Capital in the Twenty-First Century

Piketty's book has been a smash because many people are worried about the slow rate of growth in the developed economies since the financial crisis. Many are also worried about rising inequality. Capital seems to offer an elegant way to explain both...He deserves huge credit for illuminating the distribution of income and wealth. -- Stephanie Flanders * The Guardian * Piketty's great achievement, and one possible reason for the enthusiastic reception of his book, is his effective empirical demonstration of a fact long denied by neoclassical economics and its champions throughout the world: markets, when left to their own devices, do not provide individuals with rewards that are proportional to their efforts and contributions towards producing goods and services, nor do they ensure the most optimal distribution of those goods and services. Instead, they tend to concentrate wealth in fewer and fewer hands, giving rise to what Piketty calls a system of 'patrimonial' capitalism in which a few major players derive disproportionate benefit simply by virtue of possessing high amounts of capital... As a work of economic history, and a source of data, it effectively demolishes mainstream myths about the ability of markets to combat inequality, reward effort and innovation, and deliver the greatest amount of good to the greatest number of people. At a point in time where slogans about the 1 per cent vs the 99pc abound, this book provides conclusive evidence in support of the idea that the modern-world economy is one that is inherently unjust and exploitative. -- Hassan Javid * Dawn * [A] seminal work on capitalism. -- Madan Sabnavis * Financial Express * Thomas Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century is arguably the most important popular economics book in recent memory. It will take its place among other classics in the field that have survived changing theoretical and political fashions, such as its namesake by Karl Marx (Das Kapital, 1867) or other ambitiously titled books such as John Maynard Keynes's The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936). Anyone who wants to engage in an informed discussion about the economic landscape will have to read Piketty. -- Kate Bahn * Women's Review of Books * Belief in markets may be crumbling but as platoons of mercenaries, lawyers, accountants and management consultants continue to plunder the world's resources on behalf of unaccountable corporations, the tipping point has not yet been reached. Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century shows how privateers use privatization, debt creation and capital inflation as a mechanism for rent extraction, with catastrophic consequences for public services. -- Allyson Pollock * Times Higher Education * Monumental...Translated beautifully by Arthur Goldhammer, [Capital in the Twenty-First Century]...smashed into the intellectual world with incredible force...But beyond the media phenomenon, how much substance was there? The answer is: a considerable amount. The book is important, first and foremost, because it brings together a vast trove of research by Piketty and others on the evolution of income and wealth over two centuries. One also has to admire the way Piketty marshals the data to create a sweeping historical narrative, in a style reminiscent of the great thinkers of the 19th century. -- Ben Chu * The Independent * The fundamental theme on the differences between returns to capital and returns to labor is one that Piketty has brought, quite properly, to the center of policy discussions. -- Stephen L. Carter * Bloomberg View * Marx believed that free markets produce inequality, social division and violence. Piketty appears to side with Marx, but this is deceptive. When Piketty talks about 'capital,' he means the kind of investments held by today's leisured rentier class whose money is tied up in property and pensions. Piketty argues that a free market overloaded with this kind of capital may or may not lead to anger and alienat

Thomas Piketty is Director of Studies at L'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales and Professor at the Paris School of Economics. He is the author of Capital in the Twenty-First Century.