The epic successor to one of the most important books of the
century: at once a retelling of global history, a scathing critique
of contemporary politics, and a bold proposal for a new and fairer
economic system.
Thomas Piketty’s bestselling Capital in the Twenty-First Century
galvanized global debate about inequality. In this audacious
follow-up, Piketty challenges us to revolutionize how we think about
politics, ideology, and history. He exposes the ideas that have
sustained inequality for the past millennium, reveals why the shallow
politics of right and left are failing us today, and outlines the
structure of a fairer economic system.
Our economy, Piketty
observes, is not a natural fact. Markets, profits, and capital are
all historical constructs that depend on choices. Piketty explores
the material and ideological interactions of conflicting social
groups that have given us slavery, serfdom, colonialism, communism,
and hypercapitalism, shaping the lives of billions. He concludes that
the great driver of human progress over the centuries has been the
struggle for equality and education and not, as often argued, the
assertion of property rights or the pursuit of stability. The new era
of extreme inequality that has derailed that progress since the
1980s, he shows, is partly a reaction against communism, but it is
also the fruit of ignorance, intellectual specialization, and our
drift toward the dead-end politics of identity.
Once we understand
this, we can begin to envision a more balanced approach to economics
and politics. Piketty argues for a new “participatory” socialism,
a system founded on an ideology of equality, social property,
education, and the sharing of knowledge and power. Capital and
Ideology is destined to be one of the indispensable books of our
time, a work that will not only help us understand the world, but
that will change it.