The MYSTERY of Capital.- Hernando De Soto

While many Elliott Jaques afficionados choose to focus on managerial leadership and accountability in hierarchical organisations, my interest is in using the ‘stage development- discontinuity theory- matrix of working relationships -levels of work – complexity attractor theory approaches’ ( or whatever else you want to call this stuff) to examine how society and institutions are progressively developed. Creation of and access to ‘Capital’ is a component of spreading power across communities.

As we agree, systems drive the behaviour. Your books that you reference repeatedly are great foundations for understanding these links between systems and behaviour.

So, to be specific, how are systems built that enable the creation of wealth and freedom of capital? The Mystery of Capital provides some strong clues about the economics and legal ingredients. It is particularly interesting about how the US emerged as a capital intensive community. If you are interested in this stuff, get yourself mocked by this worthy and readable tome.

Regards,

Jack

Glad you liked the book challenge. It’s basically a chain letter for bloggers but seems to have some redeeming value.

Thanks for sharing. Do I need to add the History of Capital to my office’s mocking section?

Regards,

Michelle

Thanks for tagging me. It was a hit!

Michelle

Thanks for sharing the book challenge–I just killed about three hours chasing down the links in both directions, reading blog samples and book lists/reviews. Whew!

One result is that I decided to subscribe to the RSS feed of Eric Brown’s blog (“Aligning Technology, Strategy, People & Projects”). Thanks for that lead.

I was particularly interested in the widely divergent opinions on The Strategy Paradox (on Amazon)–even the “helpfulness” ratings of the reviews seemed to attract controversy. I’ll be interested in hearing your take on this book once you’ve finished it.

I always read your blog with interest, occasionally commenting. Today I read the ‘Know Thyself’ piece and then the Mocking Bookshelf. So I decided to frame a comment to deal with both, wondering how I could weave something together. I didn’t have to because, currently, I am reading, for the re-umpteenth time, The Mystery of Capital by Hernando De Soto.

The ‘Know Thyself’ element appeared in sentence 9. To explain, I am a Scot, as were many of the land-grabbing squatting settlers in Pennsylvania, and I live a handful of miles from the village of Penn.

Page 123 is in a chapter called the ‘The Missing Lessons of US History’ and the copy from sentences 6-8 is:

‘Indeed, from 1763 to 1768 the Pennsylvania Assembly tried to deter squatting with the penalty of ‘pain of death’, while Governor William Penn ordered soldiers to remove illegal settlers. Despite these measures, the number of squatters doubled. In response, according to one historian of the period, ‘the infuriated governor then proclaimed that those settling on Indian lands would be executed.’

Sentence 9 : ‘But no judges could be found for such prisoners, or compliant juries and secure lockups.’

Thanks for participating so effectively – I love the “books I reference repeatedly” category.

More new items for my own shelf – thanks!