What are the grand dynamics that drive the accumulation and distribution
of capital? Questions about the long-term evolution of inequality, the
concentration of wealth, and the prospects for economic growth lie at
the heart of political economy. But satisfactory answers have been hard
to find for lack of adequate data and clear guiding theories. In
Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Piketty analyzes a unique
collection of data from twenty countries, ranging as far back as the
eighteenth century, to uncover key economic and social patterns. His
findings will transform debate and set the agenda for the next
generation of thought about wealth and inequality.
Piketty shows that modern economic growth and the diffusion of knowledge
have allowed us to avoid inequalities on the apocalyptic scale predicted
by Karl Marx. But we have not modified the deep structures of capital
and inequality as much as we thought in the optimistic decades following
World War II. The main driver of inequality--the tendency of returns on
capital to exceed the rate of economic growth--today threatens to
generate extreme inequalities that stir discontent and undermine
democratic values. But economic trends are not acts of God. Political
action has curbed dangerous inequalities in the past, Piketty says, and
may do so again.
A work of extraordinary ambition, originality, and rigor, Capital in
the Twenty-First Century reorients our understanding of economic
history and confronts us with sobering lessons for today.
