'Kingston's history of the evolution of property rights and on how property rights regimes
influence and reflect the kind of economic activity people engage in and how they regard
economic activity is interesting and provocative in its own right. Others have argued that
capitalism seems to have lost much of the power to increase the productivity of economic
activity that it once had and the workings of modern financial systems are a good part of the
problem. But no one else has tied these propositions closely to the evolution of property
rights'.- Richard R. Nelson Columbia University New York'This sweeping account of the rise
and projected fall of capitalism is as original as it is gripping. Kingston locates the hinge
that moves capitalism as the institutions governing property rights and argues persuasively
that the system is now undermining itself as innovation shifts from the technological to the
financial domain.'- John A. Mathews Macquarie Graduate School of Management Sydney'William
Kingston is a prolific and thoughtful economic historian who has relied on such longstanding
giants as Marx and Schumpeter and new ones such as Minsky to show how financial innovation
has replaced technological innovation and how this process is destroying the economic fabric
of society. Kingston's deep understanding of the 'free-market economy' makes this book a
must-read.'- Jorge Niosi Université du Québec à Montreal Canada
