Capital in the Twenty-First Century - Piketty, Thomas
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Das Kapital im 21. Jahrhundert ist ein Werk von außergewöhnlichem Ehrgeiz, von großer Originalität und von beeindruckendem Rigorismus. Es lenkt unser ganzes Verständnis von Ökonomie in neue Bahnen und konfrontiert uns mit ernüchternden Lektionen für unsere Gegenwart.
Thomas Piketty zeigt, dass das moderne ökonomische Wachstum und die Verbreitung des Wissens es uns ermöglicht haben, Ungleichheit in dem apokalyptischen Ausmaß abzuwenden, das Karl Marx prophezeit hatte. Aber wir haben die Strukturen von Kapital und Ungleichheit nicht in dem Umfang verändert, den uns die optimistischen…mehr

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Das Kapital im 21. Jahrhundert ist ein Werk von außergewöhnlichem Ehrgeiz, von großer Originalität und von beeindruckendem Rigorismus. Es lenkt unser ganzes Verständnis von Ökonomie in neue Bahnen und konfrontiert uns mit ernüchternden Lektionen für unsere Gegenwart.

Thomas Piketty zeigt, dass das moderne ökonomische Wachstum und die Verbreitung des Wissens es uns ermöglicht haben, Ungleichheit in dem apokalyptischen Ausmaß abzuwenden, das Karl Marx prophezeit hatte. Aber wir haben die Strukturen von Kapital und Ungleichheit nicht in dem Umfang verändert, den uns die optimistischen Jahrzehnte nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg suggeriert haben. Der Haupttreiber der Ungleichheit - dass Gewinne aus Kapital höher sind als die Wachstumsraten - droht heute vielmehr extreme Formen von Ungleichheit hervorzubringen, die den sozialen Frieden gefährden und die Werte der Demokratie unterminieren. Doch ökonomische Trends sind keine Handlungen Gottes. Politisches Handeln hat ökonomische Ungleichheiten in der Vergangenheit korrigiert, sagt Piketty, und kann das auch wieder tun.
Autorenporträt
Thomas Piketty
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Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung - Rezension
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung | Besprechung von 12.09.2014

Gibt es doch Gesetze des Kapitalismus?

Vermögensforscher Piketty sieht die unausweichliche Spaltung der westlichen Gesellschaften. Doch enthält seine Analyse zwei Kardinalfehler. Kritisches zu einem Wirtschaftsbestseller.

Der neue Karl Marx! So etwa war die Reaktion der Öffentlichkeit, als Thomas Piketty sein Buch "Capital in the Twenty-First Century" im März in englischer Übersetzung aus dem Französischen bei Harvard University Press vorlegte. Das fast 700 Seiten starke Opus erhielt zum Teil hymnische Kritiken und wurde binnen kurzer Zeit zum Bestseller, jedenfalls in den Vereinigten Staaten, wo in zwei Monaten 300000 Exemplare davon verkauft wurden. In Kürze wird es auf Deutsch erscheinen.

Der Autor, ein bis dahin nur in Fachkreisen bekannter französischer Volkswirt der École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) in Paris, wurde über Nacht zum Star der Printmedien und des Internets. Endlich jemand, so die Botschaft der Feuilletons, der die Gesetze des modernen Kapitalismus offenlegt - und zwar in jener zentralen Wirkung, die der etablierte Mainstream der Wirtschaftswissenschaft angeblich so gerne übergeht: den unerbittlichen Trend zur Spaltung der Gesellschaft in Reich und Arm. Dazu liefert er noch Vorschläge zur politischen Lösung des Problems: massive Erhöhung der Besteuerung des Wohlstands, und zwar in allen seinen Formen, vom Einkommen über das Vermögen bis zu den Erbschaften.

Der Vergleich von Piketty mit Marx ist dabei absolut berechtigt und wohl auch vom Autor gewünscht. Der Titel des Buches erinnert explizit an "Das Kapital", das Hauptwerk von Marx; die politischen Vorschläge sind ähnlich radikal wie bei Marx, wenn auch nicht ganz so revolutionär. Aber vor allem ist die methodische Vorgehensweise der beiden tief verwandt: Sie suchen im Kapitalismus unabänderliche Trends, Piketty allerdings als moderner Einkommens- und Vermögensforscher mit unendlich schärferen empirischen Instrumenten als seinerzeit Marx. Beide liefern einen Beitrag zu jener Kategorie von Wissenschaft, die der österreichische Philosoph Karl Popper als "historizistisch" bezeichnete und scharf kritisierte. Allein der Versuch, eherne Gesetze der Geschichte zu identifizieren, war für den kritischen Rationalisten Popper unwissenschaftlich, denn es widersprach seiner Logik der Forschung, die auf den permanenten Versuch der Falsifikation von Hypothesen setzte und politisch der "Stückwerktechnologie" den Vorzug vor radikalen Umgestaltungen gab, denen stets etwas Totalitäres anhafte.

Gerade darin mag allerdings die Faszination liegen, die das Denkmodell von Karl Marx jahrzehntelang ausübte und sich jetzt auch bei den ehernen Gesetzen des Thomas Piketty wieder zeigt. Denn bei Marx war es das bestechend einfache Gesetz der fallenden Profitrate, das die Dynamik des Kapitalismus beherrschte und dessen Niedergang erzwang. Bei Piketty ist es nichts als eine verblüffend einfache Ungleichheit. Sie lautet: die reale Kapitalrendite "r" ist höher als die volkswirtschaftliche Wachstumsrate "g" (für growth), also r>g. In der volkswirtschaftlichen Wachstumstheorie ist r>g keine Zauberformel, sondern eine fast selbstverständliche Annahme: In einer Welt, in der Menschen ungeduldig sind und lieber heute als morgen die Früchte ihrer Leistung konsumieren statt zu sparen, müssen sie von Investoren für ihren Verzicht entschädigt werden, und zwar über die reine Zuwachsrate der Wertschöpfung hinaus. Die Ungleichheit r>g ist also ein absolut plausibles Charakteristikum der wirtschaftlichen Realität, zumindest zu "normalen" Zeiten.

