I started writing this book on 1 January 2016. At the time I was working on another book titled The Genealogy of Globalization. I thought I was almost done. But I realized that I couldn't write it in an intelligible way without first working out in detail the concepts of property rights and of the World Power System. This is the reason for the present book. It presents how the World Power System has evolved thanks to the operation of modern property as a right of decision-making and rule-making as a matter of principle towards objects of property. The concentration of these prerogatives over productive assets in large enterprises due to the corporate revolution has led to the growth of negative externalities and very large inequalities. Consequently, States have adapted their laws. But now States are under competitive pressure in their legal offering due to globalization. We need to find new ways to correct what some call ‘market failures’, taking into account that we are also facing a massive ‘governmental failure’ at the same time. In this book, a suggestion has been made to put us in a position to address the largest negative externality of all time: climate change. The idea is to provide more comprehensive accounting information to the market. The real profit or loss of every type of accounting entity must be measured taking into account their full impact on all the various forms of capital they use.

What is missing from this book is an explanation of what was so special about European history that led to the worldwide spread of legal concepts originally created in Europe which have played an instrumental role in the structuring of global political and economic institutions.

This exercise in reverse engineering the World Power System is the object of The Genealogy of Globalization.