Capital and Ideology

Capital and Ideology

Author	Thomas Piketty
Original title	Capital et Idéologie
Translator	Arthur Goldhammer (English)
Language	French
Subjects	Capitalism, economic history, economic inequality, sociology
Publisher	Éditions du Seuil Harvard University Press
Publication date	12 September 2019
Published in English	March 2020
Media type	Print (Hardback)
Pages	1150 pp.
ISBN	978-2-02-133804-1 (France)

Capital and Ideology (Template:Lang-fr) is a 2019 book by French economist Thomas Piketty. Capital and Ideology follows Piketty's 2013 book Capital in the Twenty-First Century, which focused on wealth and income inequality in Europe and the United States.

Described by Piketty as "in large part a sequel" to its predecessor, Capital and Ideology has a wider scope, and Piketty has expressed his preference for the 2019 book. In the book, Piketty outlines potential means of redistributing wealth, and explores historical and contemporary justifications for inequality. Paul Krugman wrote of the book, "In Marxian dogma, a society’s class structure is determined by underlying, impersonal forces, technology and the modes of production that technology dictates. Piketty, however, sees inequality as a social phenomenon, driven by human institutions. Institutional change, in turn, reflects the ideology that dominates society: 'Inequality is neither economic nor technological; it is ideological and political.'" Methods for redistributing wealth proposed in the book include the "inheritance for all," a payment distributed to citizens by their country at the age of 25.

The book has received overall positive reviews from economists, scholars and pundits.

Reception

Book Marks reports an overall reception of "Positive" based on two rave reviews, six positive reviews, and six lukewarm reviews.

Robert Shortt of RTÉ.ie rated the book four stars out of five. He wrote, “Some of his conclusions [...] can at times sound simplistic, even glib", referring to Piketty's proposal that pooling sovereign debt in the Eurozone would reduce member states' debt interest payments and his criticism of the much greater spending on interest payments than on a program like Erasmus+. Shortt also said that the history "sometimes takes away from the very real and pertinent questions Piketty raises” about modern politics. However, Shortt said that Capital and Ideology still “goes a long way towards framing what is happening both here and abroad in a broad historical and political context.”

In Kirkus Reviews the book was billed as a "deftly argued case for a new kind of socialism that, while sure to inspire controversy, bears widespread discussion." William Davies of The Guardian wrote that the book "is occasionally naive (it will bug the hell out of historians and anthropologists) but in a provocative fashion, as if to say: if inequality isn’t justified, why not change it?" and that Piketty's policy recommendations "are not the most arresting features of the book." However, Davies also wrote, "Amid the distraction and perpetual outrage of our dysfunctional public sphere, this enlightenment confidence in empirics feels beamed in from another age. It also makes for a unique scholarly edifice, which will be impossible to ignore."

Marshall Steinbaum of Boston Review stated that in comparison to Capital in the Twenty-First Century the work "loses much of the economic theory, but it gains a vast wealth of historical, sociological, and political detail". She wrote that the book "systematically demolishes [the] self-serving conceit" of the economy as a natural force uninfluenced by ideas on how it should work. While Steinbaum said that Piketty's narrative that left-wing parties became parties of the educated rather than the working class is flawed "because the working class is getting more educated", Steinbaum lauded Piketty's engagement with political science, writing, "Few economists are as methodologically curious and versatile, much less as adept."

Geoff Mann praised Capital and Ideology in London Review of Books. He disputed Piketty's claim that social democracy in the 20th century was intended to transcend private property and capitalism. However, Mann said that the book "proves conclusively that [the idea that economic growth will fix the inequality problem] was an illusion", and concluded, "Whether or not his revolution without revolutionaries can get us where we need to go, his analysis of how we got here demands our attention."

The New Republic's Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein argued, "Piketty’s own imagination of new worlds is grounded in a rigorous and detailed analysis of the institutions that have existed in the real world. [...] He is uncovering ideas that have worked before. They could work again." In The Washington Post, James Kwak approved of Piketty's explanation for the rise of far-right politics and wrote that "as long as the Democratic Party muddles along with the same old ideology of market-driven growth and supposed equality of opportunity, our political system will remain defined by two parties dominated by competing segments of the economic elite."

Conversely, a reviewer in The Economist said that Piketty "draws on an impressive range of historical statistics" and that, compared to most post-Marxist critiques, Capital and Ideology is "readable. The prose is pithy and light on theory." But the reviewer described the economist's account of ideology by elites throughout history as lesser than accounts by thinkers like Theodor W. Adorno and Michel Foucault because Piketty "flits between case studies" and suggests that "elites are only ever self-serving"; the reviewer also said that he insufficiently deals with concerns that "sky-high wealth taxes would play havoc with incentives, reducing investment and entrepreneurship [...] it is hard not to conclude that, deep down, Mr Piketty believes the worth of a society is measured by its Gini coefficient alone."

