Scribe Publications Nature, Culture, and Inequality.

by Thomas Piketty

Un análisis certero de las causas de las desigualdades y una propuesta cabal para abordar el problema.  Una perspectiva comparada e histórica Síntesis de sus investigaciones sobre las desigualdades económicas, este certero texto de Thomas Piketty analiza cuestiones como la educación, la herencia, la fiscalidad y la persistente brecha de género, a la vez que subraya la necesidad de reducir drásticamente los desequilibrios Norte-Sur como condición para luchar contra el calentamiento global. Frente a la desesperanza y el conformismo, el autor nos recuerda que el camino hacia la igualdad se ha construido siempre sobre las luchas políticas y sociales.

Genres: Economics, Politics, Nonfiction, History, Sociology, Philosophy, Political Science

52 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 2024

About the author

Thomas Piketty (French: [tɔma pikɛti]; born May 7, 1971) is a French economist who works on wealth and income inequality. He is the director of studies at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) and professor at the Paris School of Economics. He is the author of the best selling book Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2013), which emphasizes the themes of his work on wealth concentrations and distribution over the past 250 years. The book argues that the rate of capital return in developed countries is persistently greater than the rate of economic growth, and that this will cause wealth inequality to increase in the future. To address this problem, he proposes redistribution through a global tax on wealth.

Piketty was born on May 7, 1971, in the Parisian suburb of Clichy. He gained a C-stream (scientific) Baccalauréat, and after taking scientific preparatory classes, he entered the École Normale Supérieure (ENS) at the age of 18, where he studied mathematics and economics. At the age of 22, Piketty was awarded his Ph.D. for a thesis on wealth redistribution, which he wrote at the EHESS and the London School of Economics under Roger Guesnerie.

After earning his PhD, Piketty taught from 1993 to 1995 as an assistant professor in the Department of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1995, he joined the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) as a researcher, and in 2000 he became director of studies at EHESS.

Piketty won the 2002 prize for the best young economist in France, and according to a list dated November 11, 2003, he is a member of the scientific orientation board of the association "À gauche, en Europe", founded by Michel Rocard and Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

In 2006 Piketty became the first head of the Paris School of Economics, which he helped set up. He left after a few months to serve as an economic advisor to Socialist Party candidate Ségolène Royal during the French presidential campaign. Piketty resumed teaching at the Paris School of Economics in 2007.

He is a columnist for the French newspaper Libération, and occasionally writes op-eds for Le Monde.

In April 2012, Piketty co-authored along with 42 colleagues an open letter in support of then-PS candidate for the French presidency François Hollande. Hollande won the contest against the incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy in May of that year.

In 2013, Piketty won the biennial Yrjö Jahnsson Award, for the economist under age 45 who has "made a contribution in theoretical and applied research that is significant to the study of economics in Europe."

Piketty specializes in economic inequality, taking a historic and statistical approach. His work looks at the rate of capital accumulation in relation to economic growth over a two hundred year spread from the nineteenth century to the present. His novel use of tax records enabled him to gather data on the very top economic elite, who had previously been understudied, and to ascertain their rate of accumulation of wealth and how this compared to the rest of society and economy. His most recent book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, relies on economic data going back 250 years to show that an ever-rising concentration of wealth is not self-correcting. To address this problem, he proposes redistribution through a global tax on wealth.

Reviews

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nature, Culture, and Inequality: A Comparative and Historical Perspective, by Thomas Piketty, is a small conglomeration of Piketty's thoughts and philosophy as a quick read. The incredible Capital and Ideology, one of the best books on economics, history and political thought in the modern era (in my opinion) is a beast to read. Piketty here has summarized his thoughts from Capital and from A Brief History of Equality, in a short read easily digestible for the average reader. The book gives a short historical perspective on wealth inequality, and wealth distribution in societies globally, focusing on France, the US, UK and other countries at times. Piketty also looks at progressive taxation, and climate change and the distribution of CO2 emissions in society. The trends are quite clear - the world has gotten more unequal, largely due to Reaganomics, notably the lowering of income tax for top income earners, and the lowering of estate taxes. The United States in particular, had an approximately 80% income tax on top income earners up to the 1980's. During this period of progressive taxation, the US was the most influential economy in the world, and their domestic and international industrial sector and trade networks were sophisticated, and benefited domestic workers. Today, this has reversed. The US economy is stagnating, and has been since the era of Reaganomics. US products are largely made overseas, and are of terrible quality. And wealth in that country is becoming highly concentrated in the coffers of tech billionaires and grifters of all sorts. The US has made a real mess of things, and the world takes note of this failure.

