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.
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