The Guardian's Paul Mason said that Piketty's discussions of history and ideologies show ignorance of the "methodological debates that rage" in the field of history. The journalist also argued that "Piketty’s solutions [for the rise of nativism and xenophobia] are perfunctory [...] a survey of ‘red wall‘ seats found they [...] reject attempts to take money from the modestly well-off and even from billionaires“. Summing up Piketty's central idea as taxing capitalism out of existence, Mason concluded, "My objection is not that it is too radical but, lacking any explanation of which social forces might enact it, not radical enough."

Paul Collier of New Statesman wrote, "There is much of value here and many of its ideas are insightful. But in the end, if this becomes the agenda of the left, it will exchange one cul-de-sac for another." Collier claims that Piketty "conflates opposition to open borders with hatred of immigrants". Collier also said the northern working class in the U.K. would likely prefer a tax on the capital appreciation of the ABs who own London property to Piketty's recommendations, and that "it is ethically better that you should save to help your children rather than lavish consumption on yourself now".

Cole Stangler of The Nation discussed how Piketty differs from Marx and Engels, in that Piketty views major transformations in economics as shaped by various factors (like religious beliefs, sense of national belonging, and crises) whereas Marx and Engels famously described the history of all society as a history mainly of class struggle. Stangler wrote that while some might find nuanced Piketty's lack of identification of a central force and his unpacking of each major transformation "on its own terms, insisting on a multitude of alternative paths that might have been followed at any given moment [...] others may be put off by its unwillingness to dig in and take sides." Stangler also argued against the privileging of ideological struggle over class struggle by arguing that some groups are selfish and "simply aren’t interested in a good-faith debate [...] one can’t help but wonder if [Piketty] underplays the extent to which individuals’ access to and relationship with wealth [...] influences how they look at the world and engage in politics."

Tyler Cowen's words were mostly unfavorable. While he argued that there is a "considerable sum of useful and valuable material" and praised as "carefully done" Piketty's history of wealth and property accumulation, Cowen dismissed his commentary on recent events as "distorted and unreliable. There is massive distrust of the wealthy in this book, and virtually no distrust of concentrated state power." Cowen suggested that the high innovation of the United States and that, according to him, real wages are higher in the United States than in Western Europe stand as evidence against Piketty's worldview.

In Financial Times, Raghuram Rajan wrote that Capital and Ideology "reflects a prodigious amount of scholarship" but wouldn't persuade those who disagreed. Rajan said that studies had debunked Piketty's implicit assumption that today's rich are largely the "idle rich"; that the high growth from 1950 to 1980 was dependent on a number of factors that are unlikely to be repeated; that "we never actually ran the high-tax experiment" because tax loopholes were abundant in that period; and that other factors besides tax policy determine inequality. Rajan also argued, of the author's vision of participatory socialism, that "it is unclear what would offer a countervailing balance to an overpowerful state [...] Most people will have little sense of control over their futures." Rajan said, "Inequality is a real problem today, but it is the inequality of opportunity, of access to capabilities, of place, not just of incomes and wealth."

Leonid Bershidsky of Bloomberg said, in response to the high proposed taxes, that "Piketty’s book doesn’t do a good job of explaining how an inevitable collapse in property prices will affect the tax base and investment — or, indeed, in what form assets will be parceled out if the rich can’t sell 90% of their assets immediately." Bershidsky also wrote, "I’m pretty sure Piketty overestimates the role inequality has played in the recent rise of [political forces that want to focus on identity and tradition rather than any economic vision]."

In Paul Krugman's unfavorable review, he praised the Pikettian method of using "a combination of extrapolation and guesswork to produce quantitative estimates for eras that predate modern data collection" as applied "to very good effect" in Capital and Ideology. But he also questions whether Piketty knows enough to have constructed valid claims about the dozens of societies he discusses, as well as whether all of the case studies strengthen Piketty's core argument that rising inequality throughout history is fundamentally due to ideology and politics rather than economics and technology (with Krugman noting Evsey Domar's claims on the reasons for serfdom in Russia). Krugman also argued that the white working class in the U.S. would probably not support Piketty's policies. Despite saying that "the book does advance at least the outline of a grand theory of inequality, which might be described as Marx on his head", Krugman concluded by asserting that he was unsure what the book's central message was.