Piketty argues for a better system. He looks at the term "socialism" - one that evokes fits of madness in many Western countries. To him, socialism is a system that works to fairly distribute public resources (so healthcare, education, infrastructure etc.) as equally as possible. Piketty notes that true equality is quite likely impossible, and notes that the more equal a societies resource distribution, the higher the quality of living is for the average citizen. To me, this seems much more democratic than the "grab what you can and screw everyone else" mentality that the post-1980's capitalist sphere has constructed. Clearly, we can see that the impact on the average person is harsh, and they respond in kind through their votes. Many voters blame democracy for their issues, where it is the economic systems that seem to generate the most inequality. Hopefully, folks will put two and two together one day, and note that the iconoclastic political rhetoric of the modern world strives only for the advantage of the privileged.

A great little read if you are looking for a quick summation of Piketty's work and political philosophy, and certainly a must read for those interested in social democracy and progressive reform in democratic nations.

[Arturo · Rating 4 out of 5]

más radicalizado que ayer, menos que mañana ✊🏻

[Doctor Moss · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my first go at Piketty. I confess I was attracted to this as a short book, maybe a readable introduction before I could commit myself to his larger works

Piketty’s perspective on inequality is in some ways distinctively French, although the relevance of his thought is general. He tracks a centuries-long European and North American historical trend away from gross inequality beginning in 1789 with the French Revolution. Unlike the American revolution of more or less the same time, the French Revolution was a revolution against economic and social inequality. The American revolution certainly had aspects of the same, but it was a colonial rebellion, one that comes down to us as focussed on self-government and national freedom.

Piketty is an economist, and most of his remarks here pertain to economic equality and inequality. But, as we'll see, economic equality is entwined with other equalities such as political equality, rights, educational opportunities, and many more. While I'd resist an economic reductionism, the connections are all there.

Piketty raises a number of questions regarding equality and inequality. I’ll talk about these three:

- How egalitarian are we?
- Is equality in and of itself good?
- Is inequality inevitable or natural?

So, for the first — how egalitarian are we?

That egalitarian trend that Piketty documents ends in the late twentieth century, corresponding to tax and other policy changes, especially in Great Britain and the United States. As one example, Piketty offers a graph of US effective tax rates (i.e., all taxes actually paid), showing remarkably progressive tax rates in the period from the Great Depression through the 1950s. Effective tax rates on the highest incomes ranged well above 70%.

Progressive rates survived into the 1980s, until the Reagan era Tax Reform Act of 1986, when the spread between rates for high and low income earners was significantly reduced. While formal tax schedules reflect some legacy of progressive policy, those rates are nullified by the vagaries of deductions, credits, and other tax benefits available to higher income earners, with effective tax rates for all income earners more or less equalizing around 30% (I haven’t validated Piketty’s data on this, but he does provide his sources for critical eyes).

Of course, the fairness of progressive taxation can be debated. Why should higher earners be “penalized” in terms of having to pay a higher proportion of their earnings in taxes? The convergence at 30% could itself be considered egalitarian.

Part of the answer of course is that wealth isn’t just money. What is distributed unequally as a result of inegalitarian income and wealth distributions ranges broadly to include political and legislative influence, educational opportunities, social standing, and other sources of advantage. In particular, advantages in wealth provide the ability to tilt the economic game in one’s favor in order to gain more relative wealth, with a repeating and rising cycle of advantage following.

Inside the numbers, as Piketty notes, are other sources of inequality, especially gender and race. He rightly notes that common comparisons of male and female earnings for specific jobs or types of jobs miss inequalities at an aggregate level. Even if male and female lawyers earned similar incomes, there would still be inequalities arising from the relative numbers of male and female lawyers in the workplace.

Instead Piketty offers aggregate income levels by gender. Those numbers show an upward trend in equality across gender in Latin America, North America, Europe, and Asia (excepting China), although the highest female shares of income are still significantly under 50% and barely reach 20% in Asia. Equality across gender is in decline in China and although on a slow pace of increase in the Middle East and North Africa, there female share remains well under 20%.

Is equality in and of itself good?

