Thomas Pikettys “Kapitalen i det 21. århundrede”

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Linkbox med anmeldelser og debat af den franske økonom Thomas Pikettys bog “Kapitalen i det 21. århundrede”, om uligheder i indkomst/formue gennem 300 års europæisk/amerikansk historie.

Bjarne A. Frandsen.
December 2014-


Thomas Piketty: Kapitalen i det 21. århundrede (Gyldendal, 2014, 676 sider).
“Piketty har skrevet en bog, der viser, hvordan stigende økonomisk ulighed underminerer de forventninger om meritokrati og demokrati, vi har bygget vores samfund på. Pikettys bog er uomgængelig som en indgang til at forstå nutidens og fremtidens kapitalisme.”

Thomas Piketty: Capital in the Twenty-First Century (Harvard University Press, 2014, 696 p.).
See the book’s Introduction + Contents, figures and tables (Capital in the 21st Century, Paris School of Economics), and the book online (pdf) (Dowbor.org).


Indhold


 

Leksikale mv.


 

På dansk

Berlingske.dk
Karl Marx har fået en arvtager. Af Poul Høi (26. april 2014). “696 sider med ligninger, tabeller og om ulighed og kapital. Det er øjeblikkets bestseller i USA. Hvad det betyder? At Karl Marx har fået en arvtager?”

Information.dk

  • “Ingen aner, hvem der ejer hvad”. Af Lotte Folke Kaarsholm (13. december 2014). “Troen på, at markederne skulle regulere sig selv og regeringerne svækkes, har stået stærkt siden Murens fald. Men nu begynder skadevirkningerne for alvor at dukke op, siger Thomas Piketty, der har sat ulighed på dagsordnen, og nu også opfordrer til et opgør med den mørkelægning af de globale formuer, der fulgte efter 1989.”
  • Hvorfor skal vi læse Thomas Piketty? Af Jesper Raine (30. september 2014). “Uafhængigt af politiske sympatier rejser den franske økonoms ’Kapitalen i det 21. århundrede’ væsentlige spørgsmål om, hvordan fordeling af indkomst og formue indvirker på økonomiens funktionsmåder.” Jesper Raine er forfatter til bogen Introduktion til Thomas Pikettys Kapitalen i det 21. århundrede (Informations Forlag, 2014, 111 sider).
  • Piketty-bølgen rammer det danske bogmarked. Af Jesper Jespersen (3. oktober 2014). “To nye bøger om og af den franske stjerneøkonom Thomas Piketty øger på hver sin måde forståelsen for hans forfatterskab. Og dermed i sidste ende også forståelsen for, hvad der bestemmer vækst og retfærdighed i vores del af verden.”
  • Ny forskning: Pikettys formueanalyse passer ikke på Danmark. Af Kenneth Praefke (20. juni 2014). “Intet tyder på, at danske formuer er blevet koncentreret på færre hænder siden 1980’erne, viser ny forsknings fra to danske og en amerikansk økonom. Thomas Pikettys frygt for svulmende formueulighed gælder således ikke i Danmark.”
  • Piketty giver igen på kritik af ulighedsanalyse. Af Kenneth Praefke (31. maj 2014). “I det første længere svar på den hårde kritik af datagrundlaget bag sin storsælgende ulighedsbog afviser økonomen Thomas Piketty beskyldningerne og understreger, at en stor del af den kritik, Financial Times rejser, allerede er besvaret i bogen.”
  • Piketty beskyldes for alvorlige fejl i ulighedsbestseller. Af Kenneth Praefke (26. maj 2014). “Der er så mange datafejl i Thomas Pikettys bog om ulighed, at det underminerer dens konklusioner, mener Financial Times, der har gennemgået beregningerne. Iagttagere efterlyser svar fra Piketty, der fastholder, at uligheden er stigende.”
  • Formueskat kan løse Europas gældskrise. Af Martin Burcharth (17. maj 2014). “Den socialt uretfærdige ejendomsskat bør erstattes af globalt koordineret progressiv formueskat, siger Thomas Piketty i dette eksklusive interview med Information.”
  • Spotlys på de rige. Af Lotte Folke Kaarsholm (3. maj 2014). “Han fremlægger en viden, som for altid vil forandre den økonomiske diskussion. Men der står også spørgsmål tilbage til hans begreb om den uholdbare ulighed.”
  • USA omfavner Piketty. Af Martin Burchardt (26. april 2014). “Nobelprismodtagere, mainstream-økonomer og kommentatorer skamroser Thomas Pikettys nye, digre værk om kapitalismens uafvendelige tendens til at skabe ulighed.”
  • ‘Jeg har bevidst, at under de nuværende omstænigheder kan kapitalismen simpelthen ikke fungere’. Af Andrew Hussey (16. april 2014). Interview med Thomas Piketty. “Den unge franske økonom Thomas Piketty er med sin nye bog udråbt til en økonomisk superstjerne …  ved at stille det oplagte spørgsmål: Er der egentlig fakta, der understøtter alt det, vi troede, vi vidste om økonomi?”

