In the 1st chapter of “The code of capital”, Pistor (2019, p.3) specifies the 6 major modules of the code that creates a lot of wealth, but is also eager to keep it to a few privileged persons in society. In order of appearance and not exclusively they are: “contract law, property rights, collateral law, trust, corporate, and bankruptcy law. In these modules 4 major attributes of assets are defined for the holder and later exercised courts as well as other state institutions: (1) priority, (2) durability, (3) universality, and (4) convertibility. In other words, the legal devices rank claims in a qualitative sorted order and guarantee the value of such claims over time and space. The fatal vice of the device is the convertibility of private claims in to one against the state as the ultimate insurance against a risk of credit default by other parties. Similar to bitcoins today, the financial derivatives make it possible to “create money” out of nothing, just like a “deus ex machina”. The states had and still have no control over this “artificial creation of money without being linked to a kind of reserve value.
Such intangible assets may contribute to wealth creation as tools that facilitate a faster turnover of goods and services in an economy or between countries and thereby create corresponding real value. The control of trade and currencies, however, becomes also subject of additional possibilities of fraud and crime. Here again it is the legal system that is challenged to protect the application and efficient functioning of the 6 major modules of the code of capital. The concerns of inequality in and through law are relegated to politics and policies within single states.
The final chapter 9 states rather bluntly: “capital rules by law” (p.205), but it enumerates several ways, how to curtail this code of capital. Tax sheltering in other countries or taxation by choice of country should be made more difficult. Blacklisting is efficient in most cases (p. 225). Arbitration might work if somehow an equality of power is achievable. Internalization of externalities is easier said than done, but needs to be considered right from the beginning of changing laws. Purely speculative contracts should be referred to “casinos” and betting instances and no longer be eligible for business contracts. The revision of the education of lawyers is another part of the counter measures. The autopoiesis of the legal system and its profession has been highlighted by Niklas Luhmann before. A great deal of the difficulties we face with the code of capital appears to be due to the self-referential exclusionary practice of legal devices. We have to bring society back into the discourse of law in order to preserve democratic structures and the equality of chances in society.
The strength of “collective rights” in labour law, of cooperatives or the share economy allow for potential remedies to the hijack of law through capital and exchange markets. Open source movements as in software creation are forward-looking models that the creative commons licensing for security, but also equality purposes. Employees’ input in the process of capital creation should be rewarded and codified accordingly. Last, but not least, countries will have to reclaim legal authority in parts of law that affects “the wealth of a nation” and its distribution. Similar to “no taxation without representation” we should claim “no legislation on us, without us”. The role of legal advisory firms to draft laws outside of parliament has probably gone too far already. The task of politicians to understand the consequences of what they vote for in parliament has become more and more difficult, yet there is no way around a drastic increase in competences, legal and otherwise. 
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