Piketty doesn’t have much to say on the justice of equality in and of itself. Certainly, little argument should be needed about equality in distribution of rights, although execution is lacking.

Let’s go back though and look at inequality of wealth from a more instrumental perspective.

That 1986 change in US tax policy was justified as a spur to entrepreneurship and innovation, providing greater incentive to build and grow businesses with greater rewards for doing so. Did it do that?

Apparently not. Since 1990 US GDP growth has been about half what it was in previous years. But in a falling tide, not all boats run aground, as it turns out. Income growth at the top, as is well known now, accelerated while lower income levels stagnated. What growth did occur did not benefit most people.

Piketty does not cite evidence from Bartels’ studies in his 2008 book, Unequal Democracy, but there Bartels showed that, when income earners are divided into top through bottom thirds (so excluding a special class for the very top earners), all categories of earners historically do better during periods of declining inequality.

There is at least an instrumental case to be made for egalitarianism.

Is inequality inevitable or natural?

Reading our own American political mind, we seem to think it is both inevitable and natural. There is a sorting out by choices, abilities, and effort. That’s a big part of our national economic story, at least as told by the winners.

The trends in income and wealth mentioned above demonstrate at least that growing inequality, if not inequality per se, is not inevitable. We did, in the US, trend ourselves toward more equal wealth and its consequences, granted that we did so with notably slower trends relating to gender and race. On the surface, it looks like it took the Great Depression to kick that trend into gear, but it happened.

Piketty presents a short case study of Sweden for a dramatic demonstration of how inegalitarianism can be reversed. Sweden is now thought of as one of the most if not the most egalitarian of European nations. But prior to World War I, Sweden had a pretty galling electoral system. Only the wealthiest 20% of the male population, based on property ownership, was eligible to vote. What’s more, votes within that select group were apportioned, at the local township level, by degree of wealth. In some townships, one especially wealthy individual controlled over 50% of the votes, including votes for electors for general election at the national level.

And just to add to the imbalances, and to that cycle of advantages associated with wealth, corporations also were eligible to vote, again proportional to wealth measured by investment and income.

That sounds like a self-perpetuating system of advantage. But beginning around 1920, Sweden underwent dramatic reforms, with universal suffrage leading to the election of a Social Democratic government, followed by greater egalitarian change, including progressive taxation and other measures. As Piketty notes, it was not perfect, but Sweden did peacefully and without authoritarian rule bring about dramatic changes over a few decades.

We can argue about Sweden’s economic and political character, but the pace and scope of change argues that inegalitarianism can be reversed. The changes in the US, judged by the rise of the middle class, progressive taxation, and extension of voting rights during a similar time period, although recently in retreat, seem complementary.

This is a long review of a short book, so let me cut to the end.

At the end of the book, Piketty focuses in on the role of inequality in responding to climate change. His data show exactly what we should expect, that the highest contributions to carbon emission come from a small group of emitters, also not surprisingly correlated with high wealth. His conclusion from the data is not surprising either, that reductions and other means of combatting climate change will need to be borne unequally — asking all emitters (at the national or individual level) to contribute equal percentages of reduction would be both unfair and ineffective. Large emitters will need to bear the larger burden.

Twist your mind around that play of equality before you go on. The burden will need to be borne unequally, but in equal proportionality — the burden for each emitter will need to be proportional to the emitter’s contribution to the problem.

Piketty does not think that we can meet the challenges of climate change without changes in the play of interests and incentives. In particular he argues for focussed efforts to increase egalitarian change on both international levels and within nations, to blunt the advantages currently held by emitters. Otherwise, the self-perpetuating cycle of advantage will resist the needed changes.

In the current American climate, there’s not a lot of room for Piketty’s arguments. Piketty is arguing for bringing more sectors of national economies into the public sphere where the advantages of wealth, market power, and political influence to help grow additional wealth and market power, can be tamed. We aren’t headed in that direction.

Piketty is a socialist. “Socialism” means something very different to French and European ears than it does to American ears. Piketty is a socialist, but he is also a democrat, with a strong emphasis on participatory democracy and strong opposition to central planning.