Kritisk Debat (artikler 2014-16 online på Internet Archive)

  • De enorme uligheder er en bombe under udviklingen (pdf). Af Niels Boel (1. juni 2022, s.20-34). Interview: “Den franske stjerneøkonom Thomas Piketty advarer om, at de fortsat enorme uligheder kan føre til vedvarende og voksende frustrationer i de europæiske befolkninger og bære ved til udpegning af mindretal som muslimer som syndebukke for en skævvreden globalisering.” Scroll ned.
  • Piketty og profitraten. Af Anders Hadberg & Jørgen Vogelius (15. februar 2016). “Piketty [afviser] Marx’ teori om profitratens tendens til fald … Vi mener, at denne kritik er baseret på en misforståelse både af Marx og af hvad holdbar vækst i kapitalistisk værdiproduktion overhovedet kan være.”
  • Fænomenet Piketty. Af Rune Møller Stahl (15. juni 2014). “Det måske væsentligste problem er fraværet af magt og politik i beskrivelsen af den historiske udvikling … Den mest iøjnefaldende mangel her er det fuldstændige fravær af arbejderbevægelsen i Pikettys fremstilling.” Også bragt på Modkraft.dk, se nedenfor.
  • Ulighed. Af Jan Helbak (12. maj 2014). “Faktisk forholder det sig sådan, at virakken og den politiske historiske situation, den udfolder sig i, nok er mere interessant end bogen selv. I konsekvens af den opfattelse vil denne kommentars fokus også være på situationen og bogen mere end på bogen og situationen.”

Magasinet Politik (online på Internet Archive)

  • Derfor er vi i en ny Guldalder. Af Paul Krugman (19. juni 2014). “Lidt ironisk kan man sige, at vi lever i ‘Den Anden Guldalder’ på grund af den utrolige forgyldelse af den rigeste procent. Men det er kun blevet tydeligt takket være Pikettys arbejde med statistiske teknikker …”
  • Kapital i det enogtyvende århundrede. Af Bjarke Dahl Mogensen (19. juni 2014). “Fransk økonom lancerer et hårdt angreb på ulighed, kapitalisme og manglende arvebeskatning.”
  • Piketty hader ikke kapitalen, han vil bare fikse den (19. juni 2014). Matthew Yglesias interviewer Thomas Piketty: “Thomas Piketty er ikke den radikale anti-kapitalist, som hans kritikere påstår. ‘Markedsøkonomien er et system med store meritter’, siger han.”
  • Kapitalen er tilbage. Af Rune Møller Stahl (19. juni 2014). “Kapitalen er tilbage i den politiske diskussion. Men imens de stærke kræfter, der ønske mere kapitalisme er organiseret over hele verden, halter den internationale fagbevægelse efter.”
  • Næste skridt fra Piketty: Økonomisk demokrati. Af Rune Møller Stahl og Jonas Toubøl (19. juni 2014). “Kontrol med kapitalen er en forudsætning for magt i samfundet. I 1970’erne formåede netop den Socialdemokratiske og fagbevægelsens ide om Økonomisk Demokrati at opnå dette, men ideen blev aldrig gennemført.” Også bragt på Modkraft.dk, se nedenfor.

