BOOK REVIEW: PIKETTY THOMAS, ‟CAPITAL IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY”, THE BELKNAP PRESS OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2014, 119 P.

Abstract

Utill recently, a few people have heard about Thomas Piketty, but from now on, they will be more numerous; thanks to his new book Capital in the Twenty-First Century. The book brings into the public attention a very intriguing subject: wealth and inequality. In almost 600 pages, the author tries to track and explain the roots of inequalities. The novelty here is that the inequalities are analyzed not between the poor and the rich ones, but between the poor and the very rich ones, the so called one percent. The book is structured in 4 major parts, covering the issues of income, capital and above all, the inequality. In the first part of this work, the author raises the first major question regarding the wealth: is the wealth distributed according to the 19^th century theory of Marx, or to the 20^th century theory of Kuznets? In order to answer this question and the result to be relevant, the author is using data for 20 countries, covering almost three centuries. As novelty, the author is using tax records, instead of surveys as was used to, for economic inequality data. Tax records are going back in late 18^th century, unlike income surveys that run back in 1947 (for USA). Another useful tool is the historical overview of previous thinking about these issues, passing from Malthus to Young and French Revolution, from Ricardo to Marx, and finally to Kuznets.