A readable introduction to Piketty’s worldview.
A review of global inequalities of income and wealth and the factors that might reduce them.
In this slim volume, based on a 2022 lecture at the Musée du Quai Branly—Jacques Chirac in Paris, the acclaimed French economist Piketty, best known for Capital in the Twenty-First Century, draws on previous research and writings to sketch his understanding of the political underpinnings of social and economic inequality and its variations historically and across countries. Although the data show a “tendency toward greater social equality” since the late 18th century, a slowing of that trend has occurred since the late 20th century. These movements are neither inevitable nor simply a matter of personal talents or economics. Rather, reductions in inequality directly relate to political culture and, specifically, collective political mobilizations that pressure national governments to institute progressive taxation, fund education open to all social groups, and encourage both participatory governance and worker involvement in corporate governance. In presenting his argument, Piketty includes historical material from France, Sweden, other parts of Western Europe, and the U.S., and he briefly comments on gender inequality, colonial and war debt, the rise of the welfare state, and climate change. Readers familiar with the author’s earlier work will find little that is new. The book is a synthesis, as Piketty meanders from topic to topic while only briefly digging into each. Moreover, contrary to the title, the author writes little about nature and culture. Regarding nature, Piketty points to the unequal global and class responsibility for carbon emissions and suggests, equivocally, that the problems of climate change eventually “may lead to a greater demand for equality than we’ve recently seen.” As for culture, it surfaces only as a way to differentiate political systems that harbor different clusters of individualistic and collective values.
A readable introduction to Piketty’s worldview.Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9781635424560
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Other Press
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2024
For those satisfied with blame-the-victim tidbits of received wisdom.
The noted conservative economist delivers arguments both fiscal and political against social justice initiatives such as welfare and a federal minimum wage.
A Black scholar who has lived through many civil rights struggles, Sowell is also a follower of Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, who insisted that free market solutions are available for every social problem. This short book begins with what amounts to an impatient declaration that life isn’t fair. Some nations are wealthy because of geographical advantages, and some people are wealthy because they’re smarter than others. “Some social justice advocates may implicitly assume that various groups have similar developed capabilities, so that different outcomes appear puzzling,” he writes. In doing so, he argues, they fail to distinguish between equal opportunity and equal capability. Sowell is dismissive of claims that Black Americans and other minorities are systematically denied a level playing field: Put non-white kids in charter schools, he urges, and presto, their math scores will zoom northward as compared to those in public schools. “These are huge disparities within the same groups, so that neither race nor racism can account for these huge differences,” he writes, clearly at pains to distance himself from the faintest suggestion that race has anything to do with success or failure in America. At the same time, he isn’t exactly comfortable with the idea that economic inequalities exist, and he tries to finesse definitions to suit his convictions: “The terms ‘rich’ and ‘poor’ are misleading in another and more fundamental sense. These terms apply to people’s stock of wealth, not their flows of income.” As for crime? Give criminals more rights, he asserts, as with Miranda v. Arizona, and crime rates go up—an assertion that overlooks numerous other variables but fits Sowell’s ideological slant.
For those satisfied with blame-the-victim tidbits of received wisdom.Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2023
ISBN: 9781541603929
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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A top-notch political memoir and serious exercise in practical politics for every reader.
In the first volume of his presidential memoir, Obama recounts the hard path to the White House.
In this long, often surprisingly candid narrative, Obama depicts a callow youth spent playing basketball and “getting loaded,” his early reading of difficult authors serving as a way to impress coed classmates. (“As a strategy for picking up girls, my pseudo-intellectualism proved mostly worthless,” he admits.) Yet seriousness did come to him in time and, with it, the conviction that America could live up to its stated aspirations. His early political role as an Illinois state senator, itself an unlikely victory, was not big enough to contain Obama’s early ambition, nor was his term as U.S. Senator. Only the presidency would do, a path he painstakingly carved out, vote by vote and speech by careful speech. As he writes, “By nature I’m a deliberate speaker, which, by the standards of presidential candidates, helped keep my gaffe quotient relatively low.” The author speaks freely about the many obstacles of the race—not just the question of race and racism itself, but also the rise, with “potent disruptor” Sarah Palin, of a know-nothingism that would manifest itself in an obdurate, ideologically driven Republican legislature. Not to mention the meddlings of Donald Trump, who turns up in this volume for his idiotic “birther” campaign while simultaneously fishing for a contract to build “a beautiful ballroom” on the White House lawn. A born moderate, Obama allows that he might not have been ideological enough in the face of Mitch McConnell, whose primary concern was then “clawing [his] way back to power.” Indeed, one of the most compelling aspects of the book, as smoothly written as his previous books, is Obama’s cleareyed scene-setting for how the political landscape would become so fractured—surely a topic he’ll expand on in the next volume.
A top-notch political memoir and serious exercise in practical politics for every reader.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6316-9
Page Count: 768
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2020
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