To American ears, socialism and democracy don’t mix. In part this is the peculiar consequence of our political discourse — “socialism” and “communism” are more or less synonymous and associated with the oppressive governments of the Soviet Union, the bread lines, mass political imprisonments, mass killings, and totalitarian control. Our allergy to “socialism” is such that support for a robust public education system, much less universal healthcare, is tainted. And we often, if not consistently, react to taxes and other ways of supporting the common good as one person having to pay for someone else’s benefit — coerced self-sacrifice at best and theft at worst. We have a default allergy to the public good publicly supported and managed.

The allergy is so strong that even the champion of free market economics, Milton Friedman, appeared reluctant to go as far as we seem to have gone. In his influential 1970 New York Times article, “A Friedman Doctrine,” he considered exceptions to his claim that profitability can be the only legitimate “social responsibility” of corporate management — “A group of persons might establish a corporation for an eleemosynary [i.e., charitable] purpose—for example, a hospital or school. The manager of such a corporation will not have money profit as his objective but the rendering of certain services.”

The kinds of changes Piketty believes to be necessary are going to require changes to that ideological discourse. That won’t be easy. No, we won’t be electing a “socialist” government or even a "social democratic" one. We don’t need to. But we do need to find a way to address inequality and its consequences if we are to meet the challenges of growth, individual opportunity, and the common good.

[Julian Worker · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the kind of book that I wish Gary Stevenson would write.

It's a short but powerful examination of one of the world's major economic problems, in fact the major economic problem, and that is inequality.

Inequality shows itself in many ways including wealth, income, education, and debt.

Thomas Piketty explains and shows (there are plenty of graphs) how inequality hurts many millions of people around the world and why some nations are more prone to inequality than others.

Piketty also provides solutions to the problems that humanity is encountering right now and it's to be hoped that countries start implementing these ideas otherwise inequality will get continue to get worse.

[Xirmiri · Rating 4 out of 5]

muy de sentido común, pero super útil tener datos tan concretos. menos mal que los gráficos tenían interpretación escrita.

[asih simanis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nature, Culture, and Inequality is a short yet impactful book—just 82 pages—by one of today’s leading economic thinkers, Thomas Piketty. As always, he tackles the issue of inequality head-on, breaking it down into 13 concise chapters. He begins with the question, Are there naturally occurring inequalities? (spoiler: of course not), before tracing the progress toward equality and exploring different dimensions of inequality—income, wealth, gender. He then zooms in on Europe, analyzing what different countries got right (and wrong) in addressing inequality, with Sweden serving as a good case study, that was able to transform itself from a quite in equal society—to one of the leading egalitarian country in the world. In the later chapters, he discusses key mechanisms for reducing inequality, such as education, legal rights, and progressive taxation, before closing with a discussion on one of the welfare state’s biggest opponent—national debt—and returning to the book’s central theme: the nature of inequality.

I picked up this book because I loved Piketty’s A Brief History of Equality, his more accessible distillation of the much denser Capital in the 21st Century (696 pages!). Piketty, to me, is a sobering voice in our fast-paced, market-driven world, where consumers, products, and markets take center stage instead of people. Reading him is a reminder—grounded in evidence—that a more socialist perspective isn’t just wishful thinking but an achievable goal.

This book is exactly that: a concise yet powerful reminder of Piketty’s key arguments, backed by updated data (including 18 beautifully presented figures, which I really appreciated). At just 82 pages, it’s something you can finish in one sitting—on a long train ride or a flight. It may not be a masterpiece, but it’s an easy entry point or a refresher on inequality. That said, I wouldn’t call it the best introduction to Piketty’s work, but with its brevity, it’s certainly a less intimidating starting point.

[flo🌀 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Zunächst sei gesagt: Der Inhalt des Buches ist unglaublich lesenswert, die Daten zur wirtschaftlichen Ungleichheit der verschiedenen Einkommensschichten (Ärmste 50%, Mittlere 40%, Oberste 10%) in vielerlei Punkten (Einkommen, Vermögen, Geschlecht, Bildung, CO2-Emissionen,…) und deren Erkenntnisse der historischen Entwicklung sollte jeder mal gesehen und verinnerlicht haben. Es zeigt sehr gut, dass Ungleichheit häufig eben doch eine Frage des politischen (Un)willens ist und der Schlüssel zu einer egalitären Gesellschaft in den Händen der Bildung liegt.

