The Code of Capital, the legal infrastructure of modern capitalism

Capital doesn’t just exist out in the world for us to use. Economic value is actively created by the legal system. Our current economy is built on top of a "feudal calculus," according to Katharina Pistor, a professor of comparative law and the director of the Center on Global Legal Transformation at Columbia University. And her most recent book, which is called “The Code of Capital,” completely re-imagines how we think about this base layer of our economy.

Legal tools developed hundreds of years ago in England to protect the rights of landlords over commoners have been applied to more and more kinds of assets over time, to the point where they now undergird our entire economic system in ways that are often invisible to most of us, even as they shape so much of our lives.

This is a transcript of her interview by Roge Karma on the Ezra Klein podcast, New York Times, 13-Jan-2023.