A review by the_tridentarii
Capital et idéologie by Thomas Piketty

challenging informative slow-paced

3.5

An ambitious overview of the way inequality over the last few centuries has been caused by factors ultimately down to ideological choices, particularly that capitalism is fundamentally about unlimited defence of private property. The book is long and relatively formal, sometimes more repetitive than it needs to be, and some of his proposed solutions to inequality are debatable (namely his overemphasis on wealth taxes), but still full of incredibly important insights, from the way that the rise of capitalism reinforced medieval inequalities to the way that the post-WW2 and post-colonial world from 1950 to 1980 has shown that massive reduction of inequality and massive economic growth can go hand-in-hand to the idea that, maybe, we need to start asking ourselves whether we want to build a society that moves beyond the idea of private property. Definitely worth a read!