Modkraft.dk

  • Fænomenet Piketty. Af Rune Møller Stahl (Kontradoxa, 3. juli 2014). “Piketty leverer i »Capital in the 21st Century« en ambitiøst og seriøst omfortolkning af de sidste århundreders økonomiske historie, som han forstår som drevet af simple matematiske sammenhænge. Desværre overser han en række politiske faktorer – som han til gengæld stiller store forhåbninger til fremover.” Også bragt på Kritisk Debat, se ovenfor.
  • Næste skridt fra Piketty: Økonomisk demokrati. Af Rune Møller Stahl og Jonas Toubøl (Kontradoxa, 25. juni 2014). “Kontrol med kapitalen er en forudsætning for magt i samfundet. I 1970’erne ville socialdemokrater og fagbevægelse opnå det med Økonomisk Demokrati, men ideen blev aldrig gennemført. Hvordan ser det ud for Økonomisk Demokrati i Danmark anno 2014?”. Også bragt på Magasinet Politik, se ovenfor.

Politiken.dk

  • Piketty: “Jeg tror på kapitalismen”. Af Rune Lykkeberg (1. juni 2014). “Han bliver hyldet som verdens vigtigste intellektuelle. Men han er også netop blevet udsat for systematisk kritik af Financial Times. Politiken har taget kritikken og de store spørgsmål med til økonomen i Paris.”
  • Financial Times: Økonomiens rockstjerne snyder på vægten. Af Sandra Browall (26. maj 2014). “Det er den anerkendte britiske avis Financial Times’ økonomiske redaktør Chris Giles, der i artikler med omfattende research af Pikettys tal beskylder bogen for at være fundamentalt fejlbehæftet.
  • Bog om kapitalismens historie og fremtid er enestående. Af Rune Lykkeberg (24. april 2014). “Thomas Piketty bryder med økonomiens lukkede koder, så vi alle kan være med.”
  • Økonomer om bestseller-bog: ‘Vi kan se de samme tendenser i Danmark’. Af Nikolaj Heltoft (24. april 2014). “Men uligheden er ekstrem i USA, siger professorer efter ny kapitalismekritik.”

Socialistisk Information
Thomas Piketty: Karl Marx vender tilbage (26. maj 2014). “Alan Maass fra Socialist Workers Party (USA) forklarer, hvordan Karl Marx viser sig at være så relevant som nogensinde til at forklare kapitalismens kaos – og den enorme og voksende kløft mellem rige og fattige.”

Solidaritet.dk
Thomas Piketty: Venstrefløjen har et medansvar for den franske højredrejning. Af Erik Boel (10. april 2022). Interview: “For den franske stjerneøkonom Thomas Piketty bærer den franske venstrefløj et historisk medansvar for højredrejningen i Frankrig. Den nuværende franske præsident Emmanuel Macron har nok flyttet tyngdepunktet i fransk politik ved gennem sin præsidentperiode at glide mere og mere til højre.”

Videnskab.dk
Pikettys økonomiske forudsigelser har udløst ophedet debat om ulighed. Af Andreas Abildlund (5. juni 2014). “Bogen er den mest omfattende analyse af dynamikkerne bag ulighed i verdenshistorien, og dens konklusioner vender mainstream-økonomers hidtidige overbevisning på hovedet.”


 

In English

Against the Current
Piketty on Capital and inequality. By Charles Post (Issue 172, September-October 2014). “With few exceptions most left commentary on Piketty has not gone beyond distinguishing his investigation of capital from that of Marx. Put another way, they have not demonstrated how Piketty’s non-Marxist conceptual framework cannot explain the patterns of inequality he documents.”

