Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by adamcarter
Capital and Ideology by Thomas Piketty
4.0
This book examines how inequality has been justified over the past three centuries or so. One of Piketty's most interesting insights is that a certain ideology has replicated inequality across different times and regions. This is what he calls the tri-functional scheme whereby clergy and nobility control the majority economic resources to the detriment of everybody else found at least in past European and Indian societies. However, this scheme has been replicated in contemporary UK, France, and USA where traditional left parties have come to represent the educated (c.f. clergy) and the right have come to represent the well-off (c.f. nobility) leaving a significant proportional of the electorates disenfranchised. But this phenomenon is not universal, other countries such as India, traditionally dominated by the tri-functional scheme are becoming politically split down traditional left-right spectrum as were western nations in the post-war years.
Piketty's sympathies are obviously quite left-wing. Piketty thus devotes a significant proportion of the book to explaining why the post-war social democratic movement has begun deteriorated post-1980. Piketty attributes this to the fall of communism as well as the failure to advance a number of policy areas such as progressive income and wealth taxes, international cooperation, co-management models. Indeed, perhaps Piketty's second most interesting insight is that a just social democratic society needs to get the balance right between a plurality of redistribution, cooperation, and power-sharing measures.
I initially wanted to read this book just for the conclusions Piketty would draw from his analysis for contemporary political and economic arrangements, but I must say that the historical approach of the book was invaluable. Piketty's historical approach really shines light on the contingent justifications for inequality in our own day and illustrates the possibilities available to us for reorganising our own societies. Obviously, this is a long book at over 1000 pages, it does get a little repetitive at times, but sometimes this repetition is helpful and I definitely wouldn't recommend skipping to the final chapters of the book.
Piketty's sympathies are obviously quite left-wing. Piketty thus devotes a significant proportion of the book to explaining why the post-war social democratic movement has begun deteriorated post-1980. Piketty attributes this to the fall of communism as well as the failure to advance a number of policy areas such as progressive income and wealth taxes, international cooperation, co-management models. Indeed, perhaps Piketty's second most interesting insight is that a just social democratic society needs to get the balance right between a plurality of redistribution, cooperation, and power-sharing measures.
I initially wanted to read this book just for the conclusions Piketty would draw from his analysis for contemporary political and economic arrangements, but I must say that the historical approach of the book was invaluable. Piketty's historical approach really shines light on the contingent justifications for inequality in our own day and illustrates the possibilities available to us for reorganising our own societies. Obviously, this is a long book at over 1000 pages, it does get a little repetitive at times, but sometimes this repetition is helpful and I definitely wouldn't recommend skipping to the final chapters of the book.