Rating: 
Summary: Mine and thine: Key to a civilized world in the 21st Century
Review: Tom Bethell has written, in remarkably plain English, an explanation of how property really works in the functioning of economically effective societies. The attack on the legitimacy of property led to massive social disasters in the 20th Century, which will take the affected billions of victims (that is, the ones fortunate to have survived) decades to recover from. It's time to make a clean sweep and institute an Anglo-American system of property rights around the world -- probably the one form of "globalization" that will improve people's prospects more than anything.
Rating: 
Summary: Great in the application, less so with theory.
Review: When Bethell applies his theory of the relationship between property rights and prosperity to the examples he cites, the book shines. He is a little less clear about HOW the legal environment gets to the state he considers optimal. This is a more serious flaw in light of his palpable anti-Marxist slant: Marx has a lot to say about how law is propagated in society, but the author seldom mentions him in an approving light. Opponents of libertarianism will also have objections to the book's overall tone.But don't misconstrue my review, the book is well-done and worth reading. Those NOT on the prosperous side of capitalism might not arrive at the same conclusions about property and justice. It would seem that citizens in countries without his preferred legal climate should let bygones be bygones and leave property in the hands of the richest society members, regardless of how they acquired it up to that point. Furthermore, those that hold much property are not averse to giving up a little of it in exchange for security in the rest. And if that sounds like justice, wait till he talks about democracy.
Rating:
Summary: Private Property Laws are the Basis for Prosperity
Review: Why, over the past few hundred years has the west done so much better than the rest? Why have some countries become modern while others lag behind, with only a few wealthy citizens and the largest part of the society mired in poverty? In his book "The Noblest Triumph" Tom Bethell argues that the incredible success of modern market capitalism rests upon the west's strong commitment to the institution of private property and the legal guarantees that make them secure. While he doesn't argue that this is the sole factor but he argues that it is a vital one as human nature dictates that people are more productive if their labor will reward them personally. We live in an ownership society and when a body of law backs the claim that the vast majority of citizens hold on their businesses and homes it gives The United States a stability that other societies lack. Bethell compares the strong property rights found in the western nations with the weakness of such rights in other lands. He makes a strong case for laws insuring property rights by showing that a lack of legal guarantees prevents foreign investment as investors fear having their investment seized at the capricious whim of a new leader or the nationalization of their assets. These sorts of occurrences which are so common in the third world,l retard foreign investment for decades. So, the vast amount of foreign capital invested here in the United States is a tribute to our rule of law.
Bethell's thesis is supported by the recent scholarship of Alvaro Vargas Llosa in his Mystery of Capital who maintains that there is indeed capital to be invested in many third world countries, but that it sits on the sidelines because of a lack of legal guarantees and the financial infrastructure that fosters safe and productive investment. The author argues that third world nations would be much better off creating an umbrella of property rights for landowners, homeowners and businessmen, insuring inside investment and rewarding their country with both stability and long term growth.
Bethell buttresses his case with examples drawn from the United States and a wide range of other nations and cultures. He looks at early American colonies, which attempted communal ownership, Robert Owen's experiment in property less society in New Harmony, Indiana and of course, the long, brutal Soviet experiment. He contrasts these examples with China, which while still authoritarian has put in place legal guarantees and encouraged foreign investment creating a new "ownership society" and a fast-growing economy, lifting millions out of poverty for the first time.
Bethell's work is wide-ranging, divided into a series of chapter essays where he examines failures and successes as well as the abstract philosophical arguments of Plato, Locke, Hume, Rousseau, Ricardo, Engels, Marx and Keynes. Bethell supports his thesis - that economic prosperity depends on private property guarantees - well and has marshaled a wide range of examples in his concise and well-written tome. His case is logical as when all the citizens of a nation are subject to the same body of law, not the capriciousness of a ruler, an economy can prosper.
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