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4.26 AVERAGE
4.26 AVERAGE
challenging
informative
slow-paced
Wow. What a tome. This maybe the single longest book that I have ever read in my entire life, and it was certainly a slog to get through, as evidenced by the fact that it took me nearly 7 months to finish. This is not because Capital and Ideology is badly written or boring—truly, Piketty manages to make even his analytical breakdowns of wealth disparity in different societies fascinating—but simply because there is so much dense content crammed into a massive book. Piketty covers numerous topics throughout this work, starting with how different justifications for income inequality and the proprietarian order have evolved over the centuries, continuing on to discuss the changing nature of leftist parties, and concluding with some prescriptive advice about the most equitable way to structure an economy. His analysis is incredibly thorough, presenting data on all of these topics in a convincing way.
I am particularly fond of his analysis of what he deems the "Brahmin left" (intellectuals and professionals sympathetic to liberal and progressive ideals but also interested in passing their status along to their offspring) and the "merchant right" (businessmen and hawks primarily concerned with reinforcing existing inequities, which they generally sit at the top of). The analysis of the "Brahmin left" taking over leftist organizations (such as workers parties, traditionally composed of laborers and other disenfranchised or marginalized communities) and how that has driven the modern division of the working class and caused them to vote for parties of the right. Piketty extends this analysis to India, the US, France, and Brazil, pointing out how right-wing parties leverage identity conflicts to exploit these new divisions in the intellectual and proletariat left.
I am particularly fond of his analysis of what he deems the "Brahmin left" (intellectuals and professionals sympathetic to liberal and progressive ideals but also interested in passing their status along to their offspring) and the "merchant right" (businessmen and hawks primarily concerned with reinforcing existing inequities, which they generally sit at the top of). The analysis of the "Brahmin left" taking over leftist organizations (such as workers parties, traditionally composed of laborers and other disenfranchised or marginalized communities) and how that has driven the modern division of the working class and caused them to vote for parties of the right. Piketty extends this analysis to India, the US, France, and Brazil, pointing out how right-wing parties leverage identity conflicts to exploit these new divisions in the intellectual and proletariat left.
Okay. This took me a year to finish. People are right that Piketty's other books are smaller, more scoped, and more digestible.
But man this is great. It's probably more valuable to read than Marx, or at least Das Kapital. The amount of data here (historical and current) that clearly illustrates how justifications for inequality regimes change over time, how wealth distributions have shifted (and by what means) throughout history, and what this has caused is incredible.
Piketty is a French author and so he does focus more on French/Euro data and examples than he would like, but he makes a successful effort to pull in data and political history from India, China and Russia to examine patterns of wealth distribution and educational access there and point out parallels and differences - this does not lead to exhaustive analysis of those countries and their economic history, but it does paint a much more full picture of global economic trends which is critical to the points Piketty makes.
Monumental, valuable, incredibly dense, very hard to argue with.
But man this is great. It's probably more valuable to read than Marx, or at least Das Kapital. The amount of data here (historical and current) that clearly illustrates how justifications for inequality regimes change over time, how wealth distributions have shifted (and by what means) throughout history, and what this has caused is incredible.
Piketty is a French author and so he does focus more on French/Euro data and examples than he would like, but he makes a successful effort to pull in data and political history from India, China and Russia to examine patterns of wealth distribution and educational access there and point out parallels and differences - this does not lead to exhaustive analysis of those countries and their economic history, but it does paint a much more full picture of global economic trends which is critical to the points Piketty makes.
Monumental, valuable, incredibly dense, very hard to argue with.
This is, to date, the longest book I have ever read. It took me some months, but part of the reason is because I was in no rush to complete it. A 1000+ page book of history and economics might sound extremely tedious, but this book was far from it. It was an incredible, compelling journey.
Broken down into four parts, each one could have been a book of its own. I spent a lot of time sitting with each individual chapter not just to make sense of it, but also to just fully wrap my head around all that was being presented. Very few books around compare in terms of scope and ambition. But every part, every chapter, every sub-chapter carries insights that have a place in achieving the principal aims of this book: Capital and Ideology traces the historical and ideological roots of inequality, critiques the systems that perpetuate it, and offers a vision for a more just society.
