![]() ![]() ![]() And now.Piketty has published a yet more ambitious book, Capital and Ideology. If inequality has become the subject of intense public attention, a good deal of the credit goes to the French economist Thomas Piketty. Whether or not his revolution without revolutionaries can get us where we need to go, his analysis of how we got here demands our attention. Piketty’s confrontation with the void leads him to something like a liberal argument for socialism, and as the rescue packages for a world struck down by Covid-19 pile up, he has, at least for the moment, a captive audience. Instead, he gives us a systematic examination of inequality across time and place, and of the ideas the powerful have used to justify it. ![]() He is not in the business of uncovering the ideological dynamics that make the interests of the powerful appear to coincide with everyone’s general interest-what Boutmy called ‘political hegemony’-or in explaining the way they have historically operated. But Piketty’s vital contribution is somewhat obscured by the book’s title. The book is packed with fascinating detail and vast quantities of skilfully assembled data it is written (and translated, by Arthur Goldhammer) in an accessible, conversational tone. ![]()
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