The Code of Capital - Katharina Pistor Gebunden

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 protec t 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.