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Capital in the Twenty-First Century
Capital in the Twenty-First Century (French: Le Capital au XXIe siècle) is a book written by French economist Thomas Piketty. It focuses on wealth and income inequality in Europe and the United States since the 18th century. It was first published in French (as Le Capital au XXIe siècle) in August 2013; an English translation by Arthur Goldhammer followed in April 2014.
The book's central thesis is that when the rate of return on capital (r) is greater than the rate of economic growth (g) over the long term, the result is concentration of wealth, and this unequal distribution of wealth causes social and economic instability. Piketty proposes a global system of progressive wealth taxes to help reduce inequality and avoid the vast majority of wealth coming under the control of a tiny minority.
At the end of 2014, Piketty released a paper where he stated that he does not consider the relationship between the rate of return on capital and the rate of economic growth as the only or primary tool for considering changes in income and wealth inequality. He also noted that r > g is not a useful tool for the discussion of rising inequality of labor income.
On May 18, 2014, the English edition reached number one on The New York Times Best Seller list for best selling hardcover nonfiction and became the greatest sales success ever of academic publisher Harvard University Press. As of January 2015, the book had sold 1.5 million copies in French, English, German, Chinese, and Spanish. The book is a worldwide success, with over 2.5 million copies sold by the end of 2017.
The book was adapted into a feature documentary film, directed by New Zealand filmmaker Justin Pemberton, and released in 2020.
When first published in French in August 2013, Laurent Mauduit characterized it as "a political and theoretical bulldozer". As news spread of its thesis in the English-speaking world, Paul Krugman hailed it as a landmark, while former senior World Bank economist Branko Milanović considers it "one of the watershed books in economic thinking". In response to widespread curiosity abroad aroused by reviews of the original French edition published by Seuil in September 2013, it was translated rapidly into English and its publication date was pushed forward to March 2014 by Belknap. It proved an overnight sensation and ousted Michael Lewis's financial exposé, Flash Boys: Cracking the Money Code, from the top of the US best-seller list. Within a year of its publication, Stephanie Kelton spoke of a "Piketty phenomenon", and in Germany three books had been published specifically dealing with Piketty's critique.
The central thesis of the book is that inequality is not an accident, but rather a feature of capitalism and can only be reversed through state interventionism. The book thus argues that, unless capitalism is reformed, the very democratic order will be threatened.
Piketty bases his argument on a formula that relates the rate of return on capital (r) to economic growth (g), where r includes profits, dividends, interest, rents, and other income from capital and g is measured as growth of society's income or output. He argues that when the rate of growth is low, then wealth tends to accumulate more quickly from r than from labor and tends to accumulate more among the top 10% and 1%, increasing inequality. Thus, the fundamental force for divergence and greater wealth inequality can be summed up in the inequality r > g. He analyzes inheritance from the perspective of the same formula.
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Capital in the Twenty-First Century
Capital in the Twenty-First Century (French: Le Capital au XXIe siècle) is a book written by French economist Thomas Piketty. It focuses on wealth and income inequality in Europe and the United States since the 18th century. It was first published in French (as Le Capital au XXIe siècle) in August 2013; an English translation by Arthur Goldhammer followed in April 2014.
The book's central thesis is that when the rate of return on capital (r) is greater than the rate of economic growth (g) over the long term, the result is concentration of wealth, and this unequal distribution of wealth causes social and economic instability. Piketty proposes a global system of progressive wealth taxes to help reduce inequality and avoid the vast majority of wealth coming under the control of a tiny minority.
At the end of 2014, Piketty released a paper where he stated that he does not consider the relationship between the rate of return on capital and the rate of economic growth as the only or primary tool for considering changes in income and wealth inequality. He also noted that r > g is not a useful tool for the discussion of rising inequality of labor income.
On May 18, 2014, the English edition reached number one on The New York Times Best Seller list for best selling hardcover nonfiction and became the greatest sales success ever of academic publisher Harvard University Press. As of January 2015, the book had sold 1.5 million copies in French, English, German, Chinese, and Spanish. The book is a worldwide success, with over 2.5 million copies sold by the end of 2017.
The book was adapted into a feature documentary film, directed by New Zealand filmmaker Justin Pemberton, and released in 2020.
When first published in French in August 2013, Laurent Mauduit characterized it as "a political and theoretical bulldozer". As news spread of its thesis in the English-speaking world, Paul Krugman hailed it as a landmark, while former senior World Bank economist Branko Milanović considers it "one of the watershed books in economic thinking". In response to widespread curiosity abroad aroused by reviews of the original French edition published by Seuil in September 2013, it was translated rapidly into English and its publication date was pushed forward to March 2014 by Belknap. It proved an overnight sensation and ousted Michael Lewis's financial exposé, Flash Boys: Cracking the Money Code, from the top of the US best-seller list. Within a year of its publication, Stephanie Kelton spoke of a "Piketty phenomenon", and in Germany three books had been published specifically dealing with Piketty's critique.
The central thesis of the book is that inequality is not an accident, but rather a feature of capitalism and can only be reversed through state interventionism. The book thus argues that, unless capitalism is reformed, the very democratic order will be threatened.
Piketty bases his argument on a formula that relates the rate of return on capital (r) to economic growth (g), where r includes profits, dividends, interest, rents, and other income from capital and g is measured as growth of society's income or output. He argues that when the rate of growth is low, then wealth tends to accumulate more quickly from r than from labor and tends to accumulate more among the top 10% and 1%, increasing inequality. Thus, the fundamental force for divergence and greater wealth inequality can be summed up in the inequality r > g. He analyzes inheritance from the perspective of the same formula.