Book review: Thomas Piketty's Capital and Ideology

By Dilip -
Reviewed by Larry Elliott

Capital and Ideology expands on the themes sketched out in Capital in the 21st Century, which sold 2m copies worldwide after its publication in 2013. Piketty’s new book – which runs to 1,232 pages and is as long as War and Peace – explores the ideas that have justified inequality down the ages, bemoans the ineffectiveness of the traditional parties of left and right at coming up with solutions for redistributing wealth, and advances his own ideas for making economies fairer. The book is released in France on Thursday but English language readers will have to wait until next March for the translation.

 More posts on Piketty

Among the proposals in the book are that employees should have 50% of the seats on company boards; that the voting power of even the largest shareholders should be capped at 10%; much higher taxes on property, rising to 90% for the largest estates; a lump sum capital allocation of €120,000 (just over £107,000) to everyone when they reach 25; and an individualised carbon tax calculated by a personalised card that would track each person’s contribution to global heating.

In an interview with the French weekly news magazine L’Obs, Piketty made no apologies for the impact his ideas would have on the stock market. He said: “[Yes], it will also affect the price of real estate that is crazy in Paris, and it will allow new social groups to become owners and shareholders.”... read more:
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/sep/09/thomas-pikettys-new-magnum-opus-published-on-thursday

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