I was particularly struck by some of the ideological findings, namely the reversal of electoral cleavages both here in the U.S. and around the world. The Democratic Party of the New Deal used to be driven by working class voters; today, it is driven by voters with collegiate degrees while non-degreed, working class voters are increasingly supporting the Republican Party. We saw this bear out in a dramatic way just past week with the reelection of Donald Trump as President, which, for example, some polls showed that White Men with no degree were +44 Trump, while White Men with degrees were +4 Harris. To see such a wide gap and shift in magnitude as the result of a single factor is already appalling, but even more illuminating was the fact that this sort of electoral cleavage is not exclusive to the U.S.
This all begs certain questions: Why? What explains this? Why has this same exact shift also happened in many other countries? Piketty gives a frank and clear answer: liberalism abandoned the working class. As the world was dramatically changing in the twentieth century, in the face of the Conservative revolution in the 1980's led in part by Reagan, Thatcher, and the Chicago School, while bearing witness to the rise of a global economy and community: Center-left parties failed to adapt their platforms to what had become a different world, and did not deliver agendas that working class people could relate with, support, and believe in. Liberalism prioritized the needs and interests of elites, leading, in the 21st century today, to the very unfortunate outcome Bernie Sanders declared the day after the Democrats lost once again to Donald Trump - "it should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned the working class would find that the working class has abandoned them.
The threat of nativist, hyper-capitalist movements gaining power around the world looms as a significant challenge for those of us concerned with rampant inequality and combat climate change, which Piketty sees as two of the defining issues of the 21st Century. The book's last chapter, "Elements for a Participatory Socialism in the 21st Century," offers concrete reforms and policy recommendations based on and contextualized in the broader struggles for socioeconomic justice going back to the 19th Century. But given the importance of education in constructing political attitudes and ideology, it is not surprising that Piketty affirms that, at the center of any emancipatory political project, must also be educational justice. At a time when educational systems here in the U.S. are under attack - books being banned, college becoming unaffordable, DEI programs being cut, local school districts being taken over, public vouchers for charter schools being expanded, curriculums being white-washed - this point must be elevated to a higher place in the public discourse than it currently holds.
A special book like this is the culmination of an entire lifetime's rigorous and dedicated work, and it is also proof of the possibilities open to us at the top end of scholarship. It is very much a must-read given the precarity of the current political and socioeconomic moment (though it is not an easy book to recommend to anyone given its length).
My main critique of this book is that its descriptions of government financial systems may be based on inaccuracies debunked by the Modern Monetary Theory school of macroeconomics. For instance, Piketty argues for progressive income, inheritance, and wealth taxes not only to reduce inequality and promote redistribution, but also to help finance social policies included in his vision for a participatory socialism. However, MMT Economists like Stephanie Kelton, Pavlina Tcherneva, Randall Wray, Bill Mitchell, Matthew Forstater, and many others have long been showing that monetarily sovereign governments, like the federal governments of the U.S., Australia, Canada, Japan, and many others do not need to tax in order to spend. Given that these governments possess authorities to issue their own currencies, they do not have any financial constraints. Hence, if, as Piketty proposes, the U.S. wanted to create a universal capital endowment for all of, say, $25,000 at the turn of age 25, then it could do so at any point without a need to acquire the revenue first via taxation.
This is not to say that there is no need to tax. Piketty's tax proposals should all be implemented immediately to help control the runaway accumulation of capital which is destabilizing political systems globally. However, the taxes are not needed to fund social programs - to spend or not to spend, it is simply a political choice to do so. To be fair, Piketty is a European Economist, where the countries of the European Union have effectively forfeited their monetary sovereignty and full control over their fiscal and financial capacities to the Euro. So it is understandable why Piketty stresses the importance of taxation since that is in fact what European countries need to do to fund his recommended social programs, but he never makes this distinction between European monetary systems and others, which, I am assuming, reflects that Piketty was simply not fully aware with the canon of MMT macroeconomic literature at the time of this Capital and Ideology's writing.