Nichtsdestotrotz liefert Piketty hier wenig neues. Das Buch wirkt wie eine sehr derivative Version von „Eine kurze Geschichte der Gleichheit“, schließlich stammen die allermeisten Abbildungen auch aus genanntem Werk. Zudem wird es seinen deskriptiven Charakter nie los. Klar, es ist auch als „Betrachtung“ gedacht - das ändert allerdings nichts daran, dass ich mir beim Lesen ständig viel mehr tiefere ökonomische Analyse und Lösungsansätze gewünscht habe.

Also: Hier gibt es nichts zu sehen für all jene, die schon den ein oder anderen Piketty gelesen haben. Für jemanden, der sich allerdings einen sanften Einstieg für die Auseinandersetzung mit Themen wie Einkommensverteilung, Vermögensverteilung und soziale Ungleichheit wünscht, ist dieses kleine Büchlein perfekt.

[SergioEavesDropping]

Me han impactado los datos sobre desigualdad en el sector de la educación

[Gordon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thomas Piketty is probably the preeminent academic in the field of economic inequality, having secured this position with the publication of his Capital in the 21st Century, published in 2014. The book was a huge bestseller and also physically huge. His latest work is roughly one 10th of the length, at only 82 pages. This is a tremendous feat of concision, especially for a French intellectual.

The gist of his case is that the world has generally shifted towards greater equality, with some notable exceptions such as the United States. Most of the progress has come from a shift of wealth and income from the top 10% to the next 40%. The bottom 50% haven't benefited much at all. One of the most startling points that he makes is that there is no country on earth where the bottom 50% of the population owns as much as 5% of their country's wealth! Makes you wonder why revolutions from below aren't more common.

When inequality has been reduced, it's been driven by three main forces:
1) Better public services notably education, health care and pensions
2) progressive income tax systems
3) progressive inheritance taxes

As for inequality in the US, having fallen for half a century during the period 1932-1980, it sharply reversed course under the 8 years of the Reagan administration and has generally worsened since. Reagan and his successors knocked out two of the three forces above, essentially killing inheritance taxes altogether for 99.8% of the population, and cutting top tax rates for the wealthy in half. In fact, looking at effective US federal tax rates including both income taxes and payroll taxes, the rich and the poor now pay virtually the same rates. There is very little progressiveness left in the tax system.

Another factor explaining the growth of inequality in the US has been the health insurance system. Despite the improvements brought by Obamacare in providing something closer to the universal coverage offered in every other developed country, that coverage is still far from universal. About 10% of the population lacks coverage and many states actively block the federal government's attempts to expand coverage in their states. Democratic state administrations like universal health care; Republican ones do not, whatever their voters may want. The overall result is that the US spends about twice as much per person on health care delivery as the average spending of other developed countries, while Americans have a life expectancy roughly 5 years shorter! The bottom 50% of the population does particularly poorly under this system, draining their wealth and cutting their lives short.

A key argument of the book is that there is nothing pre-ordained about the differences in levels of inequality between different countries. There are many historical factors that explain it, such as a history of colonization, patterns of landholding, the nature of their political system, and so on. But Piketty focuses on the compelling example of Sweden, a country that until the early 20th century was highly unequal both economically and politically. Political inequality was so extreme that only 20% of the male population was allowed to vote. And the number of votes that they were allocated was based on how wealthy they were, such that one man might have a hundred votes and another might have only one. Yet from the 1930s onwards, with the election of the Social Democratic party which held power for the next 50 years or so, the country developed its economy at a rapid rate and achieved a level of economic equality at the same time that was probably not surpassed by any other country in the world. The Swedes were not the prisoners of their history.

This is a meaty little book with many large ideas to ruminate on. Piketty's solutions are not nearly as convincing as his diagnoses, but they are certainly worthy of consideration. Also, if you are a lover of beautiful graphs, you will find many of them in this book, which helps to drastically reduce the amount of verbiage required.

[Fran · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un tratamiento de los datos y una perspectiva sobre la desigualdad muy distinta (en estos tiempos se agradece, y mucho) a la que suelen ofrecer la mayoría de economistas y manuales de Economía. Desmonta muchos mitos sobre las causas de la desigualdad y ofrece caminos (algunos más sólidos que otros) para luchar contra ella.

