The author contends that the reason why capitalism succeeds in the west and fails everywhere else is legal structure of property rights. Functioning legal property rights system enables the capital to flow freely through the economy enabling it to be employed to create economic growth. I do not agree in full with that…my view is that this is just one of the reasons. Nevertheless this is an interesting and worthwhile book to read.

The most interesting aspect of the book for me is a comparison of legal structure of property rights structure across countries and through history and their interaction with economic development. The book also provides lots of empirical data on legal systems across the globe.

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