Review of Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century

French economist Thomas Piketty’s book Capital in the Twenty-First Century caused quite a stir. The book has many fans, but probably an equal number of critics. The piece linked below provides a thorough review that ranges over the whole argument of the book, but that also focuses more specifically on the policy recommendations in Part IV. >>>

LINK: Capital Accumulation and Policy Recommendations: A Review Essay of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century (by Dominic Martin in Les ateliers de l’éthique / The Ethics Forum)

Thomas Piketty’s most recent book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2014) is both ambitious and impressive. This should come as no surprise to anyone at this point. The book is ambitious because Piketty sets out to do nothing less than to sketch out the evolution of income and capital since the 18th century and up to the end of the 21st century. His enquiry has much in common with Karl Marx’s enquiry in Das Kapital. Piketty’s enquiry is similarly entitled. This was not a coincidence. The book presents itself as the contemporary equivalent to Marx’s classic. The book is 685 pages long. This almost seems short given the daunting task that needs to be accomplished.

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What do you think?

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