Capital in the Twenty-First Century - Thomas Piketty, Arthur Goldhammer (2014).epub

ublication Date: March 10, 2014
The main driver of inequality--returns on capital that exceed the rate of economic growth--is again threatening to generate extreme discontent and undermine democratic values. Thomas Piketty's findings in this ambitious, original, rigorous work will transform debate and set the agenda for the next generation of thought about wealth and inequality.

Review
A seminal book on the economic and social evolution of the planet… A masterpiece. (Emmanuel Todd Marianne)

The book of the season. (Telerama)

Outstanding… A political and theoretical bulldozer. (Mediapart)

An explosive argument. (Liberation)

In this magisterial work, Thomas Piketty has performed a great service to the academy and to the public. He has written a pioneering book that is at once thoughtful, measured, and provocative. The force of his case rests not on a diatribe or a political agenda, but on carefully collected and analyzed data and reasoned thought. The book should have a major impact on our discussions of contemporary inequality and its meaning for our democratic institutions and ideals. I can only marvel at Piketty’s discipline and rigor in researching and writing it. (Rakesh Khurana, Harvard Business School)

This book is not only the definitive account of the historical evolution of inequality in advanced economies, it is also a magisterial treatise on capitalism’s inherent dynamics. Piketty ends his book with a ringing call for the global taxation of capital. Whether or not you agree with him on the solution, this book presents a stark challenge for those who would like to save capitalism from itself. (Dani Rodrik, Institute for Advanced Study)

Anyone remotely interested in economics needs to read Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century. (Matthew Yglesias Slate 2014-02-10)

The book aims to revolutionize the way people think about the economic history of the past two centuries. It may well manage the feat…It is, first and foremost, a very detailed look at 200 years’ worth of data on the distribution of income and wealth across the rich world (with some figures for large emerging markets also included). This mountain of data allows Piketty to tell a simple and compelling story…The database on which the book is built is formidable, and it is difficult to dispute his call for a new perspective on the modern economic era, whether or not one agrees with his policy recommendations… We are all used to sneering at communism because of its manifest failure to deliver the sustained rates of growth managed by market economies. But Marx’s original critique of capitalism was not that it made for lousy growth rates. It was that a rising concentration of wealth couldn’t be sustained politically. Ultimately, those of us who would like to preserve the market system need to grapple with that sort of dynamic, in the context of the worrying numbers on inequality that Piketty presents. (The Economist 2014-01-09)

Piketty, a prominent economist, explains the tendency in mature societies for wealth to concentrate in a few hands. (Amy Merrick New Yorker2014-02-06)

Defies left and right orthodoxy by arguing that worsening inequality is an inevitable outcome of free market capitalism…[It] suggests that traditional liberal government policies on spending, taxation and regulation will fail to diminish inequality…Without what [Piketty] acknowledges is a politically unrealistic global wealth tax, he sees the United States and the developed world on a path toward a degree of inequality that will reach levels likely to cause severe social disruption. Final judgment on Piketty’s work will come with time--a problem in and of itself, because if he is right, inequality will worsen, making it all the more difficult to take preemptive action. (Thomas B. Edsall New York Times 2014-01-28)
About the Author
Thomas Piketty is Professor at the Paris School of Economics.
Product Details

File Size: 3974 KB
Print Length: 696 pages
Publisher: Harvard University Press (March 10, 2014)
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
Language: English
ASIN: B00I2WNYJW