The Power of the Poor - Hernando de Soto

The story of how one man's ideas, together with a dedicated army of lawyers and activists, defeated the guns and bombs of Peru's Shining Path.

Hernando de Soto and his team of researchers found that an astonishing ninety-eight percent of all businesses in Peru were extralegal… as was eighty-eight percent of all rural property. Extralegals had constructed seven out of every ten buildings… had run almost all of its public transportation system…and built and owned the vast majority of Lima's markets. It was clear… the majority of Peru's entrepreneurs had been locked out of the legal system. De Soto and his researchers at the Institute for Liberty and Democracy would risk their lives to let them in.