Und genau hier setzt Pikettys Gedankengang ein: Wenn dem so ist, werden diejenigen, deren Einkommen sich überproportional aus Zinseinkünften (und nicht aus Lohneinkommen!) speist, immer dann einen höheren Zuwachs ihres Einkommens erleben, wenn die Löhne deutlich langsamer wachsen. Die Ungleichheit r>g überträgt sich dann also - direkt und unmittelbar - auf die Einkommensverteilung der Gesellschaft zwischen den Beziehern von Kapital- und Lohneinkommen, was zu zunehmenden Kapital- und abnehmenden Lohnquoten führt. Parallel dazu nimmt die Relation zwischen Vermögen und Einkommen in der Gesellschaft im Trend zu, genauso wie das Verhältnis zwischen Nachlässen und Einkommen. Die Gesellschaft wird also im Trend immer "kapitalistischer": Die relativen Verlierer des Wachstums sind die Bezieher von Arbeitseinkommen, die Gewinner sind die Kapitaleigner. Und da Erstere weit überproportional in den ärmeren und Letztere in den reicheren Schichten der Gesellschaft zu finden sind, überträgt sich die zunehmend ungleiche funktionale in eine zunehmend ungleiche personelle Einkommensverteilung. Hinzu kommt, dass Besitzer großer Vermögen typischerweise durch den Einsatz kluger und teurer Berater höhere Kapitalrenditen erzielen als Kleinsparer, was die Ungleichheit noch weiter akzentuiert. Fazit: Die Reichen werden schneller noch reicher, als die Armen sich aus der Armut befreien. Die Gesellschaft spaltet sich - und dies letztlich allein wegen r>g!

Wahrlich ein faszinierend einfacher Gedankengang. Was aber sagen die Daten? Hier kommt Pikettys Forschungsleistung. Mit bewundernswerter statistischer Akribie versucht er vor allem auf der Basis von historischen Steuerdaten zu zeigen, dass tatsächlich die Entwicklung der Einkommens- und besonders der Vermögensverteilung in den langen Perioden des Wirtschaftswachstums zu Friedenszeiten eben genau diesem Muster folgt. Dies gilt jedenfalls für die Zeit bis zum Ersten Weltkrieg und seit den siebziger Jahren. Es gilt allerdings nicht für die Zeit dazwischen, in der zunächst zwei Weltkriege sowie die politischen Wirren und Weichenstellungen der Zwischenkriegszeit die Kapitaleinkünfte radikal beschnitten und dann anschließend der Nachkriegsboom - in Deutschland das "Wirtschaftswunder", in Frankreich die "Trente glorieuses" genannt - für einen außerordentlich starken Wachstumsschub sorgte. Pikettys Welt des Kapitalismus seit der Industrialisierung teilt sich also gerade mal in drei Phasen ein, und zwar in zwei "normale": bis 1914 und ab den späten siebziger Jahren bis heute, und in eine "anormale": die zwei Generationen dazwischen. Seine Schlussfolgerung: Wenn es so weitergeht wie bisher (und laut Piketty wird es das!) und wenn die Politik nicht scharf eingreift, dann nähern wir uns bald dem Maß der Ungleichheit wieder an, das kurz vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg herrschte.

Piketty sieht in dieser Entwicklung eine große Gefahr, nämlich den Wiederaufstieg eines "patrimonialen Kapitalismus" - ein Begriff, den er selbst geprägt hat. Gemeint ist damit eine Gesellschaft, in der nicht die individuelle Leistung durch Arbeit das Einkommen und die Lebenschancen bestimmt, sondern zunehmend ererbtes oder früh in einem langen Leben akkumuliertes Vermögen. Diese Gesellschaft ist also alles andere als meritokratisch und entfernt sich somit systematisch von jener Leistungsmotivation, die als Urtrieb der kapitalistischen Marktwirtschaft gelten kann. Deshalb bedarf es scharfer Eingriffe in Form hoher Einkommen- und Erbschaftsteuern, um die Meritokratie wiederherzustellen - mit Grenzsteuersätzen von mehr als 80 Prozent bei höheren Einkommen und Nachlässen sowie einer kräftig zupackenden jährlichen Vermögensbesteuerung. Es geht aus seiner Sicht also nicht um die Beseitigung eines leistungsorientierten Kapitalismus, sondern um dessen Rekonstruktion. Es ist insofern ein jakobinisches Programm, kein traditionell sozialistisches.

So weit die Kernbotschaft von Piketty. Sie hat sehr viel grundsätzliche Zustimmung gefunden, allen voran durch den Nobelpreisträger für Wirtschaftswissenschaft Paul Krugman, der in einer enthusiastischen Kritik in der "New York Review of Books" Pikettys Werk zu einem Meilenstein der Wirtschaftswissenschaft erklärte. Tatsächlich lässt sich überhaupt nicht bestreiten, dass Thomas Pikettys Werk fast 15 Jahre Verteilungsforschung zusammenfasst, die bereichernd und zum Teil bahnbrechend ist. Dies allein verlangt großen Respekt. Die Kernfrage lautet allerdings: Sind Pikettys weitreichende Schlussfolgerungen in Diagnose und Therapie wirklich gerechtfertigt? Die Antwort dazu ist ein klares Nein, und dies aus historischen, ökonomischen und politischen Gründen.

Beginnen wir mit der historischen: Nähern wir uns wirklich den Verteilungsverhältnissen vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg? Blickt man auf die personelle Vermögensverteilung, die politisch bedeutsamste Statistik, die Piketty liefert, sind die Belege dafür erstaunlich dünn. Piketty berechnet den Anteil der reichsten zehn beziehungsweise ein Prozent der Bevölkerung am volkswirtschaftlichen Gesamtvermögen, und zwar für jene vier Länder, für die überhaupt Daten über den langen Zeitraum 1810 bis 2010 verfügbar sind, also Frankreich, Großbritannien, Schweden und die Vereinigten Staaten (aber leider nicht Deutschland!). Es gelingt ihm damit zu zeigen, dass die Entwicklung in allen Ländern tatsächlich in drei Phasen zerfällt: die Zeit bis 1914 zunehmende, danach bis in die siebziger Jahre abnehmende und anschließend wieder zunehmende Vermögensanteile der Top-10- beziehungsweise Top-1-Prozent der Bevölkerung. Allerdings ist die Zunahme in den letzten Dekaden sehr moderat, weit moderater als die Abnahme in der langen Phase zuvor.

So lag der Vermögensanteil der Top 10 im Vereinigten Königreich 1910 bei 92,0 Prozent, 1980 bei 62,6 Prozent und 2010 bei 70,5 Prozent; in Frankreich waren es 1910 fast 89 Prozent, 1980 dann 61,8 Prozent und 2010 gerade mal 62,4 Prozent, eine Steigerung um ganze 0,6 Prozentpunkte in 30 Jahren! Analoges gilt für die superreichen Top-1-Prozent. Für keines der drei europäischen Länder wird jedenfalls das Niveau der Ungleichheit von vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg auch nur annähernd erreicht. Lediglich für die Vereinigten Staaten kommt die Ungleichheit dem damaligen Niveau recht nahe, was allerdings nur daran liegt, dass ebendiese Ungleichheit vor 1914 noch weit geringer ausfiel als in Europa, weil es in dem klassischen Einwanderungsland Amerika damals noch an kontinuierlich gewachsenen privaten Vermögensmassen fehlte (trotz einiger Tycoons wie Carnegie und Rockefeller).

