Alex Salmon reviews Thomas Piketty's new book, which argues for a world beyond capitalism.
Thomas Piketty
French economist Thomas Piketty became something of a global phenomenon when Capital in the Twenty-First Century topped The New York Times’ Best Seller list in 2014. He has now produced a follow-up work, Capital and Ideology, writes Neville Spencer.
Yet another report has been released showing the capitalist “trickle down” promise is rubbish.
The World Inequality Report 2018 — produced by the World Inequality Lab at the Paris School of Economics — busts the neoliberals’ myths about globalisation and privatisation working for everyone. It shows that the wealth gap is widening and, in some countries, very dramatically.
French economist Thomas Piketty argued in his bestselling book Capital in the Twenty-First Century that capitalism arose from feudalism and is in many ways reverting to it.
Dickensian children in factories and coal mines; Karl Marx debunks Capitalism; revolutions and war grip Europe; and inequality casts a gloomy smog over Europe. Ships depart with slaves, convicts and political dissidents bound for the New Worlds, of which Australia is one.
It is the 19th century, the century of capital — a time that will dialectically reverberate shockwaves towards the greatest revolutions, the greatest economic collapse and the greatest bombs.
Economist and author of Capital in the 21st Century Thomas Piketty gave a lecture entitled “Is Increasing Inequality Inevitable?” to a full house at the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall on October 23.
Piketty presented detailed research on growing income inequality compiled by a number of scholars and sourced directly from national taxation and income statistics from primarily advanced capitalist countries, as well as some statistics from a number of the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa).