Thomas Piketty's Capital In The Twenty-21st Century

Submitted By forcefulleaf
Words: 7323
Pages: 30
Open Document
Daniel Kirsanov
In the novel, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Piketty really does achieve his goal to address one of today’s most controversial topics: a globally unequal economy due to inequality in the distribution of income and wealth which has existed for centuries. Of course, a couple of words cannot describe the entirety of Piketty’s novel; after all, it does consist of 700 pages of reading material. There are many other factors that Piketty touches base with, topics such as labor, taxes, technology, etc., which all played and continue to play a crucial role in how wealth and income are distributed today. Piketty has done a wonderful job bringing the public of the 21st century to its own attention of the economic inequality that exists today. Obviously, such an accomplishment goes out to the work that consists of over a decade worth of research. However, as one of the many readers of his novel, aside from the points with which I agree, I also found points to which I hold criticism and questions. Consequently, my interest as well as goal is to bring up and deliberate Piketty’s positions, specifically those that he stands by as the contributing factors to today’s economy being divided into the top ten percent and the bottom ninety. My deliberation falls into to two categories: subjective and objective. Subjective are those criticisms that are directed at Piketty’s style of writing and his strategic approach to the audience. Because my subjective arguments are not vast in amount and do not focus too much on Piketty’s research, I will discuss them first. Following that, saving the most important for last, I will dive into the objective criticisms which are based on the conclusions Piketty derives from his research.
First and for most, Piketty’s choice of title for his novel was not the most accurate decision. Even in a weekly issue for June of the Bloomberg Business Week, criticism points at the fact that Thomas Piketty’s novel “doesn’t speak to our current situation nearly as much as many buyers probably think.”1 In other words, if a potential reader is interested in buying Piketty’s novel based on its title, one might feel slightly deceived because Piketty focuses on the evolution and the history of the unequal distribution of wealth and income across the globe, dating back as far as the Industrial Revolution. Although such inequality has existed for centuries and millenniums, Piketty specifies that his analysis is based on anything dating from the revolution and on because it is around that time that signs of technological progression began to really show and society began to compile as well as store data and records. Consequently, as a reader, one can easily understand that Piketty mainly focuses on the history of inequality that led up to the 21st century rather than inequality during the correlated century. However, this is not to say that Piketty does not mention current issues at all; Piketty does do so, just not nearly enough as one would expect in a book bearing the title Capital in the Twenty-First Century.
Although to some readers such a factor may not be of much concern, Piketty relies mainly on data sources from the European countries, particularly Britain and France. Piketty does mention other countries such as the United States in certain analysis such as ones on the inequality of wealth in America (Piketty 347) and does depict countries other than European ones (e.g. Japan) on the graphs. However, for the majority of his novel, Piketty refers to Britain and France which can easily be taken note of by reading just a few pages. My only reason for this criticism is that I find some of his arguments, those in which only Europe is mentioned, to be one-sided. For example, throughout the sixth chapter of his novel, Piketty discusses the capital/income ratio as well as the split on a nation’s income between income from capital and that from labor (Piketty 199-234). The issue that I noticed is that, not
Show More

Related Documents: Thomas Piketty's Capital In The Twenty-21st Century

Csr Report on Tesco Plc Essay

Table of Contents Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) 2 Definition of CSR 2 Development of CSR 2 Approaches to CSR 2 Business Benefits of CSR 3 Critical Analysis of CSR 3 Factors influencing CSR 4 The Business Case for CSR 6 TESCO PLC 8 Tesco and Corporate Social Responsibility 8 Environment 8 Community 9 Suppliers 9 People / Employees 10 Government / Regulators 10 How Tesco manages their Corporate Responsibility (CR) 10 Conclusion 10 Bibliography 13 Corporate Social Responsibility…

Words 3418 - Pages 14

Case: Amanco Essay

,',liA'R v,AR 0 T~jt.l. .~ fNESS ..... ·lscSïioÖt 9-107-038 REV: JANUARY 29, 2008 ROBERT RICARDO S, KA PLAN REISEN DE PINHO Amanco: Developing the Sustainability Scorecard A modern company must have a much broader and more sophisticated relationship with society, and must respond to issues ihai didn'i exisi previously ... Our strategy is the bestfor the sustainable creation of uaiue. -Stephan Schmidheiny, Grupo Nueva and Amenco's founder- On January 9, 2006, CEO Roberto…

Words 7655 - Pages 31

Dumb: Bill Mckibben and Climate Change Essay

October 8 meeting Book Review for CTL The title of Bill McKibben’s latest book, Eaarth, sounds like the last cry of someone falling off a cliff. McKibben has been writing about Climate Change since he published The End of Nature 20 years ago, always mixing a prophetic pessimism about the magnitude of the danger with an activist’s optimism about how disaster could be avoided. In the two years since the publication of his last book, Deep Economy, the option of avoidance has disappeared…

Words 4252 - Pages 18

Case: Chester & Wayne Essay

Sustainability Framework 21 Governance 26 Innovation 31 Stewardship 41 Engagement 50 External Recognition 51 About the Photographs SCOPE OF REPORT SCOPE OF REPORT Kodak is pleased to present our fifth annual Global Sustainability Report, as well as our 21st public report to include health, safety and environmental performance. 1 Issues Covered /Trends Kodak is continually evaluating our sustainability priorities and aligning our focus with our current business model. Through observation and participation…

Words 18757 - Pages 76

Green IT Essay

It is clearly no longer possible for any organization to ignore the challenges and opportunities that arise from needing to achieve sustainable development. Businesses often gain new operational efficiencies through green IT, including reducing capital costs, improving regulatory compliance and greening their marketable image with stakeholders, including investors, employees and the public at large, at a time when environmental problems are of utmost concern. “Green IT” practices are drawing high…

Words 9491 - Pages 38

Boeing Company Analysis Essay

Manojkumar Patel Vishal Patel Jonathan Mayes MG - 640 Management Policy Dr. Santanu Borah July 27, 2008 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 5 Company Overview 5 Boeing Commercial Airplanes 5 Boeing Integrated Defense Systems 6 Boeing Capital Corporation 6 Background 7 Sales/Operations 9 Constituent Contributions to Corporate Portfolio and Revenue 12 Market Share, Revenues, Income, Expenses and Stock Prices over Previous Five Years 14 Current Strategies (Corporate,…

Words 15965 - Pages 64

Cadbury Scweppes Swot and Environments Essay

NZ Chocolate and confectionary industry 7/31/2012 Assignment 1 Task 3 Annelize Vermeulen Table of Contents NZ Chocolate and confectionary industry 3 Macro environments: 3 Political 3 Environmental 4 Social 6 Technological 7 Economic 7 Porters five forces 8 New Entrants: 9 Substitute: 9 Buyers: 10 Suppliers: 10 Rivalry: 11 Micro environments 12 Consumers: 12 Employees: 12 Suppliers: 13 Distributors, Retailers and wholesalers: 13 Transportation providers:…

Words 14511 - Pages 59