The Mystery Of Capital Hernando De Soto Summary

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In the book The Mystery of Capital, Hernando De Soto claims that even if countries liberalize and open their economies to foreign investment, they will not be able succeed in bringing prosperity to common people until they have established a formal system of property rights. Although, poor people own homes and farms, small businesses and even quite large enterprise, they will not be able to succeed because there is a big difference between developing countries and Western countries. West countries have legal structures and established property rights, while developing countries have informal and often local ownership structures. Without titles, deeds, and articles of incorporation, the poor cannot use their extralegal property. This is what De Soto terms “dead capital,” capital that cannot legally be used to create more capital. It is the invisible potential that cannot be used do to the fact that it exists as the result of implicit, rather than legal, infrastructures. De Soto believes that by integrating the extralegal agreements into …show more content…

It took six years and eleven months, 207 administrative steps in 52 government offices to obtain legal authorization to construct a house on state-owned land. To obtain a legal title for that land took 728 steps. As well as a private bus, jitney, or taxi driver who sought to acquire official recognition of his route faced 26 months of red tape. The experiment was repeated in other countries such as the Philippines, Egypt and Haiti. The obstacles were no less difficult than in Peru; they were often even more daunting. In every country it took years and it was also difficult to remain legal after having become legal. As a result of its informal status, the capital possessed by the poor “dead capital". In order to aid the poor and to enrich their countries, the leaders of those countries need to find a way to enliven this dead

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