Review of The Code of Capital: How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality by Katharina Pistor

Abstract

The Code of Capital significantly advances our understanding of the origins of inequality and provides a framework for evaluating proposed solutions. But reviews have so far missed some of the most important insights of the book, including the author's insistence on the indeterminacy of the law and the corresponding incompleteness of existing solutions to inequality that primarily rely on economic drivers. The review demonstrates the relevance of the book's main contributions for evaluating the shared value thesis for investors and reflects on some of the solutions to the law's indeterminacy proposed in the book, including the author's surprising neglect of the increasing importance of ethics in business when innovation outpaces the law. The review concludes with consideration of the theoretical advancements that The Code of Capital makes for our understanding of inequality in the twenty-first century.