We have two covers this week. In most editions we examine the fight over the future of the office. People associate it with routine and conformity but the office is fast becoming a source of economic uncertainty and heated dispute. The $30trn commercial-property market is stalked by fears of a slump. The covid calamity is prompting a long-overdue phase of technological and social experimentation in the workplace. Some 84% of French office-workers are back at their desks, but fewer than 40% of British ones are. Companies need to adapt to fit a sporadic attendance pattern and governments should modernise employment law and reimagine city centres. And what about white-collar workers? If you step back into the office this month, sit down and log on—but don’t get too comfortable.

Our cover story in the Middle East and Africa argues that capitalism must be for the many not the few. In poor countries that means giving more people title over their property, so they can use it as collateral to buy seeds or start a business. Twenty years ago Hernando de Soto, a Peruvian economist, argued that this could harness informally owned land and other assets worth $13.5trn at contemporary valuations. Since then his ideas have spread. India wants to use drones to survey its villages; Rwanda has mapped all its territory. Even so only 30% of the world’s people have formal titles today. Reformers must keep up the hard slog of recording who owns what.