Especialmente curioso como los estados están desandando el camino olvidando uno de los cambios que permitió reducir drásticamente la desigualdad: el incremento del gasto público en educación. Para más inri, lo peor de eso no es sólo que el gasto por alumno haya disminuido, sino que la inversión en educación está acentuando desigualdades conduciendo a una mayor brecha, pues la mayor parte del gasto público la terminan recibiendo aquellos que avanzan más por el itinerario educativo, algo evidentemente relacionado con el origen social, significando para las clases altas una "herencia adicional" proporcionada por los poderes públicos que se une a las ventajas con las que ya nacen. Sin duda, la educación pública pide a gritos un cambio en fondo y forma.

Aun más interesante la forma en que plantea la relación entre el cambio climático y las globales asimetrías económicas: en un mundo atravesado por la desigualdad la batalla con el cambio climático es una guerra perdida.

Una visión humanista de la economía que reconoce la necesidad de colaborar estrechamente con otras ciencias sociales para evitar la catástrofe medioambiental y lograr una distribución más equitativa de la renta, la riqueza y el poder económico. Un mini ensayito muy accesible y alejado de propaganda capitalista y conservadora. Muy recomendable.

[Carles · Rating 3 out of 5]

Molta dada i moltes gràfiques, però poca argumentació i reflexió.

[Nuria Á. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un ensayo bastante interesante que demuestra cómo la inversión pública en educación, por un lado, es el motor que garantiza la bonanza económica de un país, aunque, por otro, evidencia que tampoco escapa a perpetuar las desigualdades del capitalismo. Toca muchos temas interesantes en perspectiva histórica.

[Xabi Álvarez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una buena introducción para entender las desigualdades

[Sergio · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un soplo de aire fresco. Esencialmente socialdemócrata y reformador. Sin embargo, expone de tal modo las dinámicas de poder y las desigualdades históricas que es imposible no disfrutarlo. De obligada lectura, diría. Mi única pega, como casi siempre en este espectro político, es que no hay propuestas sólidas.

[Nathalie Franssen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vert accessible, well illustrated with charts and good examples. A must read :)

[Khadi · Rating 3 out of 5]

kurze, übersichtliche Darstellung verschiedener Ungleichheitsformen aus globaler Sicht mit historischer Einbettung.

Ich hätte mir eine nähere Erklärung der am Ende erwähnten CO2-Karte gewünscht, ebenso wie eine farbige Darstellung der Grafiken. In meiner gedruckten Version waren diese lediglich in schwarz-weiß, was die Lesbarkeit etwas beeinträchtig hat.

[Collin Kennedy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A far less daunting introduction to Piketty’s school of thought that any of his other works ( Capital is glaring at me from my bookshelf as I write this). Very high level for the most part, but with plenty of useful tidbits of facts and stats where necessary.

[Anton Alexandrov · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book more or less repeats his "A brief history of equality" but is 4 times shorter. I'd recommend reading the bigger one unless you're very short on time.

[Daniel]

A real page-turner, I couldn't put it down!

[Cami · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me ha gustado todo lo que he leído de Piketty, acá no alcanza a profundizar en todo por el formato, obviamente, es una conferencia que transcribieron.

[Maia Mindel · Rating 4 out of 5]

honestly it's s pretty simple overview of the basic questions of inequality. not much to say and not much to criticize about this book in particular

[Jorge Ávila · Rating 5 out of 5]

Libro sencillo, breve y preciso, donde se tratan distintos temas de vigencia, actualidad e importancia acerca de las desigualdades sin dejar de relacionarlas con el campo de la sostenibilidad

[Katie E · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thomas Piketty and Gary Stevenson (Garyseconomics) working together might actually save the world

Piketty outlines the hope for a better world by illustrating with historical examples where great leaps towards equality were made. Usually out of sheer necessity and desperation, which is the bad news I suppose. As climate change is likely to be the next radical catalyst, there‘s hope that socially things could change for the better

[Nil Martín · Rating 4 out of 5]

està bé però se l'hauria de llegir la gent de dretes

[Annemarie Naughton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting on inequality and how it’s measured, how we can create a more equal world (if the rich are willing)! Plenty to think about and discuss.

[pontielo · Rating 5 out of 5]

muy buen análisis, me gustó que aportara muchos gráficos y tablas presentando datos objetivos sobre la realidad

[Rohit Garimella · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel like I wasn’t really the target audience for this…don’t think I really learned anything new from it. But I agree with the sentiment of Picketty’s argument.