The American Prospect
Piketty’s triump. By Branko Milanovic et al. (March 10, 2014). “Three expert takes on Capital in the Twenty-First Century, French economist Thomas Piketty’s data-driven magnum opus on inequality.”

BookForum
The top of the world. By Doug Henwood (29 April 2014). “It is original and very important, and deserves a wide audience … But the major frustration of the book is political.”

Boston Review
Studying the rich: Thomas Piketty and his critics. By Mike Konczal (April 29, 2014). “If critics to Piketty’s right are concerned that he doesn’t ground his theory deeply enough in economic models, economists and others to Piketty’s left are concerned that he concedes too much to mainstream economics and lacks sufficient regard for politics.”

Committee for the Abolition of Third World Debt (CADTM)

  • Thomas Piketty and Karl Marx: Two totally different visions of Capital. By Eric Toussaint (9 March 2021). “Piketty proposes a scenario that suggests capital has been present from the origins of humanity and that revenue from a savings account held by a limited-income retired person is the same as revenue derived from capital.”
  • Thomas Piketty and public debt. By Eric Toussaint (12 January 2015). “The CADTM takes over several of Piketty’s arguments but has a different approach to possible solutions.”

Critique: Journal of Socialist Theory
Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century: A critique roundtable (Vol.43, No.11, April 2015). “The following is a round table with members of the editorial board of Critique: Yassamine Mather (YM), Hillel Ticktin (HT), Peter Kennedy (PK) and Alex Marshall (AM).

DavidHarvey.org
Afterthoughts on Piketty’s Capital (May 17, 2014). “There is much that is valuable in Piketty’s data sets. But his explanation as to why the inequalities and oligarchic tendencies arise is seriously flawed. His proposals as to the remedies for the inequalities are naïve if not utopian. And he has certainly not produced a working model for capital of the twenty-first century.”

Dissent
Kapital for the twenty-first century? By James K. Galbraith (Spring 2014).  “In sum, Capital in the Twenty-First Century is a weighty book, replete with good information on the flows of income, transfers of wealth … Yet he does not provide a very sound guide to policy.”

The Economist

Financial Times

  • Piketty findings undercut by errors. By Chris Giles (May 23, 2014). “The data underpinning Professor Piketty’s 577-page tome, which has dominated best-seller lists in recent weeks, contain a series of errors that skew his findings.”
  • Data problems with Capital in the 21st Century (pdf). By Chris Giles (May 23, 2014, 9 p.). “The conclusions of Capital in the 21st century do not appear to be backed by the book’s own sources.” See also: Technical appendix of the book “Capital in the Twenty-First Century”. Appendix to chapter 10: Inequality of capital ownership. Addendum: response to FT (pdf). By Thomas Piketty (Paris School of Economics, May 28, 2014, 10 p.).
  • ‘Capital in the Twenty-First Century’, by Thomas Piketty. By Martin Wolf (April 15, 2014). “French economist Thomas Piketty has written an extraordinarily importent book. Open-minded readers will surely find themselves unable to ignore the evidence and arguments he has brought to bear.”

The Guardian

  • Piketty, Chris Giles and wealth inequality: it’s all about the discontinuities (29 May 2014). “A Financial Times piece criticising the data underlying Thomas Piketty’s book sparked a heated debate. Economist Howard Reed argues that data discontinuities play a major role in the discrepancies.”
  • Thomas Piketty’s Capital: everything you need to know about the surprise bestseller. By Paul Mason (28 April 2014). “The radical economist’s book has angered the right with its powerful argument about wealth, democracy and why capitalism will always create inequality. Not read it yet? Here’s what it means.
  • Len McCluskey on Capital in the Twenty-First Century: ‘manna from heaven’ (28 April 2014). “The general secretary of Unite says Thomas Piketty’s book gives an intellectual edge to his own view that something is wrong with our economic system, and proves that radical change is needed.