Von einem dramatischen Auseinanderdriften der westlichen Gesellschaften kann also nicht wirklich die Rede sein. Die Rückkehr zu den kapitalistischen Verteilungsverhältnissen des frühen 20. Jahrhunderts liegt also noch in weiter Ferne. Indirekt räumt Piketty dies sogar ein, wenn er in seinem Buch vom modernen Wachstum einer "patrimonialen Mittelklasse" spricht, die viel breiter ist als vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg. Allerdings befürchtet er, dass der Trend mit r>g sich in der Zukunft weiter fortsetzt und eher noch verschärft. Der Grund: Die Globalisierung der Finanzmärkte sorgt weltweit für unverändert hohe Kapitalrenditen, während das volkswirtschaftliche Wachstum in den Industrieländern durch die demographischen Kräfte eher zurückgehen wird. Die treibende Kraft der Ungleichheit bleibt also erhalten und wird eher noch stärker als in der Vergangenheit - eine düstere Prognose. Sie steht allerdings auf recht tönernen Füßen, denn sie verkennt die Möglichkeit eines grundlegenden Trendbruchs, der genau in die Gegenrichtung läuft und sich heute anbahnt. Dieser betrifft die Knappheit von Kapital und Arbeit - und damit der Preise: den Zins und den Lohn. Für diesen Trendbruch liegen längst starke Indizien vor, die Piketty weitestgehend außer Acht lässt.

Auf der Seite des Kapitals gibt es zunehmend Anzeichen, dass wir in ein Zeitalter global niedriger realer Renditen hineingleiten, worauf frühzeitig der deutsche Ökonom Carl Christian von Weizsäcker hingewiesen hat. Der Grund liegt in einer globalen Kapitalschwemme (Savings glut), die seit einigen Jahren zu beobachten ist. Deren Ursachen sind zweigeteilt: Zum einen sorgt überall die demographische Entwicklung mit zunehmender Lebenserwartung für eine größere Sparbereitschaft, zum anderen erweist es sich für schnell wachsende Entwicklungs- und Schwellenländer als außerordentlich schwierig, für Finanzkapital die nötige Bonität (Triple-A-Status) zu erreichen, um die überschüssigen Vermögensmassen zu absorbieren. Beide Ursachen sind in der Geschichte der Weltwirtschaft neu. Niemals zuvor hat es einen globalen Alterungsprozess wie heute gegeben; und niemals zuvor - auch nicht im 19. Jahrhundert - gab es eine derart große Diskrepanz zwischen dem überaus schnellen Wachstum großer Nationen, die sich industrialisieren, und ihrer Fähigkeit, durch interne Reformen glaubwürdige Institutionen aufzubauen, die für die wachsende Zahl und das wachsende Vermögen von in- und ausländischen Anlegern attraktiv sind. Gerade die globale Industrialisierung und Integration der Kapitalmärkte könnte also für sehr niedrige Realzinsen sorgen. Eine simple Fortschreibung des Trends, wie sie Piketty vornimmt, ist heutzutage nicht angemessen. Jedenfalls ist r>g in den nächsten Jahrzehnten alles andere als selbstverständlich, zumindest in den wohlhabenden Industrienationen.

Noch dramatischer wird die Wirkung der Veränderungen an den Arbeitsmärkten der wohlhabenden Industrieländer sein. Im Zuge der demographischen Entwicklung werden in den kommenden Jahrzehnten sehr geburtenstarke Jahrgänge - die Babyboomer - aus dem aktiven Arbeitsleben ausscheiden. Es wird dann zu einer Verknappung der Arbeitskraft kommen, ähnlich wie in den fünfziger und sechziger Jahren. In Deutschland ist dieser Trend im Ansatz schon heute erkennbar, genauso wie in Österreich, der Schweiz, Dänemark, Finnland und Schweden, die derzeit ein krisenfreies Wachstum erleben. Dort sind in jüngster Zeit die Reallöhne kräftig gestiegen. In den Krisenländern der Eurozone wird dieser Trend dagegen von starken makroökonomischen Störungen überlagert. Erst nach Auslaufen der Schuldenkrise dürften sich dann auch dort die demographischen Kräfte bemerkbar machen und zu einer Umverteilung zugunsten des Faktors Arbeit führen. Mit Blick auf Pikettys r>g heißt dies: Selbst wenn die gesamtwirtschaftliche Wachstumsrate (g) im Zukunftstrend relativ niedrig liegen sollte, kann die Zuwachsrate der Arbeitseinkommen deutlich höher ausfallen als die der Wertschöpfung. Jedenfalls spricht die Lage am Arbeitsmarkt stark dafür, dass die funktionale Aufteilung der Einkommen auf Kapital und Arbeit sich im Trend endlich wieder zugunsten der Arbeit verschiebt. Das wird auch die personelle Einkommensverteilung gleicher machen, zu Lasten der wohlhabenderen Bezieher von Kapitaleinkünften und zugunsten der weniger wohlhabenden Bezieher von Arbeitseinkommen, also in die Gegenrichtung zu Pikettys Prognose.

Die Verteilungswirkung der Knappheit von Arbeitskräften ist übrigens historisch überhaupt kein neues Phänomen. Sie zeigt sich gerade in jener langen "anomalen" Phase von 1914 bis in die siebziger Jahre, die Pikettys Gesetz eben nicht widerspiegelt. So sorgte der Erste Weltkrieg, so zynisch es klingen mag, durch Mobilisierung und Massensterben infolge von Krieg und Krankheiten für eine drastische Aufwertung der Gewerkschaftsmacht, die sich in steigenden Löhnen niederschlug - bis zur Weltwirtschaftskrise, die dann die Kapitaleinkünfte noch stärker traf als die Löhne. Nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg war es die Phase des überaus starken Wachstums, das ab Mitte der fünfziger Jahre zur Vollbeschäftigung führte und damit die Verhandlungsposition der Arbeitnehmer wieder drastisch verbesserte - mit dem Ergebnis, dass die Reallöhne kräftig anzogen, vor allem in den sechziger und frühen siebziger Jahren, als aus demographischen Gründen auch das Potential der Arbeitskräfte vorübergehend schrumpfte. Es bahnte sich deshalb eine durchaus scharfe Korrektur der Einkommens- und damit auch der Vermögensverteilung an, und zwar nicht durch staatliches Handeln, sondern durch marktwirtschaftliche Anpassung. Deutlicher Indikator dafür ist der international hochkorrelierte Anstieg der Lohnquoten, der in jener Zeit zu beobachten war.