Also, I’m just not quite sure how much sparse historical examples can serve to actually inform policy decisions now (though there is plenty of empirical research that supports Picketty’s arguments anyway)

[Maria Beatriz]

Isto não é uma review, são só quotes que achei relevantes em cada um dos capítulos do livro. Foi uma boa leitura, pouco confusa e straight to the point.

**Sobre desigualdades de rendimento:**

- “A África do Sul, devido à herança do apartheid, (…) a América Latina, muito dominada no seu conjunto por desigualdades na posse de propriedade, fruto da colonização espanhola e dos regimes políticos que se seguiram; a América do Norte, marcada por características de desigualdades raciais específicas. (…) o Médio Oriente, onde os níveis elevadíssimos de desigualdade provêm, não de um passado de desigualdades raciais ou coloniais, mas de uma realidade moderna, nomeadamente da extrema concentração de distribuição de receitas financeiras provenientes das receitas petrolíferas.”
- “É impossível explicar toda esta diversidade de desigualdades a partir dos fatores ditos naturais. A distribuição existente não pode ser atribuída a talentos, dons ou temperamentos individuais - seria espantoso se a distribuição desses talentos individuais pudesse variar a tal ponto de um país para outro. Também não é possível explicá-la com base nos recursos naturais de que dispõem os países - existe petróleo tanto no Médio Oriente quanto na Noruega, mas as distribuições de rendimento são completamente diferentes. É um facto inegável que as instituições escolhidas por estas diferentes sociedades, elas próprias moldadas por fatores sociais, culturais, políticos e ideológicos, dão origem a grandes variações nos níveis de desigualdade.”

**Sobre desigualdades de património e riqueza:**

- “A distribuição da propriedade, do património imobiliário, financeiro e empresarial, é sempre muito mais concentrada do que a distribuição do rendimento”
- “Houve um movimento histórico de evolução da igualdade sensivelmente mais forte em França e na Europa do que noutras regiões do mundo, mas, esclareça-se desde já, não aconteceu por si só, construiu-se com base em lutas políticas e sociais significativas. Para além disso, este progresso diz respeito principalmente à distribuição de rendimentos, a qual foi um pouco nivelada no espaço de um século. Em contrapartida, no que toca à distribuição de património, as coisas evoluíram muito pouco.”
- “Se nos limitarmos ao capital empresarial e aos meios de produção, o cenário é ainda mais concentrado. A quota-parte dos 10% do topo seria de 80, 90% ou mais, enquanto a dos 50% das camadas mais baixas seria praticamente nula”.

**Sobre desigualdades de género:**

- “Existe a tendência para observar as disparidades salariais consoante o cargo e profissão exercidos, quando o que está em causa é precisamente o facto de haver um acesso desigual entre homens e mulheres aos mesmos cargos.(…) Existe desigualdade dentro dos mesmos cargos, cerca de 10% a 20%, mas também desigualdade no tipo de cargo exercido, na sujeição a trabalho a tempo parcial, na falta de presença de mulheres nos cargos mais bem remunerados, na dificuldade das mulheres em aceder a promoções, etc”

**Diferentes velocidades na evolução para a igualdade na Europa:**

- “Não havia classe média” - em referência a 1913. “A emergência de um grupo deste tipo é um acontecimento de importância considerável - apesar de o acesso à riqueza continuar a ser praticamente nulo para os 50% mais pobres”.

**O exemplo sueco:**

- “Em França e no Reino Unido, (…) os ativos coloniais eram uma parte importante das principais fortunas. Na Suécia esta realidade tinha um peso evidentemente menor.”
- A Suécia é um exemplo de um país que foi muito desigual e que se transformou completamente com um governo novo (social-democrata). Um bom exemplo que não há determinismo a longo prazo, decorrente de fatores naturais ou mesmo culturais. Isto aconteceu principalmente graças às mobilizações políticas e sindicais.

**A ascensão do Estado-providência: o exemplo das despesas com a educação:**

- “Estamos de tal maneira habituados a conviver com esta realidade que, por vezes, nos esquecemos do papel fundamental da democratização da educação (…) em direção à igualdade. (…) Contudo, não posso deixar de chamar a atenção para as despesas com a educação terem estagnado a partir dos anos de 1980-1990, o que é muito paradoxal, tendo em conta que o acesso ao ensino superior não estagnou de todo durante este período, pelo contrário, de apenas 20% nos anos de 1980 passou para 60% atualmente. Não obstante, em termos práticos, o investimento educativo por estudante está a diminuir.”
- “A partir do momento em que a percentagem destinada à saude e às pensões de reforma aumenta(não suficientemente…) as restantes despesas sofrem uma redução. O alargamento da dimensão do Estado-providência poderia resolver estas contradições, mas isso exigiria novas medidas, à escala nacional e internacional, no âmbito da justiça fiscal e da progressividade da tributação.”

