“Listening to the Barking Dogs: Property Rights Against Poverty in the Non-West” by Hernando De Soto, development economist, is an article describing the various problems that “the scourge of the poor” in former communist countries and developing countries (De Soto, 2003, p179). De Soto (2003) believes that the main solution to lifting the poor out of poverty is to provide these populations with formal and legalized property rights. Allowing their dead capital hidden in unformalized and illegal assets or other small businesses and businesses to be transformed into living capital, allowing these assets to be used as collateral as well as collateral to facilitate other loans and generate additional surplus from their existing assets. lift them out of poverty. Conversely, despite De Soto's hugely influential ideas for fighting poverty, even going so far as to become president of the Peruvian Institute for Freedom and Democracy, "one scholar after another has pointed out that his work was: methodologically weak” (Gilbert, 2000, p348). Throughout this essay, the article “Listening to the Barking Dogs: Property Law Against Poverty in the Non-West” and other works and ideas of Hernando De Soto will be critically analyzed by examining the importance and purpose of his ideas and the realistic effects De Soto's policies could have. have to overcome the various challenges faced by developing and former communist countries in combating poverty. De Soto (2003) asserts that the main instrument causing poverty in Third World and former Soviet Union countries is the absence of a legalized property system, stating that eighty percent These populations do not have any legal document proving the property they own. This differs greatly from the economically prosperous Western world. Furthermore, De Soto (2003) ignores the middle of paper ......ndo de Soto and the mystification of capital, Eurozine• Kingwill R et al. (2006) Mysteries and myths: de Soto, property and poverty in South Africa, GateKeeper Series 124, London: International Institute for Environment and Development. • Mitchell T (2005) The work of economics: how a discipline creates his world, Arch. Europe. Social., XLVI, 2: 297-320• Musembi C (2007) De Soto and land relations in rural Africa: bringing dead theories on property rights back to life, Third World Quarterly 28(8): 1457-1478.• Otto J (2009) Promoting the rule of law, land tenure and poverty reduction: challenging the assumptions of Hernando de Soto, Hague Journal on the Rule of Law 1: 173-195. • United Nations Program for development (2008) Making the Law Work for Everyone vol. 1, Report of the Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor, New York: UNDP