Es ist merkwürdig, dass Thomas Piketty in seinem Buch der Entwicklung des Arbeitsmarkts kaum Beachtung schenkt, auch nicht mit Blick auf die Vergangenheit. Er übersieht deshalb, dass die reine "Marktmacht" des Kapitals im Vergleich zur Arbeit vieles von dem erklären kann, was er als ehernes Gesetz des Kapitalismus und Abweichungen davon betrachtet. So war in der langen Friedenszeit vor 1914 das kräftige Wirtschaftswachstum nur deshalb nicht mit einer Verbesserung der Einkommensverteilung zu Lasten des Kapitals verbunden, weil eine fast unbegrenzte Zahl von Arbeitskräften in den ländlichen Räumen Deutschlands, Frankreichs und anderer angehender Industrieländer in Kontinentaleuropa zur Verfügung stand - als industrielle Reservearmee, wie sie Karl Marx nannte. Ab den 1970er Jahren war es dann die große Generation der Babyboomer, die überall nach Arbeit Ausschau hielt - nach der industriellen Schrumpfung im Gefolge der Ölkrisen ab 1973 und 1980. In Deutschland kam dann später noch die Wiedervereinigung dazu, nochmals mit einem großen Angebot von gut ausgebildeten Menschen, die verzweifelt Arbeit suchten, möglichst an einem neuen modernen industriellen Kapitalbestand. Kein Wunder, dass dies ideale Zeiten für Kapitaleigner und schlechte für Arbeitskräfte waren. Aber diese Zeiten sind vorbei.

Vielleicht liegt hier - neben der Postulierung eherner Gesetze - der zweite Kardinalfehler, der Piketty in der Analyse der Geschichte und der Zukunft der Weltwirtschaft unterläuft: Er überschätzt die Macht der Politik, übrigens genauso wie seinerzeit Karl Marx. Er sieht einerseits den Kapitalismus in ehernen Gesetzen abrollen, und er will andererseits eine Politik, die diesem Kapitalismus mit Macht und Mut in die Speichen greift. Er übersieht dabei, dass die Politik letztlich auf die Knappheiten Rücksicht nehmen muss, die sich in einer Marktwirtschaft nun einmal ergeben, auch zwischen Kapital und Arbeit. Das ist in der Vergangenheit im Wesentlichen geschehen - sieht man einmal von den Großkatastrophen der Weltkriege und der Weltwirtschaftskrise im 20. Jahrhundert ab. Dies ist ein Glück, denn sonst hätte es gerade in den letzten Jahrzehnten weder den erfolgreichen Strukturwandel nach den Ölkrisen noch die Re-Integration Ostdeutschlands und Osteuropas in die Weltwirtschaft gegeben.

Pikettys politische Forderungen sind deshalb ökonomisch nicht gut begründet. Für eine starke Erhöhung der Steuern auf Einkommen, Vermögen und Nachlässe geben weder die historische Entwicklung noch die Zukunftsaussichten einen Anlass. Politisch und sozialphilosophisch sind sie ohnehin sehr fragwürdig: Wer in der Gesellschaft soll genau bestimmen, was im Sinne von Pikettys jakobinischer Meritokratie "verdient" und was "unverdient" ist? Die Geschichte lehrt, dass zu unterschiedlichen Zeiten der soziale Wert von Kapital- und Arbeitseinkünften auch unterschiedlich ausfällt, je nach Zinsen und Löhnen. Und dabei sollte es bleiben - aus ökonomischer Vernunft und politischer Überzeugung.

Eine Langfassung dieses Textes wird im nächsten Heft der "Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik" erscheinen.