Historical Materialism (Vol.23, No.1, 2015, only Abstract online)

  • Capital (it fails us now). By Alberto Toscano (p.53–69). “This introduction to Historical Materialism’s mini-symposium on Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century places the three contributions by Husson, Mann and Roberts in the context of an exploration of the link between methodology and politics in Piketty’s economic history of inequality.”
  • Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty. By Michel Husson (p.70–85). “Thomas Piketty’s book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, provides a monumental database for the history of capitalism. But the author’s interpretation of these data is based on an inconsistent theoretical framework …”
  • Thomas Piketty and the search for r. By Michael Roberts (p.86–105). “Is it a tendency for a rising net return on capital (Piketty) or is it the tendency for a falling rate of profit (Marx) that is the key contradiction of capitalism in the twenty-first century?”
  • A General Theory for our times: On Piketty. By Geoff Mann (p.106–140). “…  the world in which Piketty’s book appeared is saturated with the specifically capitalist form of anxiety that Keynes sought to diagnose, and fix …”

International Socialism
Piketty and Marx. By Tomáš Tengely-Evans (Issue 143, Summer 2014, p.177-185). “We should, despite its limitations and flaws, engage with Capital 21 seriously; it shows the audience for ideas that provide a radical critique of capitalism and can be turned towards a more rigorous Marxist critique.”

Irish Marxist Review
Review by Kieran Allen (Vol.3, No.10, 2014, p.34-43). “Thomas Piketty blasts a hole in the ill-deserved reputations of mainstream economist … [but] Despite an impressive display of empirical material, there are major weakness in Piketty’s work.”

Jacobin: A Magazine of Culture and Polemic

  • How Thomas Piketty ignores class struggle. By Romaric Godin (1 October 2020). “… Thomas Piketty has established himself as a sharp critic of growing inequality. But when he presents these ills just as a result of wrong choices, he ends up erasing the realities of class struggle — leaving him unable to explain how neoliberalism imposes its power.”
  • Not another Piketty symposium. By Mike Beggs (May 2014). “Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century has been covered ad nauseam. But how it will change the ideological landscape remains to be seen.”
  • A general without an army. By Mike Beggs (30 May 2014). “For all Piketty’s mainstream respectability, it is only the radical left and the labor movement – not treasuries and central banks – that can push his program.”
  • Capital eats the world. By Suresh Naidu (30 May 2014). “Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century shows that not everything in mainstream economics is worthless.”
  • Piketty’s fair-weather friends. By Seth Ackerman (29 May 2014). “Piketty’s warnings of a capitalism without meritocracy are being challenged by an ossified economic theory.”

Journal of Australian Political Economy
Piketty’s political economy (pdf). By Christopher Sheil (No.74, Summer 2014-15, p.19-37). “First, it must be understood that the subjec is not the economics of production but those of distribution, specifically the inequality of distribution.”

London Review of Books
Paupers and richlings. By Benjamin Kunkel (Vol.36, No.13, 3 July 2014). “His theoretical reach fumbles where his statistical grasp is sure, and he leaves intact the questions of economic value, distributive justice and capitalist dynamics that he raises.”

Marx & Philosophy Review of Books
Review by Hans G. Despain (30 April 2014). “… this book will be appreciated by Marxian political economists, while at the same time a frustratingly theoretical disappointment.”

The Marxist
Capitalism, inequality and globalisation (pdf). By Prabhat Patnaik (Vol.30, No.2, April-June 2014). “There are in fact two quite distinct problems with Piketty’s theory: first, the basic theoretical paradigm (the “neo-classical” paradigm) within which his argument is set is a largely discredited one; and second, even within this paradigm his specific position is based on assumptions which are highly untenable.”

