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Why are some people able to accumulate enormous amounts of wealth? A common answer is that they worked harder. They had better ideas. Or they took greater risks. But Katharina Pistor argues that this leaves out something important: the law. We usually think of the law as a set of rules that applies equally to everyone. But the law also determines who can own something. Who can protect their wealth. And whose claims come first when things go wrong.
In this episode of Critical Concepts, Pistor explains how ordinary legal tools can turn assets into capital. She shows why some people benefit much more from these tools than others — and how private lawyers can use different legal systems to create and protect wealth.
This leads to a bigger question: What role does the law itself play in creating economic inequality?
Katharina Pistor is Professor of Comparative Law at Columbia Law School and the author of The Code of Capital: How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality. The book develops many of the ideas explored in this episode, showing how assets are legally “coded” to create and protect private wealth.📚 Read Katharina Pistor:The Code of Capital: How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality
---Critical Concepts brings leading scholars directly to you to explain the ideas we need to understand contemporary society.
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