Alle Rechte vorbehalten. © F.A.Z. GmbH, Frankfurt am Main…mehr
It seems safe to say that Capital in the Twenty-First Century, the magnum opus of the French economist Thomas Piketty, will be the most important economics book of the year-and maybe of the decade.
-- Paul Krugman New York Times
The book aims to revolutionize the way people think about the economic history of the past two centuries. It may well manage the feat.
-- The Economist
Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century is an intellectual tour de force, a triumph of economic history over the theoretical, mathematical modeling that has come to dominate the economics profession in recent years.
-- Steven Pearlstein Washington Post
Piketty has written an extraordinarily important book...In its scale and sweep it brings us back to the founders of political economy.
-- Martin Wolf Financial Times
A sweeping account of rising inequality...Piketty has written a book that nobody interested in a defining issue of our era can afford to ignore.
-- John Cassidy New Yorker
Stands a fair chance of becoming the most influential work of economics yet published in our young century. It is the most important study of inequality in over fifty years.
-- Timothy Shenk The Nation
At a time when the concentration of wealth and income in the hands of a few has resurfaced as a central political issue, Piketty doesn't just offer invaluable documentation of what is happening, with unmatched historical depth. He also offers what amounts to a unified field theory of inequality, one that integrates economic growth, the distribution of income between capital and labor, and the distribution of wealth and income among individuals into a single frame...Piketty has transformed our economic discourse; we'll never talk about wealth and inequality the same way we used to.
-- Paul Krugman New York Review of Books
The most remarkable work of economics in recent years, if not decades...The discipline of economics, Piketty argues, remains trapped in a juvenile passion for mathematics, divorced from history and its sister social sciences. His work aims to change that.
-- Nick Pearce New Statesman
Magnificent...Even though it is a work more concerned with the past 200 years, it's no coincidence that the full title of Piketty's book is Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Its ambition is to shape debates about the next two centuries, not the past two. And in that it may succeed.
-- Christopher Croke The Australian
Piketty's ground-breaking work on the historical evolution of income distribution is impressive...One of the best economic books in decades.
-- Paul Sweeney Irish Times
[Piketty] is just about to emerge as the most important thinker of his generation...He demonstrates that there is no reason to believe that capitalism can ever solve the problem of inequality, which he insists is getting worse rather than better. From the banking crisis of 2008 to the Occupy movement of 2011, this much has been intuited by ordinary people. The singular significance of his book is that it proves 'scientifically' that this intuition is correct. This is why his book has crossed over into the mainstream-it says what many people have already been thinking.
-- Andrew Hussey The Observer
The strength of Piketty's book is his close attention to the different sources of inequality, the massive documentation underpinning his history and conclusions, and his impressive culls from sociology and literature, which exhibit the richness of 'political economy' compared to its thin mathematical successor that has attained such prominence...A timely intervention in the current debate about inequality and its causes.
-- Robert Skidelsky Prospect
A monumental book that will influence economic analysis (and perhaps policymaking) in the years to come. In the way it is written and the importance of the questions it asks, it is a book the classic authors of economics could have written if they lived today and had access to the vast empirical material Piketty and his colleagues collected.
-- Branko Milanovic American Prospect
This book has all the makings of a classic. It has already changed the way economists think about inequality. One hopes that these ideas will percolate into the chambers of policy-makers in governments and lending institutions and bring about changes in their policies to reduce inequality.
-- K. Subramanian The Hindu
Piketty's book is revolutionary...[His] multi-century portrait of wealth and income obliterates economists' complacent narratives...We are still seeking an economy that is both vibrant and humane, where mutual advantage is real and mutual aid possible. The one we have isn't it.
-- Jedediah Purdy Los Angeles Review of Books
Piketty demonstrates in terrifying detail, with painstaking statistical research, that free-market capitalism, in the absence of major state redistribution, produces profound economic inequalities.
-- Michael Robbins Chicago Tribune
An extraordinary sweep of history backed by remarkably detailed data and analysis...Piketty's economic analysis and historical proofs are breathtaking.
-- Robert B. Reich The Guardian
Piketty's treatment of inequality is perfectly matched to its moment. Like [Paul] Kennedy a generation ago, Piketty has emerged as a rock star of the policy-intellectual world...But make no mistake, his work richly deserves all the attention it is receiving...By focusing attention on what has happened to a fortunate few among us, and by opening up for debate issues around the long-run functioning of our market system, Capital in the Twenty-First Century has made a profoundly important contribution.
-- Lawrence H. Summers Democracy
What makes Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century such a triumph is that it seems to have been written specifically to demolish the great economic shibboleths of our time...Piketty's magnum opus.
-- Thomas Frank Salon
Capital reflects decades of work in collecting national income data across centuries, countries, and class, done in partnership with academics across the globe. But beyond its remarkably rich and instructive history, the book's deep and novel understanding of inequality in the economy has drawn well-deserved attention...The book is an attempt to ground the debate over inequality in strong empirical data, put the question of distribution back into economics, and open the debate not just to the entirety of the social sciences but to people themselves.
-- Mike Konczal Boston Review
[A] 700-page punch in the plutocracy's pampered gut...It's been half a century since a book of economic history broke out of its academic silo with such fireworks.
-- Giles Whittell The Times
Thomas Piketty of the Paris School of Economics has done the definitive comparative historical research on income inequality in his Capital in the Twenty-First Century.
-- Paul Starr New York Review of Books
Bracing...Piketty provides a fresh and sweeping analysis of the world's economic history that puts into question many of our core beliefs about the organization of market economies. His most startling news is that the belief that inequality will eventually stabilize and subside on its own, a long-held tenet of free market capitalism, is wrong. Rather, the economic forces concentrating more and more wealth into the hands of the fortunate few are almost sure to prevail for a very long time.
-- Eduardo Porter New York Times
About as close to a blockbuster as there is in the world of economic literature-easily the most discussed book of its genre in years...Piketty challenges one of the underpinnings of modern democracies-namely, that growth and productivity make each generation better off than the previous one.
-- Barrie McKenna Globe and Mail
Piketty has unearthed the history of income distribution for at least the past hundred years in every major capitalist nation. It makes for fascinating, grim and alarming reading...Piketty gives us the most important work of economics since John Maynard Keynes's General Theory.
-- Harold Meyerson Washington Post
The strength of [Piketty's] thesis is that it is founded on evidence rather than ideology...What Piketty has done is provide a strong factual understanding for how modern capitalist economies diverge from the image of risk-taking and productive commercial activity. At the very least, the book effectively debunks the notion that there is an economic imperative for low tax rates and a smaller state.
-- Oliver Kamm The Times
Defies left and right orthodoxy by arguing that worsening inequality is an inevitable outcome of free market capitalism...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.
-- Thomas B. Edsall New York Times
Piketty's magnum opus...A lucid tale of why inequality in the world is increasing, and what we should be doing about it. The right leaning crowd may be dismayed with his prescriptions of stiff global wealth taxes, but neither leftists nor rightists can dispute the data that he presents.
-- Ajit Ranade Business Today
Anyone remotely interested in economics needs to read Thomas Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century.
-- Matthew Yglesias Slate
[A] timely, important book.
-- Joseph E. Stiglitz New York Times
Piketty's genius lies in proving that inequality is growing and potentially threatens widespread political instability...Piketty has written a trenchant critique of our current economic system.
-- Michael Washburn Boston Globe
