num_pages: 1104
description: The epic successor to one of the most important books of the century: at once a retelling of global history a scathing critique of contemporary politics and a bold proposal for a new and fairer economic system.Thomas Piketty's bestselling Capital in the Twenty-First Century galvanized global debate about inequality. In this audacious follow-up Piketty challenges us to revolutionize how we think about politics ideology and history. He exposes the ideas that have sustained inequality for the past millennium reveals why the shallow politics of right and left are failing us today and outlines the structure of a fairer economic system.Our economy Piketty observes is not a natural fact. Markets profits and capital are all historical constructs that depend on choices. Piketty explores the material and ideological interactions of conflicting social groups that have given us slavery serfdom colonialism communism and hypercapitalism shaping the lives of billions. He concludes that the great driver of human progress over the centuries has been the struggle for equality and education and not as often argued the assertion of property rights or the pursuit of stability. The new era of extreme inequality that has derailed that progress since the 1980s he shows is partly a reaction against communism but it is also the fruit of ignorance intellectual specialization and our drift toward the dead-end politics of identity.Once we understand this we can begin to envision a more balanced approach to economics and politics. Piketty argues for a new participatory socialism a system founded on an ideology of equality social property education and the sharing of knowledge and power. Capital and Ideology is destined to be one of the indispensable books of our time a work that will not only help us understand the world but that will change it.
language: English
title: Capital and Ideology
publisher: Belknap Press