The Contradictions of Capital in the Twenty-First Century

The Piketty Opportunity

Edited by Prof. Pat Hudson, Dr. Keith Tribe

Publication date:

30 October 2016

Publisher

Agenda Publishing

Dimensions:

234x156mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9781911116103

This volume of essays builds upon renewed interest in the long-run global development of wealth and inequality stimulated by the publication of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century. It brings together an international team of leading economic historians and economists to provide an overview of global developments in the theory and reality of inequality and its salience in the modern world order.

The contributors take stock of the key concepts involved in contemporary debates ? capital, wealth and income distribution, economic development, private and collective assets, financialization, global liberalisation ? and evaluate the evidence for both common and contrasting historical trends in national statistical data sources. To the developed economies upon which Piketty drew are added contributions covering Latin America, Africa, India and Japan, providing a global perspective upon a global phenomenon.

The book seeks to provide readers with a deeper awareness and understanding of the significance of inequality in economic development, the varying pace and nature of economic change around the world, and the manner in which this process of change affects the distribution of incomes and wealth in diverse economies. The collection marks an important step in the process of developing Piketty’s analytical framework and empirical material, overcoming some of their limitations and helping to cement a lasting place for inequality in the future agenda of economics and economic history.

1. Introduction
Pat Hudson and Keith Tribe

Part I: Concepts and Models
2. Capital and Wealth
G. C. Harcourt, University of New South Wales and Keith Tribe

3. Inequality
Keith Tribe

4. Models, Money and Housing
Avner Offer, University of Oxford

Part II: Piketty in Western National Contexts
5. French Idiosyncracies
Gauthier Lanot, Umeå University

6. Fact or Fiction? Complexities of Economic Inequality in Twentieth-Century Germany
Jan-Otmar Hesse, University of Bayreuth

7. Collective Wealth Formation: Conflict and Compromise in Sweden, 1950-2000
Ylva Hasselberg and Henry Ohlsson, Uppsala University

8. A Confusion of Capital in the United States
Mary A. O'Sullivan, University of Geneva

9. Distributional Politics: The Search for Equality in Britain since the First World War
Jim Tomlinson, University of Glasgow

Part III: Piketty: Global Commentaries
10. Looking at Piketty from the Periphery
Luis Bértola, Universidad de la República, Uruguay

11. The Differences of Inequality in Africa
Patrick Manning and Matt Drwenski, University of Pittsburgh

12. Income Distribution in Pre-War Japan
Tetsuji Okazaki, University of Tokyo

13. Piketty and India
Prasannan Parthasarathi, Boston College

Part IV: Prospect
14. Goals and Measures of Development: The Piketty Opportunity
Pat Hudson

15. Wealth and Income Distribution: New Theories for a New Era
Ravi Kanbur,Cornell University and Joseph E. Stiglitz, Columbia University

This excellent volume effectively exploits and builds on ‘the Piketty opportunity’: the contested new terrain created by Thomas Piketty’s challenge to mainstream economics and economic history. With their deep knowledge of the history of the study of inequality in various regions of the world and in the discipline of economics, the contributors engage critically with Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century to provide a plethora of new insights and important alternative policy proposals. This volume demonstrates why public policy-makers need to pay full attention to historians in grappling with the political trilemma of our age posed by Piketty: democracy, capitalism and inequality.