Piketty has looked at centuries of tax archives to formulate a theory of capitalism that is evidence-based and rigorously researched, but also attempts to answer the most basic questions in economic theory...Capital in the Twenty-First Century is already being hailed as a seminal work of economic thought, and with very good reason.
-- Thomas Flynn Daily Beast
Piketty solidifies and gives an intellectual edge to the view that something is wrong here, and something new and bold and radical has got to be done...People like me, and others, are certainly excited by the prospect of where Piketty might take us.
-- Len McCluskey The Guardian
The book is a terrific achievement.
-- Alan Ryan Literary Review
One of the strengths of Piketty's book is the depth and rigor of his historical analysis. Yet it is changes taking place now that make his concerns especially urgent.
-- Andrew Neather London Evening Standard
There are books that you read and there are books that hit the nail on the head so hard that you want to get your teeth into them. Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century...clearly belongs to the second category.
-- Perry Lam South China Morning Post
[Piketty] has demolished the Western myth that all who work hard can expect success.
-- Mary Riddell The Telegraph
It's going to be remembered as the economic tome of our era. Basically, Piketty has finally put to death, with data, the fallacies of trickle down economics...We can only hope that the politicians crafting today's economic programs will take this book to heart.
-- Rana Foroohar Time online
Magisterial...This book is economics at its best.
-- Philip Roscoe Times Higher Education
[A] seminal work on capitalism.
-- Madan Sabnavis Financial Express
Piketty has shown that we are living in a Second Gilded Age...Nestled under the book's mass of data, elegant mathematical formulae, and literary references is an insistence that the turmoil of capitalism is a human turmoil, within the control of human beings. Piketty's book is a call to citizenship, not as a series of fatalistic poses, but as a political responsibility. That spirit of engagement is more radical, at this moment in history, than any other proposal.
-- Stephen Marche Los Angeles Review of Books
Piketty hits bullseye after bullseye about the exacerbating inequalities that disfigure society-especially American society...For [those] who suffer from the relentless blather about why the minimum wage cannot be raised; why 'job creators' cannot be taxed; and why American society remains the most open in the world, Piketty is what the doctor ordered.
-- Russell Jacoby New Republic
Riveting...[Piketty] embodies a model of engaged and sophisticated public debate, the sort of which politicians can only dream...Capital inequality has dispossessed us of our 'democratic sovereignty,' and that's something we should all really worry about...His book is as much a story about the limits of modern democratic politics as it is about the structures of inequality.
-- Duncan Kelly Times Literary Supplement
Very readable and often slyly witty...Piketty does economics in a new way; or more accurately, he returns to an older way...He argues that the degree of inequality is not just the product of economic forces; it is also the product of politics.
-- George Fallis Literary Review of Canada
Capital in the Twenty-First Century delivered a well placed kick up the backside to complacent mainstream economics.
-- Paul Mason The Observer
This book is the key to understanding how the automatic accumulation and concentration of wealth poses a threat to the peaceful economies in which entrepreneurs prosper.
-- Geoffrey James Inc.
Monumental...Translated beautifully by Arthur Goldhammer, [Capital in the Twenty-First Century]...smashed into the intellectual world with incredible force...One also has to admire the way Piketty marshals the data to create a sweeping historical narrative, in a style reminiscent of the great thinkers of the 19th century.
-- Ben Chu The Independent
Capital in the Twenty-First Century shows how privateers use privatization, debt creation and capital inflation as a mechanism for rent extraction, with catastrophic consequences for public services.
-- Allyson Pollock Times Higher Education
Piketty's great achievement, and one possible reason for the enthusiastic reception of his book, is his effective empirical demonstration of a fact long denied by neoclassical economics and its champions throughout the world: markets, when left to their own devices, do not provide individuals with rewards that are proportional to their efforts...[This book] effectively demolishes mainstream myths about the ability of markets to combat inequality.
-- Hassan Javid Dawn
Monumental...[Piketty] documents a sharp increase in such inequality over the last 25 years, not only in the United States, but also in Canada, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, China, India, Indonesia and South Africa, with people with the highest incomes far outstripping the rest of society. The book is impressive in its wealth of information.
-- Robert J. Shiller New York Times
[Piketty's] chief intellectual accomplishment is to show how the basic forces of capitalism tend inevitably toward an ever-greater accumulation of wealth at the tip of the pyramid...Piketty shows that the economics of the postwar era-when the West enjoyed strong, widely-shared growth-was a historical exception. For our Western democracies, it was also a political necessity. Capitalism is facing an existential challenge; smart plutocrats will be part of the solution.
-- Chrystia Freeland Politico
Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century is the most important economics book of the year, if not the decade...Capital in the Twenty-First Century essentially takes the existing debate on income inequality and supercharges it. It does so by asserting that in the long run the economic inequality that matters won't be the gap between people who earn high salaries and those who earn low ones, it will be the gap between people who inherit large sums of money and those who don't.
-- Matthew Yglesias Vox
Monumental...One of the most thorough and illuminating studies of capitalist economics since Karl Marx published the original Capital 150 years earlier.
-- Gary Gerstle Washington Post
Groundbreaking...The usefulness of economics is determined by the quality of data at our disposal. Piketty's new volume offers a fresh perspective and a wealth of newly compiled data that will go a long way in helping us understand how capitalism actually works.
-- Christopher Matthews Fortune.com
Piketty draws on a vast store of historical data to argue that the broad dissemination of wealth that occurred during the decades following World War I was not, as economists then mistakenly believed, a natural state of capitalist equilibrium, but rather a halcyon interval between Belle Époque inequality and the rising inequality of our own era...[His] most provocative argument is that the discrepancy between the high returns to capital and much more modest overall economic growth-briefly annulled during the mid-century-ensures that the gulf between the rich (who profit from capital investments) and the middle class (who depend chiefly on income from labor) will only continue to grow.
-- James Traub Foreign Policy online
Piketty's main point, and his new and powerful contribution to an old topic: as long as the rate of return exceeds the rate of growth, the income and wealth of the rich will grow faster than the typical income from work...If the ownership of wealth in fact becomes even more concentrated during the rest of the twenty-first century, the outlook is pretty bleak unless you have a taste for oligarchy...Wouldn't it be interesting if the United States were to become the land of the free, the home of the brave, and the last refuge of increasing inequality at the top (and perhaps also at the bottom)? Would that work for you?
-- Robert Solow New Republic
Argues that the great equalizing decades following World War II, which brought on the rise of the middle class in the United States, were but a historical anomaly. Armed with centuries of data, Piketty says the rich are going to continue to gobble up a greater share of income, and our current system will do nothing to reverse that trend.
-- Shaila Dewan New York Times Magazine
Though an heir to Tocqueville's tradition of analytic history, Thomas Piketty has a message that could not be more different: Unless we act, inequality will grow much worse, eventually making a mockery of our democratic institutions. With wealth more and more concentrated, countries racing to cut taxes on capital, and inheritance coming to rival entrepreneurship as a source of riches, a new patrimonial elite may prove as inevitable as Tocqueville once believed democratic equality was...Perhaps with this magisterial book, the troubling realities Piketty unearths will become more visible and the rationalizations of the privileged that sustain them less dominant. Like Tocqueville, Piketty has given us a new image of ourselves. This time, it's one we should resist, not welcome.
-- Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson American Prospect
A landmark book...which brings a ton of data to bear in reaching the commonsensical conclusion that inequality has to do with more than just blind market forces at work.
-- George Packer New Yorker blog
[Piketty] is now the most talked-about economist on the planet...The book analyzes hundreds of years of tax records from France, the U.K., the U.S., Germany and Japan to prove a simple idea: The rich really are getting richer. And their wealth doesn't trickle down. It trickles up...The stark historical consequences of unchecked inequality are at the heart of Capital.
