How is "capital" created? 11.06.25

Using the instrument of law, different goods can be transformed into assets by granting or denying them certain important legal attributes. Katarina Pistor calls this "coding." With the help of contract, property, mortgage, foundation, corporate, and bankruptcy law, certain goods and certain classes of goods are granted the necessary legal attributes over time, while others are deprived of them. Goods can thus be legally coded by skillfully combining internationally available legal elements in a way that is favorable to capital owners. According to Pistor, only when any good, be it land, an ecological resource, a genetic code, an intellectual or artistic product, a computer program, or digital behavioral data, is associated with a specific legal code does it become capital. Wealth is therefore by no means, as the capitalist meritocracy ideology claims, simply a consequence of ability: "The wealthy often cite special skills, the hard work, and personal sacrifices made by themselves, their parents, or their ancestors as justification for the wealth they possess today. Certainly, these factors may have contributed to the creation of their wealth. But without legal codification, most of it would have lasted only a short time. Accumulating wealth over long periods of time requires an additional safeguard that only a code backed by the coercive powers of the state can provide."

Katharina Pistor’sThe Code of Capital: How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality

https://www.academia.edu/117674350/Katharina_Pistor_sThe_Code_of_Capital_How_the_Law_Creates_Wealth_and_Inequality

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How is "capital" created? 11.06.25

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