There is so much more that I can say about this book. I’ve only spoken to a fraction of it. Each part, each chapter merits its own review. I spent week after week for months turning the pages of the same book, each time wading through a different place in time and history, staring at graphs and analyzing data tables, one after another, around a hundred in total. When I finished it, I went to my room, laid down, stared at the fan on the ceiling, and just sat in the quiet. I reflected on all that I have learned, on the experience I just had. With this book, I sought to challenge myself and my understanding, and that I did. And I look forward to both sharing and applying the vast number of lessons from this book in all that I do. In the meanwhile, on my desk at my workplace I have stacks of all the books I have read this year. Adding Capital and Ideology this morning gave me the greatest sense of satisfaction, because no other book had single-handedly made the stacks taller.
Broken down into four parts, each one could have been a book of its own. I spent a lot of time sitting with each individual chapter not just to make sense of it, but also to just fully wrap my head around all that was being presented. Very few books around compare in terms of scope and ambition. But every part, every chapter, every sub-chapter carries insights that have a place in achieving the principal aims of this book: Capital and Ideology traces the historical and ideological roots of inequality, critiques the systems that perpetuate it, and offers a vision for a more just society.
I was particularly struck by some of the ideological findings, namely the reversal of electoral cleavages both here in the U.S. and around the world. The Democratic Party of the New Deal used to be driven by working class voters; today, it is driven by voters with collegiate degrees while non-degreed, working class voters are increasingly supporting the Republican Party. We saw this bear out in a dramatic way just past week with the reelection of Donald Trump as President, which, for example, some polls showed that White Men with no degree were +44 Trump, while White Men with degrees were +4 Harris. To see such a wide gap and shift in magnitude as the result of a single factor is already appalling, but even more illuminating was the fact that this sort of electoral cleavage is not exclusive to the U.S.
This all begs certain questions: Why? What explains this? Why has this same exact shift also happened in many other countries? Piketty gives a frank and clear answer: liberalism abandoned the working class. As the world was dramatically changing in the twentieth century, in the face of the Conservative revolution in the 1980's led in part by Reagan, Thatcher, and the Chicago School, while bearing witness to the rise of a global economy and community: Center-left parties failed to adapt their platforms to what had become a different world, and did not deliver agendas that working class people could relate with, support, and believe in. Liberalism prioritized the needs and interests of elites, leading, in the 21st century today, to the very unfortunate outcome Bernie Sanders declared the day after the Democrats lost once again to Donald Trump - "it should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned the working class would find that the working class has abandoned them.
The threat of nativist, hyper-capitalist movements gaining power around the world looms as a significant challenge for those of us concerned with rampant inequality and combat climate change, which Piketty sees as two of the defining issues of the 21st Century. The book's last chapter, "Elements for a Participatory Socialism in the 21st Century," offers concrete reforms and policy recommendations based on and contextualized in the broader struggles for socioeconomic justice going back to the 19th Century. But given the importance of education in constructing political attitudes and ideology, it is not surprising that Piketty affirms that, at the center of any emancipatory political project, must also be educational justice. At a time when educational systems here in the U.S. are under attack - books being banned, college becoming unaffordable, DEI programs being cut, local school districts being taken over, public vouchers for charter schools being expanded, curriculums being white-washed - this point must be elevated to a higher place in the public discourse than it currently holds.
A special book like this is the culmination of an entire lifetime's rigorous and dedicated work, and it is also proof of the possibilities open to us at the top end of scholarship. It is very much a must-read given the precarity of the current political and socioeconomic moment (though it is not an easy book to recommend to anyone given its length).