-- Rana Foroohar Time
Magisterial...Piketty provides a sweeping, data-driven narrative about inequality trends in the United States and other Western economies over the past century or more, identifies a worrisome increase in income and wealth concentration in a small percentage of the population since 1980, and warns that this trend won't likely correct itself.
-- Chad Stone U.S. News & World Report online
Piketty's new book is an important contribution to understanding what we need to do to produce more growth, wider economic opportunity and greater social stability.
-- David Cay Johnston Al Jazeera America
The book has made everyone with a stake in capitalism sit up and take notice...[Piketty's] analysis should challenge Americans to rethink our notions of wealth and poverty and whether any semblance of 'equal opportunity' actually exists.
-- America
Capital in the Twenty-First Century is written in the tradition of great economic texts...This book is significant for its findings, as well as for how Piketty arrives at them. It's easy-and fun-to argue about ideas. It is much more difficult to argue about facts. Facts are what Piketty gives us, while pressing the reader to engage in the journey of sorting through their implications.
-- Heather Boushey American Prospect
How does a rigorous, seven-hundred page economic history become a lionized hit? Through the canny voice of professor Thomas Piketty, and his demystification of inherited wealth, Karl Marx's true legacy, and what we mean when we talk about monetary 'growth' and 'inequality.'
-- Barnes and Noble Review
When it comes to economics...you need to get yourself a hold of Capital in the Twenty-First Century...Piketty's study will have readers plotting capital's downfall because what it shows is that the growing inequalities we are seeing between the haves and have nots are endemic to the system...We are entering a new age of capital, he argues; a time, similar to the early 19th century, when many will live off their money. Without the need for work. Meanwhile, those without capital will always struggle to keep ahead of debts.
-- Thomas Quinn Big Issue
Intellectually hefty...Piketty has already engendered vigorous argument. Capital is an arduous climb, but the subject is equally weighty, and it demands our best analyses, proposals and dialogues. Capital is an essential volume in the conversation.
-- Earl Pike Cleveland Plain Dealer
An important book...which paints a compelling, and scary, picture of the deep forces driving toward ever greater inequality in the modern world. Piketty's historical focus adds power to his analysis of the trend toward greater financial inequality today.
-- Charles R. Morris Commonweal
This important and fascinating book surely ranks among the most influential economic analysis of recent decades.
-- Andrew Berg Finance & Development
Piketty has made his name central to serious discussions of inequality...[He] expands upon his empirical work of the last 10 years, while also setting forth a political theory of inequality. This last element of the book gives special attention to tax policy and makes some provocative suggestions-new and higher taxes on the very rich.
-- Joseph Thorndike Forbes
The most eagerly anticipated book on economics in many years.
-- Toby Sanger Globe and Mail
Is Piketty the new Karl Marx? Anybody who has read the latter will know he is not...Piketty has, more accurately, placed an unexploded bomb within mainstream, classical economics...The power of Piketty's work is that it also challenges the narrative of the center-left under globalization, which believed upskilling the workforce, combined with mild redistribution, would promote social justice. This, Piketty demonstrates, is mistaken. All that social democracy and liberalism can produce, with their current policies, is the oligarch's yacht co-existing with the food bank forever. Piketty's Capital, unlike Marx's Capital, contains solutions possible on the terrain of capitalism itself.
-- Paul Mason The Guardian
The big questions that concerned Mill, Marx and Smith are now rearing their heads afresh...Thomas Piketty-who spent long years, during which the mainstream neglected inequality, mapping the distribution of income-is making waves with Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Nodding at Marx, that title helps explain the attention, but his decidedly classical emphasis on historical dynamics in determining who gets what resonates in a world where an increasing proportion of citizens are feeling fleeced by the elite.
-- The Guardian
A big book in every sense of the word, using empirical evidence from 30 countries to describe how capitalism has evolved over the past 300 years and is now reverting to what Piketty calls the Downton Abbey world of a century ago...It is rare for economics books to fly off the shelves. Once in every generation, usually when the world has started to recover after a serious recession, there is a search for answers. Will Hutton's The State We're In was the must-buy book two decades ago just as Piketty's is today.
-- The Guardian blog
Piketty says he wants the book to be widely read and his ideas debated. He has succeeded. Questions of economic theory have now reached an uncommonly large audience. One could, of course, fill a book twice the size with the reviews and the commentary Capital has prompted. But there is a better way into the debate than consuming the Piketty media phenomenon: spend a little valuable capital and read the original yourself.
-- Ben Chu The Independent
The enthusiastic reception in the United States of Piketty's rigorous Capital in the Twenty-First Century, which answers the empirical spirit of the age with a welcome rush of statistics, may be a promising sign of renewal in the otherwise sedate intellectual pastures of the continent. To have made the word 'redistribution' utterable again by mainstream economists is already a considerable achievement...An unignorable account of the history of inequality in capitalist democracies.
-- Thomas Meaney and Yascha Mounk The Nation
Not since John Rawls's A Theory of Justice in 1971 has a work of political theory been as rapturously received on the left as Thomas Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century...In this supposedly superficial and anti-intellectual age, his 690-page treatise on inequality, rich in empirical research, has resonated because it speaks to one of the central anxieties of our time: that society is becoming ever more fragmented as the very rich pull away from the rest.
-- New Statesman
Piketty, a prominent economist, explains the tendency in mature societies for wealth to concentrate in a few hands.
-- Amy Merrick New Yorker
[Piketty] has written a 700 page book on inequality which has achieved something few would have thought possible. He has rocked the neo-liberal economic establishment to its foundations...Even some of the most ideologically blinkered of free market economists, having read this book, now openly admit that Professor Piketty has laid down a challenge which they dare not ignore and which could change the political environment.
-- John Palmer Red Pepper
Drawing on hundreds of years of economic data (some of which has only recently become available to researchers) Piketty reaches a simple but disturbing conclusion: In the long run, the return on capital tends to be greater than the growth rate of the economies in which that capital is located...Readers can already guess the dire conclusion that flows from combining Piketty's theory with the plausible assumption that unregulated wealth leads to plutocracy: If the only way to avoid plutocracy would be to employ political processes that the plutocrats themselves will eventually buy lock, stock and barrel, then the only way to avoid being ruled by the Lords of Capital is to become one of them.
-- Paul Campos Salon
[Piketty] has been perhaps the most important thinker on inequality of the past decade or so...Capital will change the political conversation in a more subtle way as well, by focusing it on wealth, not income.
-- Jordan Weissmann Slate
There is a huge amount to admire and welcome in this book...Like the radicals of the 1790s, who toasted Edmund Burke in gratitude for the fundamental debate his writings on the French Revolution had provoked, even those who find Piketty's remedies unpalatable and in some ways worse than the disease he is trying to cure should nevertheless applaud his industry, his acuity, and his humane commitment to the ideal of rational, temperate and informed public debate.
-- David Womersley Standpoint
Clearly written, ambitious in scope, rooted in economics but drawing on insights from related fields like history and sociology, Piketty's Capital resembles nothing so much as an old-fashioned work of political economy by the likes of Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Karl Marx, or John Maynard Keynes...The book's major strength lies in Piketty's ability to see the big picture. His original and rigorously well-documented insights into the deep structures of capitalism show us how the dynamics of capital accumulation have played out historically over the past three centuries, and how they're likely to develop in the century to come.
-- Kathleen Geier Washington Monthly
After receiving widespread attention in his native France, Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century has received even greater attention on this side of the Atlantic, and deservedly so. It offers a stark and depressing picture for those who believe that some combination of democratic politics and economic growth can protect us from rampant inequality.
