A Latter-Day Jacobin with a Lot of Data

wrote a 685-page book in 2014, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, that became the most lauded book in discussions and debates on the burning issue of economic inequality (Boushey, DeLong, and Steinbaum 2017). It was the most important, comprehensive, and consequential volume in understanding the dynamics of income and wealth accumulation in capitalist societies, taking as it did a comparative, historical, and transnational perspective, following his (Piketty 2015) own introduction to the conceptual and factual background necessary for interpreting changes in economic inequality over time. My take on that book can be reduced to three important statements:

2014

2014

Places the history of Pikettymania into historical context.

2014

2014

Basic Income Studies, 2015

Among other merits, Piketty's book puts the topic of inequality and income/wealth concentration in the public agenda. His analysis concludes that aggregate income and wealth have tended to concentrate in the top few percentiles of the population. His research as well as the policy and political debate it has brought about, is relevant for the progress of the Basic Income movement. The tendencies for income and wealth concentration, the importance of inheritance for inequality, the weak foundations of current welfare state institutions, and the relevance of the tax structures for redistribution, all are central themes on the Basic Income debate. In this article, the author discusses certain aspects of Piketty's Capital which are particularly relevant for the Basic Income debate. Taking into account some of the criticisms of Piketty's work, the article discusses the importance of his main findings for the Basic Income debate.

Historical Materialism 23.1 (2015) 86–105, 2015

Thomas Piketty's magnum opus on the accumulation and distribution of wealth over the last 200 years has been greeted with the biggest noise from mainstream (and heterodox) economics of any economics book. Piketty shows that inequality of wealth and income is inherent to capitalism and it is getting worse. The reason for the rise in the inequality of wealth is a rise of income going to capital in the form of profits, rent and interest. Inequality is not due to higher-skilled labour getting higher income than the lower-skilled. The central question for Piketty's thesis is whether rising inequality is the central contradiction of capitalism and thus its gravedigger. Is it a tendency for a rising net return on capital (Piketty) or is it the tendency for a falling rate of profit (Marx) that is the key contradiction of capitalism in the twenty-first century?

2015