharina Pistor is the Edwin B. Parker Professor of Comparative Law and director of the Center on Global Legal Transformation at Columbia Law School. She is the coauthor of Law and Capitalism: What Corporate Crises Reveal about Legal Systems and Economic Development around the World and the coeditor of Governing Access to Essential Resources. She lives in New York City.

Reviews for The Code of Capital: How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality

The Code of Capital delivers the keys to understanding how law and lawyers push the property system toward concentrated and entrenched wealth. Many of its insights are timeless, but Pistor shows how globalization has spun these mechanisms into overdrive. A must-read for comprehending financial capitalism and its threat to democratic citizenship. Roy Kreitner, author of Calculating Promises: The Emergence of Modern American Contract Doctrine Katharina Pistor has crafted a powerful and relentlessly intelligent argument about the importance of law for modern capital. Written with lucid erudition, her book explores legal patterns and relationships underlying centuries of economic development. Anyone interested in finance, wealth, or inequality will want to engage this ambitious and innovative work. Bruce G. Carruthers, Northwestern University Law, Pistor shows in this breakthrough book, is the essential means by which increasingly intangible and mobile assets are protected against control, especially democratic control. Understanding the intricacy of how law works to produce and safeguard soaring wealth for the rich is essential for confronting the inequality crisis of our time. Brilliant, clear, and pithy, The Code of Capital is an essential contribution for reformers and scholars alike. Samuel Moyn, author of Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World The Code of Capital is essential reading for anyone interested in understanding how global capital markets function. In clear and understandable terms, Pistor traces the legal coding of capital, the explosive expansion of finance, and the steep fall of the global financial crisis. Cathy M. Kaplan, senior counsel, Sidley Austin LLP This is a fascinating book that demonstrates how the rights of capital have been entrenched in the international legal system. The Code of Capital opens the way for a thoughtful discussion about the treaties on capital flows and privileges that need to be rewritten. A must-read. Thomas Piketty, author of Capital in the Twenty-First Century