-- Kenneth Scheve and David Stasavage Washington Post blog
Painstakingly details the dynamics of wealth and income inequality throughout the last two centuries, and offers a somewhat grim picture of the future of economic inequality. Along the way, Piketty also offers his theory of the cause of exploding executive pay and how we can successfully combat this destructive trend.
-- Matt Bruenig The Week
It's a brilliant, surprisingly readable work that synthesizes a staggering amount of careful research to make the case that income inequality is no accident...[Piketty] has starkly and convincingly outlined the stakes for future generations. Either we'll have a new birth of reformed capitalism...or we'll have wealth concentration on such a colossal scale that it will threaten the democratic order.
-- Ryan Cooper The Week
It is a great work, a fearsome beast of analysis stuffed with an awesome amount of empirical data, and will surely be a landmark study in economics.
-- The Week
Rarely does a book come along...that completely alters the paradigm through which we frame our worldview. Thomas Piketty's magisterial study of the structure of capitalism since the 18th century, Capital in the 21st Century, is such a book...This book is more than a must read. It is a manual for action that provides a fresh framework for the new politics of the 21st century.
-- Nathan Gardels The WorldPost
[An] enormously important book.
-- Doug Henwood Bookforum
Essential reading for citizens of the here and now. Other economists should marvel at how that plain language can be put to work explaining the most complex of ideas, foremost among them the fact that economic inequality is at an all-time high-and is only bound to grow worse.
-- Kirkus Reviews
An explosive argument.
-- Liberation
A seminal book on the economic and social evolution of the planet... A masterpiece.
-- Emmanuel Todd Marianne
Outstanding... A political and theoretical bulldozer.
-- Mediapart
The book of the season.
-- Telerama
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.
-- 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
This is a truly path-breaking book offering a hard-hitting and well-founded critique of capitalism in the twenty-first century...Piketty shows himself to be not only a supereconomist but also a skilled politician. No wonder his thoughts have resonated even at the highest political levels. One can only hope that his work will actually influence adoption of his policy recommendations.
-- Christel Lane LSE Review of Books
As befits a book of such size, Capital is broad-ranging, both historically and geographically...Impressive.
-- William Keegan The Tablet
Piketty is offering something fresh in the discourse: an unimaginably massive data-set that traces the ebb and flow of wealth and productivity around the globe for three centuries...It's a rare thing to see economists, especially pro-capitalist economists, praising taxation itself, but Piketty-careful, unemotional Piketty-dares...Besides, he says, the thing every red-blooded entrepreneur wants to see is people getting rich by their wits and deeds, not by the birthright of kings.
-- Cory Doctorow Boing Boing
A book of such magisterial sweep...Piketty deserves huge credit for kickstarting a debate about inequality and illuminating the distribution of income and wealth.
-- Stephanie Flanders The Guardian
Seven hundred pages on the evolution of inequality in economically advanced societies by the most fashionable new theorist to emerge for a long time. Many have been waiting for such a comprehensive critique of capitalism.
-- David Sexton Evening Standard
[A] most unlikely best seller, a crossover from the world of scholarship into general public discussion of a kind that seems rarer than it used to be. The book's thesis-that economic inequality in the developed world is increasing, with potentially dire consequences for social justice and democratic governance-has struck a nerve in the American body politic. But its implications extend beyond the realm of political economy...The book invites the re-examination of deeply held assumptions about the world.
-- A. O. Scott New York Times
Using sophisticated computer modeling and analyses, the professor from the Paris School of Economics debunks a long-held assumption-that income from wages will tend to grow at roughly the same rate as wealth-and instead makes a compelling case that, over time, the apparatus of capitalism grows wealth faster than wages. Result: Inequality between the wealthy and everyone else will widen faster and faster; and, without progressive taxation, his data show we'll return to levels of inequality not seen since America's Gilded Age.
-- Dean Paton YES!
The depth and range of evidence Piketty marshals allows him to deliver a devastating blow to the confidence of many economists that capitalism is a tide that gradually lifts all boats. In the process, he mounts an effective critique of the tendency of economic writers on both left and right to rely on theories and formal systems...His book challenges both mainstream economists' faith in untested mathematical models, as well as radicals' resistance to subjecting Marx's economic theory to rigorous testing.
-- Michael W. Clune Chronicle of Higher Education
In this monumental, vitally important work, [Piketty] forces us to reconsider what we think we know about the baseline functioning of capitalist economies over the long haul, and to grapple with the implications for ourselves and our times...Nearly every page of the book rewards a careful reading with new insights and intriguing questions.
-- Matthew Carnes America
We are in danger of entering into an era that, like the 19th century in France and England, is socially and politically dominated by those with vast amounts of inherited wealth...Piketty's book is important because of the way he has clarified the magnitude of the problem and its dangers. And he has done so at a time of increasing soul-searching about the role technology plays in exacerbating inequality.
-- David Rotman Technology Review
This past July, I felt compelled to read Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century after reading several reviews and hearing about it from friends. I'm glad I did. I encourage you to read it too...I agree with his most important conclusions, and I hope his work will draw more smart people into the study of wealth and income inequality.
-- Bill Gates Gates Notes
[Piketty's] overarching theme-that increased income disparity as a threat to democratic capitalism-remains prominent...His concerns about social unrest cannot be ignored.
-- James Halteman Christian Century
[A] sweeping study of wealth in the modern world...Full of insights but free of dogma, this is a seminal examination of how entrenched wealth and intractable inequality continue to shape the economy.
-- Publishers Weekly
The best business book on economics of the year.
-- Daniel Gross strategy+business
Throws much light upon one of the most important questions in economics: what determines the distribution of income and wealth. With an abundance of data and some simple and powerful theories, Piketty has made an immensely important contribution to the public debate.
-- Martin Wolf Financial Times
The year's most popular and controversial book.
-- Roland White Sunday Times
Marx believed that free markets produce inequality, social division and violence. Piketty appears to side with Marx, but this is deceptive. When Piketty talks about 'capital,' he means the kind of investments held by today's leisured rentier class whose money is tied up in property and pensions. Piketty argues that a free market overloaded with this kind of capital may or may not lead to anger and alienation, but it will certainly act like lumpy blockages in the smooth running of the economy. Piketty only wants the economy to work better.
-- Nicholas Blincoe The Telegraph
Capital in the 21st Century is arguably the most important popular economics book in recent memory. It will take its place among other classics in the field that have survived changing theoretical and political fashions, such as its namesake by Karl Marx (Das Kapital, 1867) or other ambitiously titled books such as John Maynard Keynes's The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936). Anyone who wants to engage in an informed discussion about the economic landscape will have to read Piketty.
-- Kate Bahn Women's Review of Books
Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century laid bare the deep structural forces that have made our brave new neoliberal economic order so dangerously topheavy and unstable.
-- Chris Lehmann In These Times
The extraordinary resonance of Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century suggests that inequality has become the most pressing economic issue of our time.
-- Michael Rosen Times Literary Supplement
[Piketty's] magnum opus, which kicked off years of debate over the causes of and potential solutions for deep poverty in wealthy societies.
-- Martin Wolk Los Angeles Times
Piketty presents the problem of inequality afresh, using new forms of historical narration and explanation that cut across disciplines and theoretical frameworks.
-- William Davies London Review of Books
Capital in the Twenty-First Century looks back in order to look forward, plumbing economic patterns from the 18th century onward and homing in on the staggering inequities that dominate our age.
-- Hamilton Cain The Atlantic

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