Michael Roberts Blog

  • Piketty update: graduate takes on a super star and comes up with a comforting conclusion (March 23, 2015). “The work of Thomas Piketty is back in the spotlight among mainstream economists … by the work of 26-year graduate student, Matthew Rognlie.”
  • Piketty, data and scientific method (May 24, 2014). “Economics super star of the day, Thomas Piketty has been taken to task about his empirical data and his method of compiling it for his best seller …”
  • Piketty – in French it’s worse (April 30, 2014). “Thanks to some readers for pointing to some French critics who have come up with several perceptive critiques of Piketty’s book that make many of the points that I have made in my review for Historical Materialism.”
  • Reviewing Piketty (again) (April 28, 2014). “The unanswered question for Piketty’s thesis is this. Is rising inequality the central contradiction of capitalism and thus its grave digger?  Is it a tendency for a rising net return on capital (Piketty) or is it the tendency for a falling rate of profit (Marx) that is the key contradiction of capitalism in the 21st century?”
  • A world rate of protit revisited with Maito and Piketty (April 23, 2014). “… [Piketty] takes time out to insist that Marx’s law of profitability has proved to be fallacious.”
  • Thomas Piketty and the search for ‘r’ (April 15, 2014). “Piketty’s definition of capital is different from that of Marx.  Is Piketty’s better, more realistic and appropriate or is Marx’s?  Does it matter?”
  • Is inequality the cause of capitalist crises? (March 11, 2014). “… if Marx is right, then capitalism is stuck with a low and/or falling rate of return on capital over time, so crises under capitalism will reoccur even if inequality is reduced.”
  • America’s lost generation and Piketty’s rise in capital’s share (January 13, 2014). “Piketty is no Marxist or even an anti-capitalist economist.  But he recognises the threat to the system that growing inequality is creating and he has glimmerings of an understanding of why inequality is endemic under capitalism.”

Monthly Review
Piketty and the crisis of of neoclassical economics. By John Bellamy Foster and Michael D. Yates (Vol.66, No.6, November 2014, p.1-24). “Piketty’s argument and his data make a mockery of this core neoclassical economic thesis. But Piketty advances such an argument without breaking completely with the architecture of neoclassical economics. His theory thus suffers from the same kind of internal incoherence and incompleteness as that of Keynes, whose break with neoclassical economics was also partial.”

MPRA Paper

  • The historical transience of capital: the downward trend in the rate of profit since XIX century (pdf). By Esteban Ezequiel Maito (No.55894, July 2014, 22 p.). “The behavior of the profit rate confirms the predictions made by Marx, about the historical trend of the mode of production.”
  • Piketty against Piketty: the tendency of the rate of profit to fall in United Kingdom and Germany since XIX century confirmed by Piketty (pdf). By Esteban Ezequiel Maito (No.55839, May 2014, 13 p.)
  • The return of ‘patrimonial capitalism’ (pdf). By Branko Milanovich (No.52384, October 2013, 21 p.). “I am hesitant to call Thomas Piketty’s new book … one of the best books in economics written in the past several decades. Not that I do not believe it is …”

MR Online

  • The accidental controversialist: Deeper reflections on Thomas Piketty’s Capital. By Thomas I. Palley (24 April 2014). “… it is interesting to ask why Piketty has broken through where others have failed.  In my view, one reason is political.”
  • Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century: Its uses and limits. By Charles Andrews (22.03.2014). “Piketty talks to a specific audience. Perhaps he hopes enough capitalists will be far-sighted and realize that open oligarchy may stimulate mass rebellion.”

The Nation
Thomas Piketty and millennial Marxist on the scourge of inequality. By Timothy Shenk (May 5, 2014). “Capitalism’s new critics take on an economics run amok.”

New Left Review
Dynamics of inequality (pdf) (Issue 85, January-February 2014, p.103-116; online at Thomas Pikety’s site). Interview with Thomas Piketty. “A leading French economist discusses the historical evolution of global wealth and income imbalances. After the levelling shocks of the 20th century, will the 21st bring a return to the longue durée dominance of inherited fortunes?