My main critique of this book is that its descriptions of government financial systems may be based on inaccuracies debunked by the Modern Monetary Theory school of macroeconomics. For instance, Piketty argues for progressive income, inheritance, and wealth taxes not only to reduce inequality and promote redistribution, but also to help finance social policies included in his vision for a participatory socialism. However, MMT Economists like Stephanie Kelton, Pavlina Tcherneva, Randall Wray, Bill Mitchell, Matthew Forstater, and many others have long been showing that monetarily sovereign governments, like the federal governments of the U.S., Australia, Canada, Japan, and many others do not need to tax in order to spend. Given that these governments possess authorities to issue their own currencies, they do not have any financial constraints. Hence, if, as Piketty proposes, the U.S. wanted to create a universal capital endowment for all of, say, $25,000 at the turn of age 25, then it could do so at any point without a need to acquire the revenue first via taxation.
This is not to say that there is no need to tax. Piketty's tax proposals should all be implemented immediately to help control the runaway accumulation of capital which is destabilizing political systems globally. However, the taxes are not needed to fund social programs - to spend or not to spend, it is simply a political choice to do so. To be fair, Piketty is a European Economist, where the countries of the European Union have effectively forfeited their monetary sovereignty and full control over their fiscal and financial capacities to the Euro. So it is understandable why Piketty stresses the importance of taxation since that is in fact what European countries need to do to fund his recommended social programs, but he never makes this distinction between European monetary systems and others, which, I am assuming, reflects that Piketty was simply not fully aware with the canon of MMT macroeconomic literature at the time of this Capital and Ideology's writing.
There is so much more that I can say about this book. I’ve only spoken to a fraction of it. Each part, each chapter merits its own review. I spent week after week for months turning the pages of the same book, each time wading through a different place in time and history, staring at graphs and analyzing data tables, one after another, around a hundred in total. When I finished it, I went to my room, laid down, stared at the fan on the ceiling, and just sat in the quiet. I reflected on all that I have learned, on the experience I just had. With this book, I sought to challenge myself and my understanding, and that I did. And I look forward to both sharing and applying the vast number of lessons from this book in all that I do. In the meanwhile, on my desk at my workplace I have stacks of all the books I have read this year. Adding Capital and Ideology this morning gave me the greatest sense of satisfaction, because no other book had single-handedly made the stacks taller.
Given the length of the book (a meagre 1041 pages...), ironically, Piketty takes on far too many areas of discussion. There are areas when Piketty makes a significant assertion, and provides very little evidence (which is frustrating when you know ample evidence can easily be referenced). As others have said, this should have been published in a series of volumes, focusing on different areas.
To be continued....
To be continued....
Outstanding book and my favorite read of the year by far. It's such an ambitious project that I'm amazed that it landed as well as it did. It aims to examine the way economic inequality has evolved over time/across cultures and in doing so allows the reader to step outside of their own cultural biases and consider their place in the grand scheme of history. This also invites contemplation on the future of economic distribution, where Piketty guides the reader through possible policy evolutions. This book has given me context/a framework to consider the moment & the future of economic development
reflective
The big book on inequality. From our favourite French economist. 1,100+ pages, 49 hours of audiobook. And more graphs and confidence intervals than this little philosophy grad thought she could handle.
And three ideas that I can’t stop thinking about—
✨ the “Brahmin Left” aka why I’m the drama
✨ Piketty’s alternative the the left-right political spectrum
✨ how we solve inequality
💖 The “Brahmin Left”: Piketty dropped a bombshell in here—voting left (in every country) used to be correlated with the lowest levels of education. Now, voting left is correlated with the highest. Voting left also used to be correlated with reducing inequality (no matter which party was in power). Now it’s not. So I *am* the drama. Assuming you want to promote equality and improve the lives of the most marginalized, the data shows (and hoo boy there was data) that if you went to university and vote left, you’re the villain.
💖 Piketty’s alternative to the left-right political spectrum: quadrants. Specifically, a socialist (progressive taxation and equality) versus pro-rich (regressive taxation and trickle down economics) axis and an internationalist (pro-immigrant and intra-country federations) versus a nativist (anti-immigrant and My Country First) axis. It made so much sense that I’ve completely replaced my old left-right way of thinking with Piketty’s alternative.