**Rumo a uma maior igualdade de direitos:**

- “A meu ver, seria desejável um sistema muito mais igualitário nas questões relacionadas com o financiamento das campanhas políticas e do papel dos meios de comunicação social (…), a igualdade de participação na tomada de decisões dentro de empresas.(…) Defendo, por exemplo, a ideia de que, entre os 50% dos direitos de voto dos acionistas, se deveria estabelecer um limite de 10% para acionistas individuais.”

**Tributação progressiva:**

- “Não estou a afirmar que a igualdade total é desejável. Talvez seja necessário haver diferenças de 1 para 5 ou de 1 para 10 - com base nos dados que disponho, penso que uma diferença de 1 para 5 seria francamente positiva. Não existe, porém, qualquer justificação que permita defender diferenças de 1 para 50 ou de 1 para 100”.
- “Nos Estados Unidos, a forte compressão destas disparidades através da tributação progressiva não impediu nem o crescimento económico nem a inovação” - até o Reagen ter estragado as políticas do Roosevelt com uma reviravolta fiscal que tinha como objectivo estimular o crescimento, através de taxas de tributação altas, embora na prática tenha caído para metade.
- “Há um último ponto importante, na redução histórica das desigualdades no século xx, que gostaria de agora sublinhar: a queda dos ativos internacionais e em particular, dos ativos coloniais. Este fenómeno afetou especialmente o Reino Unido e a França” (…) “Os credores franceses e britânicos foram obrigados a vender ao estrangeiro uma grande parte dos seus títulos de crédito para emprestar ao Estado para que este pudesse financiar a guerra, enquanto a própria guerra destruía o resto do seu capital industrial. Trata-se de um processo absurdo de autodestruição, que está no cerne da história da Europa entre 1914 e 1945.”

**O que fazer com a dívida?:**

- “Por outro lado, seja na educação seja na saúde, ninguém pretende recuperar ou criar um sistema puramente lucrativo. Porquê? Porque nos apercebemos, coletiva e historicamente, de que a procura do lucro pode, em muitos setores, destruir as motivações intrínsecas que levam as pessoas a querer ensinar, prestar cuidados, etc. Esta importante lição aplica-se não apenas à educação e à saúde, mas também à cultura e aos meios de comunicação social, onde a procura do lucro e participação privada suscitam muitos problemas.”

**Natureza e desigualdades:**

- “Posto isto, uma política de redução de emissões que vise toda a população de forma igual teria inevitavelmente problemas de aceitação. De facto, será muito difícil convencer aqueles que emitem 4 ou 5 toneladas de que devem reduzir as suas emissões na mesma proporção que aqueles que emitem 30 ou 70 toneladas. (…) Tanto mais que estas soluções muitas vezes poupam o consumo de energia dos mais ricos (como o combustível para aviões), em particular. Assim, é difícil antever como poderemos enfrentar estes desafios, a não ser pedindo que aqueles que emitem mais carbono façam reduções proporcionalmente muito mais fortes. Para tal, seria necessário instaurar um verdadeiro sistema dotado de ferramentas como uma tabela progressiva de emissões de carbono. Uma solução deste tipo implicaria também necessariamente uma redução bastante drástica das disparidades de rendimentos e património.”

[Joao Lacerda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Leitura curta, como dito na folha, “piketty para preguiçosos.

Mas dá quase uma sequência de tik tok sem texto sobre questões econômicas fundamentais de serem discutidas para imaginar um futuro humano possível e além do capitalismo e suas desigualdades.

“É impossível conceber uma solução plausível para o desafio do aquecimento global sem a drástica redução das desigualdades e sem uma nova etapa de evolução rumo a um patamar de maior igualdade.”

[Rouven · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sehr kurz, wahrscheinlich aber ein guter Einstieg, wenn man sich vor den typischen mehrere hundert Seiten langen Wälzern erstmal fürchtet. Nach diesem Buch hier hat nahezu Lust, auch mal die großen Werke von Piketty zu lesen.