New Politics
Mapping the new oligarchy. By  Michael J. Thompson (Issue 57, Summer 2014). “For all of the personal discussion in his preface about his distaste for contemporary economic thinking, he is unable to break out of its stranglehold. Economics is still for him a statistical matter of numbers, not the social context within which it is embedded, and certainly not a system of power relations between people.”

New Republic
I don’t care for Marx: An interview with the left’s rock star economist (May 5, 2014). “Marx? … I never managed really to read it … Das Kapital is, I think, very difficult to read and for me it was not very influential.”

New Socialist
Coasting on borrowed time: Making sense of Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century. By Barry Finger (15 June 2014). “It has certainly encouraged liberals, who seek an alternative to austerity policies that they believe might save capitalism from a profound social crisis. At the same time, it has baffled and irritated Marxists and other heterodox economists of the left, who feel the book misdirects our analysis of the nature of capitalist inequality.

New York Review of Books
Why we’re in a new gilded age. By Paul Krugman (May 5, 2014). “So Capital in the Twenty-First Century is an extremely important book on all fronts. Piketty has transformed our economic discourse; we’ll never talk about wealth and inequality the same way we used to.”

Paris School of Economics: Thomas Piketty

  • Capital in the Twenty-First Century. This internet site includes the following material: The table of contents (pdf) of the book “Capital in the 21st century” – The set of figures and tables (pdf) presented in the book – The set of supplementary figures and tables to which the book refers to – The technical appendix (pdf) describing the set of sources, methods and references used in the book (in particular to construct the statistical series used in figures and tables) – The set of spreadsheet files (xls) including all figures, tables and statistical series – A zip file including all these files.
  • Technical appendix of the book “Capital in the Twenty-First Century”. Appendix to chapter 10: Inequality of capital ownership. Addendum: response to FT (pdf). By Thomas Piketty (May 28, 2014, 10 p.). “The FT suggests that I made mistakes and errors in my computation, which is simply wrong … Next, the FT corrections that are somewhat more important are based upon methodological choises that are quite debatable.”. See also: Data problems with Capital in the 21st Century (pdf). By Chris Giles (Financial Times, May 23, 2014, 9 p.). 

The Project: A Socialist Journal
Review: Thomas Piketty – ‘Capital in the twenty-first century’. By Mick Brooks (July 2014; online at Internet Archive). “The main weakness of Piketty’s book is that he is working with concepts from neoclassical economics. The purpose of this review is to show how Marxist analysis provides the foundation for a much better explanation of economic phenomena.” Michael Roberts: ‘It’s the best Marxist account that I have read of Piketty’s book’.

Real-World Economics Review
Special issue on Piketty’s Capital (pdf) (Issue 69, 7 October 2014, 180 p.). With 17 review articles; among others Robert Wade, Yanis Varoufakis, Michael Hudson, James K. Galbratith and Dean Baker..

Salon.com
The problem with Thomas Piketty: ‘Capital’ destroys right-wing lies, but there’s one solution it forgets. By Thomas Frank (May 11, 2014). “After ‘Capital’, we’ll never talk income inequality or meritocratic myths the same way. But we must talk unions.”

Socialist Appeal
Piketty’s Capital and the spectre of inequality. By Adam Booth (9 May 2014). “More interesting that the enchantment of the reformist left with Piketty is the fury of those most fervently in support of capitalism, who are horrified at the popularity of a man who calls for large increases in taxes on the rich.”

Socialist Worker
Piketty’s theory of capital: strength and weakness. By Alex Callinicos (Issue 2403, 13 May 2014). “At the core of Capital in the 21st Century is a rich and interesting economic sociology. Unfortunately, the theoretical foundations on which Piketty builds and the political conclusions he draws are not so strong.”

SocialistWorker.org
The re-return of Karl Marx (April 30, 2014). “Alan Maass explains how Karl Marx is proving to be as relevant as ever in explaining the chaos of capitalism – and the vast and growing chasm between rich and poor.”