And of course, our dude thinks the socialist internationalist quadrant is the best at tackling inequality. With an explanation more linked to taxation and fiscal dumping that I was personally used to hearing 😆
💖 And what gave me hope: we can honestly just… change things. The bulk of this book was a detailed exploration of “inequality regimes” in every country that had data on it (in Europe, North America, China, Japan, India, Brazil etc) going back as far as possible (like we’re talking Middle Ages). It was SUPER demystifying. And he concluded that:
⭐️ inequality persists because our social milieu (I refuse to use the word ideology here 😆) actively justifies it—and this social milieu is always in flux,
⭐️ inequality is maintained by very specific, unassuming, and easily changed legislation (about taxation, education access, property law, etc)
The book was hella long. And sometimes we were so deep in the data-trenches that I was just like, ‘Piketty, throw me a freaking bone here—where are we going with all this??’ (hence the 4⭐️ not 5⭐️)
Yet I appreciated a lot of the little things in here: how many non-Western sources there were; how much we talked bout slavery and colonialism; how varied the sources were (using literature like Jane Austen, for example); that we factored in things like racism, patriarchy, and climate change; and that I got clued into some super important information (like how much wealth is held by the top centile and how little wealth is held by governments—even how the US and the UK have NEGATIVE wealth 🤯).
This book was so chalked full of information that I borrowed it from the library 5 separate times and eventually just bought my own copy.
And three ideas that I can’t stop thinking about—
✨ the “Brahmin Left” aka why I’m the drama
✨ Piketty’s alternative the the left-right political spectrum
✨ how we solve inequality
💖 The “Brahmin Left”: Piketty dropped a bombshell in here—voting left (in every country) used to be correlated with the lowest levels of education. Now, voting left is correlated with the highest. Voting left also used to be correlated with reducing inequality (no matter which party was in power). Now it’s not. So I *am* the drama. Assuming you want to promote equality and improve the lives of the most marginalized, the data shows (and hoo boy there was data) that if you went to university and vote left, you’re the villain.
💖 Piketty’s alternative to the left-right political spectrum: quadrants. Specifically, a socialist (progressive taxation and equality) versus pro-rich (regressive taxation and trickle down economics) axis and an internationalist (pro-immigrant and intra-country federations) versus a nativist (anti-immigrant and My Country First) axis. It made so much sense that I’ve completely replaced my old left-right way of thinking with Piketty’s alternative.
And of course, our dude thinks the socialist internationalist quadrant is the best at tackling inequality. With an explanation more linked to taxation and fiscal dumping that I was personally used to hearing 😆
💖 And what gave me hope: we can honestly just… change things. The bulk of this book was a detailed exploration of “inequality regimes” in every country that had data on it (in Europe, North America, China, Japan, India, Brazil etc) going back as far as possible (like we’re talking Middle Ages). It was SUPER demystifying. And he concluded that:
⭐️ inequality persists because our social milieu (I refuse to use the word ideology here 😆) actively justifies it—and this social milieu is always in flux,
⭐️ inequality is maintained by very specific, unassuming, and easily changed legislation (about taxation, education access, property law, etc)
The book was hella long. And sometimes we were so deep in the data-trenches that I was just like, ‘Piketty, throw me a freaking bone here—where are we going with all this??’ (hence the 4⭐️ not 5⭐️)
Yet I appreciated a lot of the little things in here: how many non-Western sources there were; how much we talked bout slavery and colonialism; how varied the sources were (using literature like Jane Austen, for example); that we factored in things like racism, patriarchy, and climate change; and that I got clued into some super important information (like how much wealth is held by the top centile and how little wealth is held by governments—even how the US and the UK have NEGATIVE wealth 🤯).
This book was so chalked full of information that I borrowed it from the library 5 separate times and eventually just bought my own copy.
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
.
.
An incredibly essential book for the future of human society. A beyond worthwhile investment to read.
Wow an amazing amount of research and supporting evidence.