Why does capitalism triumph in the West and fail everywhere else?
De Soto and his Lima-based organization are working to change the surprising fact that eighty percent of the global population, mostly in the Third World, lack access to property systems registering ownership of land.
The real estate of Third World countries, if it could be monetized, is worth an estimated US$9.3 trillion more than forty-six times greater than all World Bank loans issued in the last three decades.
De Soto points out that that legal property is a tool used in the West to produce surplus value over and above physical assets, value that can be leveraged and grown.
Through de Soto’s efforts many countries are evolving systems for effectively registering title, bringing property that was effectively nonexistent into the market economy.
