In the Afterword to his masterpiece “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”, Robert Pirsig introduces us to a Swedish word, kulturbärer, meaning a “culture-bearing” book…
“A culture-bearing book, like a mule, bears the culture on its back… Culture-bearing books challenge cultural value assumptions and often do so at a time when the culture is changing in favor of their challenge. The books are not necessarily of high quality. Uncle Tom’s Cabin was no literary masterpiece but it was a culture-bearing book. It came at a time when the entire culture was about to reject slavery. People seized upon it as a portrayal of their own new values and it became an overwhelming success.”
Thomas Piketty’s “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” may be one of these kulturbärers. It describes and questions the current state of global capitalism just as our country is wrestling with spiraling wealth inequality. A 700-page analysis of economics might not be an obvious bestseller but “Capital” topped Amazon, is already in its 4th printing, and is expected to sell about 200,000 copies in just a few months. An even better indicator of its impact might the bug-eyed fury it instilled in the pundit class, where it has been castigated in every possible forum. Here’s more about Picketty’s book (just click the cover to go to the Powell’s website for it) along with a few links to some of the discussion about it…
Capital in the Twenty-First Century
by Thomas Piketty
What are the grand dynamics that drive the accumulation and distribution of capital? Questions about the long-term evolution of inequality, the concentration of wealth, and the prospects for economic growth lie at the heart of political economy. But satisfactory answers have been hard to find for lack of adequate data and clear guiding theories. In Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Piketty analyzes a unique collection of data from twenty countries, ranging as far back as the eighteenth century, to uncover key economic and social patterns. His findings will transform debate and set the agenda for the next generation of thought about wealth and inequality.
Piketty shows that modern economic growth and the diffusion of knowledge have allowed us to avoid inequalities on the apocalyptic scale predicted by Karl Marx. But we have not modified the deep structures of capital and inequality as much as we thought in the optimistic decades following World War II. The main driver of inequality — the tendency of returns on capital to exceed the rate of economic growth — today threatens to generate extreme inequalities that stir discontent and undermine democratic values. But economic trends are not acts of God. Political action has curbed dangerous inequalities in the past, Piketty says, and may do so again.
A work of extraordinary ambition, originality, and rigor, Capital in the Twenty-First Century reorients our understanding of economic history and confronts us with sobering lessons for today.
James Pethokoukis, National Review, “The New Marxism, Part Two”
Lynn Parramore, Alternet, “Why Economist Thomas Piketty Has Scared the Pants Off the American Right”
Rob Wile, Business Insider, “Here Are The Two Most Serious Criticisms Of Piketty”
Thom Hartmann, “Conservatives are scared straight by a Frenchman”