Weekly Worker
Unpicking Piketty. By Michael Roberts (Issue 1013, 5 June 2014). “In my view, there are more important deficiencies in Piketty’s work than inconsistencies in the data … Piketty has no theory of crises in capitalism and assumes they are passing phenomena. So his policy prescriptions for a better world are confined to progressive taxation and a global wealth tax to ‘correct’ capitalist inequality.”

World Socialist Web Site

  • Financial Times’ attack on Piketty under fire. By Nick Beams (30 May 2014). “The campaign by the Financial Times against economist Thomas Piketty and his book Capital in the Twenty-First Century appears to be unravelling less than a week after its launch last Friday.”
  • The Financial Times’ attack on Thomas Piketty. By Joseph Kishore (27 May 2014). “The actual content of the allegations by the FT (focused on only one chapter in the book) bears no relationship to the sweeping conclusions that the newspaper attempts to draw from them.”

 

Video

Capital in the Twenty-First Century (YouTube.com, 3:48 min). Short presentation by Thomas Piketty, December 11, 2013.

Inequality in America (YouTube.com, 1:23:14 min.). Lecture by Thomas Piketty at Columbia University, September 27, 2012.


 

Se også:

Introduktion til Piketty: ulighed, retfærdighed, demokrati. Af Rune Møller Stahl (Hans Reitzel, 2022, 158 sider).

En kort historie om lighed. Af Thomas Piketty (Informations Forlag, 2022, 320 sider). Anmeldelser:
Her er den bog af Piketty, som du skal læse. Af Birthe Larsen (Altinget.dk, 24. april 2022).

Mod en ny socialisme: essays 2016-2020. Af Thomas Piketty (Informations Forlag, 2021, 350 sider). Anmeldelser/Review:
Thomas Pikettys nye bog er snarere reformeret kapitalisme end “en vej mod en ny socialisme”. Af Frederik Boris Hylstrup Olsen (Solidaritet.dk, 25. juni 2021).
Pikettys nye essaysamling er værd at læse – og ikke kun fordi der står Piketty på bogryggen. Af Birthe Larsen (Altinget.dk, 28. juni 2021).
Comrade Thomas Piketty, welcome to the socialist movement. By Eric Blanc (Jacobin, June 2, 2022).

Kapital og ideologi. Af Thomas Piketty (Djøf Forlag og Informations Forlag, 2020, 1036 sider). Anmeldelser/Reviews:
Thomas Piketty har skrevet en bog i særklasse. Af Søren Kolstrup (Solidaritet.dk, 6. september 2020).
Piketty – et socialdemokratisk opgør med kapitalismen. Del 1-2. Af Hans Erik Avlund Frandsen (Eftertrykket.dk, 2. september 2020).
Capital not ideology (Michael Roberts Blog, October 18, 2019).
Capital and Ideology. By Thomas Klikauer and Nadine Campbell (Marx & Philosophy Review of Books, 25 April 2019).

Piketty på fem minutter: Kapitalen i det 21. århundrede. Af Esben S. Titland (Forlaget Vandkunsten, 2015, 28 sider). Se anmeldelse af Ole Wugge Christiansen (Modkraft.dk, 27. november 2015).

Introduktion til Thomas Pikettys Kapitalen i det 21. århundrede. Af Jesper Raine (Informations Forlag, 2014, 111 sider).

Ulighedens økonomi. Af Thomas Piketty (People’s Press, 2014, 166 sider).

How Thomas Piketty ignores class struggle. By Romaric Godin (Jacobin, 1 October 2020). Review of Alain Bihr and Michel Husson, Thomas Piketty: Une Critique Illusoire du Capital (Syllepse, 2020, 196 p.).

World Inequality Report 2018 (WID.world). By Thomas Piketty and others. “We show that income inequality has increased in nearly all world regions in recent decades, but at different speeds.” See executive summary (pdf) (16 p.) + the full report (pdf) (296 p.).


 

Se også på Socialistisk Bibliotek: