Book Review: Demystifying the Mystery of Capital: Land Tenure and Poverty in Africa and the Caribbean
| Author | Ambreena Manji |
| Published date | 01 March 2006 |
| Date | 01 March 2006 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0964663906060986 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
BOOK REVIEWS
ROBERT HOME AND HILARY LIM (eds), Demystifying the Mystery of Capital: Land
Tenure and Poverty in Africa and the Caribbean. London: Glasshouse Press, 2004,
xi + 160 pp.
In this important collection of essays, Hernando de Soto’s influential thesis on the
formalization of property rights is investigated through empirical research in Zambia,
Botswana and Trinidad. De Soto’s ideas were elaborated in his enticingly entitled
book, The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Every-
where Else (2002).
According to de Soto, it is the lack of formalized property rights which explains
the failure of non-western countries (the ‘everywhere else’ of the book’s subtitle) to
develop. It is not that the poor do not have assets. Quite the opposite: ‘the entrepre-
neurial ingenuity of the poor has created wealth on a vast scale’ (p. 32). The problem,
however, is that ‘they hold these resources in defective forms’ (p. 6).
The solution advocated by de Soto reserves a central role for the law. The process
of ‘representation’, that is, of registration and titling, would bring the assets of the
poor into the legal system. When land is ‘represented in a property document’, it is
enabled to lead ‘a parallel life alongside [its] material existence. [It] can be used as
collateral for loans’ (p. 7). This is the cause of wealth in ‘the west’ where there is ‘an
implicit legal infrastructure hidden deep within their property systems – of which
ownership is but the tip of the iceberg. The rest of the iceberg is an intricate man-
made process that can transform assets and labour into capital’ (p. 9).
De Soto’s approach to land is echoed in the recent policies of the World Bank (2003)
in which land that is used ‘merely as shelter’ rather than a source of capital is simi-
larly deprecated. His work has met with widespread approval among policymakers.
There have been high-level meetings in London between de Soto and members of the
British government and his programme is thought to have had a considerable influ-
ence on land policy at the British Department for International Development which
provided funding for the editors’ research project. In order to disseminate his ideas
on the formalization of property rights, de Soto has also created the ‘Foundation for
Building the Capital of the Poor’ in Ghana, one of the stated objectives of which is
‘to establish a regional training centre . . . for the benefit of other countries interested
in the property reform programme’ (Accra Daily Mail, 20 September 2002).
The essays in this collection make a vital contribution to our understanding of land
tenure reform by testing de Soto’s thesis at local level. Multidisciplinary in nature, it
draws on expertise in history, law, geography and planning to provide rare empirical
evidence of the land problems facing dwellers of peri-urban areas of the developing
world. It points, for example, to the immense difficulties facing the under-resourced
SOCIAL &LEGAL STUDIES Copyright © 2006 SAGE Publications
London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi, www.sagepublications.com
0964 6639, Vol. 15(1), 145–159
DOI: 10.1177/0964663906060986
To continue reading
Request your trial