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joshwilks111's review
4.0
Woah. This was a beast. I read about 80% and skimmed 20% where it was talking about niche aspects of how to make Europe better. This convinced me on the importance of redistribution of income and of wealth and inheritance taxes. A dense read but rewarding
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jonathanfreirich's review
5.0
An incredibly essential book for the future of human society. A beyond worthwhile investment to read.
runekeon's review against another edition
5.0
Wow an amazing amount of research and supporting evidence.
pzorgngtaon's review
4.0
I finally finished Thomas Piketty's Capital and Ideology. This thing was 1000 pages long and it took me six weeks to finish it. It's a very well-researched look at different regimes of inequality, mostly in the so-called West (Europe and the US) but he does go a bit into India and Brazil. One of the criticisms of his previous Capital In the 21st Century was its lack of attention to examples outside the West so the expansion - limited as it is - is appreciated.
Piketty goes into different types of what he calls "tri-functional societies" (composed of warrior elites, clerics, and peasants) in their premodern guises and this history is fascinating but his look at the 20th Century is of course more relevant to today. Roughly, leftist parties that got most of their support from poor working class voters have changed into parties made up of highly educated elites - what he calls the "Brahmin left" (as opposed to the "merchant right). Its former working class base has seen that these parties no longer represent their interests and have gone to the identitarian, nationalist right or have checked out of politics completely.
Piketty shows how this has happened in the US, UK, and France so it likely explains what's going on in Canada too, especially when you look at the social democratic NDP. I guess this is another way of explaining the rise of the Professional Managerial Class. Since people with university degrees only make up about 20 to 30% of the population even in rich countries, this goes a long way towards explaining election results. Piketty speculates that perhaps the Brahmins and merchants will merge to create a party of the elite, which doesn't sound that implausible.
Piketty doesn't have too many solutions except for a progressive tax on capital, wealth, and income and a transnational alliance to regulate the global economy. All of these would be impossible without a fundamental change in the global power structure, which is true, but how do we get there? This only comes up in the last chapter but doesn't detract from what came before.
In addition, Piketty doesn't seem to believe in Modern Monetary Theory, in that he apparently hews to the idea that governments tax them spend and not the other way around. This blindness seems a little strange since he appears to be quite well read otherwise.
TL; DR Great research and analysis, inadequate solutions.
Piketty goes into different types of what he calls "tri-functional societies" (composed of warrior elites, clerics, and peasants) in their premodern guises and this history is fascinating but his look at the 20th Century is of course more relevant to today. Roughly, leftist parties that got most of their support from poor working class voters have changed into parties made up of highly educated elites - what he calls the "Brahmin left" (as opposed to the "merchant right). Its former working class base has seen that these parties no longer represent their interests and have gone to the identitarian, nationalist right or have checked out of politics completely.
Piketty shows how this has happened in the US, UK, and France so it likely explains what's going on in Canada too, especially when you look at the social democratic NDP. I guess this is another way of explaining the rise of the Professional Managerial Class. Since people with university degrees only make up about 20 to 30% of the population even in rich countries, this goes a long way towards explaining election results. Piketty speculates that perhaps the Brahmins and merchants will merge to create a party of the elite, which doesn't sound that implausible.
Piketty doesn't have too many solutions except for a progressive tax on capital, wealth, and income and a transnational alliance to regulate the global economy. All of these would be impossible without a fundamental change in the global power structure, which is true, but how do we get there? This only comes up in the last chapter but doesn't detract from what came before.
In addition, Piketty doesn't seem to believe in Modern Monetary Theory, in that he apparently hews to the idea that governments tax them spend and not the other way around. This blindness seems a little strange since he appears to be quite well read otherwise.
TL; DR Great research and analysis, inadequate solutions.
b_a_f's review
P.17 Error: Figure 1.1 the two lines of life expectancies are labeled wrong.
baetsie's review against another edition
4.0
'L’histoire du XXe siècle et du désastre communiste oblige aujourd’hui à une étude minutieuse des régimes inégalitaires et de leurs justifications, et surtout des dispositifs institutionnels et des modes d’organisation socio-économique permettant réellement l’émancipation humaine et sociale. L’histoire de l’inégalité ne saurait se réduire à un éternel affrontement entre les oppresseurs du peuple et les fiers défenseurs de ce dernier. Elle repose de part et d’autre sur des constructions intellectuelles et institutionnelles sophistiquées, qui ne sont certes pas toujours exemptes d’hypocrisie et de volonté de perpétuation de la part des groupes dominants, mais qui méritent néanmoins d’être examinées de près. À la différence de la lutte des classes, la lutte des idéologies repose sur le partage des connaissances et des expériences, le respect de l’autre, la délibération et la démocratie. Personne ne détiendra jamais la vérité absolue sur la propriété juste, la frontière juste, la démocratie juste, l’impôt ou l’éducation juste. L’histoire des sociétés humaines peut se voir comme celle de la quête de la justice. Seules la confrontation minutieuse des expériences historiques et personnelles et la délibération la plus étendue peuvent permettre de faire des progrès dans cette direction.'
logantmartin's review
challenging
informative
slow-paced
4.0
This is essentially two books duct taped together into one. The first is about the transition in Europe from tri-functional to proprietarian ideological orientations, how these shifts led to European colonial domination and thus the imposition of these ideologies on other people, and how the justifications for hierarchies within and between societies evolved from explicitly classist to meritocratic. The second is a relitigation of Capital in the 21st Century, with a brief word on Communist countries, a (slightly) wider range of countries covered, and a few more solutions to the problem of wealth inequality. Obviously, I much prefer the former, but the latter is significant in its own way, since Piketty has a much more historical and sociological analysis of wealth inequality in this book than in his primary work.
obstinateheadstrongcurl's review against another edition
informative
slow-paced
4.0
I love how Piketty uses history and literature to reflect on the economics of inequality. This is definitely an academic text, and a lot of it is over my head, but his vision for a more equal world is brilliant.