Capital and Ideology
by Thomas Piketty, Claire Alet, Benjamin Adam · first published 2024
35% recommend65% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Traces how ideologies have shaped inequality and economic systems over centuries, with thorough examples and an approachable style despite its considerable length. Well suited to readers seeking a deep historical dive.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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…investment in public commons can be a convincing solution I highly recommend Jason Hickel's work, specifically his book "Less is More". If you want the deep dive treatment I've just finished Thomas Piketty's "Capital and Ideology" and was very impressed with the thorough historical treatment. https://www.jasonhickel.org/less-is-more https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674980822
on “MIT Predicted Society Will Collapse in 2040. Research Shows We're on Schedule” ↗…Continuing to perpetuate a system of winner-take-all rewards with its concomitant increase in inequality is a self defeating system inviting violent revolution. Piketty lays this out with abundant examples in Capital and Ideology: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_and_Ideology Fellow techbros, we tend to ignore this and see only the positive in growth of technology and our own RSU totals. But we become ignorant of and…
on “The Professor Who Made $10B by Cutting Google Its First Startup Check” ↗Capital and Ideology - Piketty very approachable for an intimidatingly huge book
on “Ask HN: What are you reading to make sense of the economy?” ↗What were the ideologies that shaped the economic systems in which we live you ask? Welp do I have a book for you, friend: Capital and Ideology by by Thomas Piketty Spoiler alert Since way back inequality was baked-in as a featue.
on “Ask HN: What are you reading to make sense of the economy?” ↗Thomas Piketty's Capital and Ideology. It's like a master class in historical political relations all in a single (large) book.
on “Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?” ↗I also enjoyed the comic book version of “ Capital and Ideology” by Picketty, Claire Alet and Benjamin Adam which follows the fortunes of a French family through the generations.
on “Inheriting is becoming nearly as important as working” ↗This is a great book. I have Capital and Ideology on my nightstand too but I'm building up the fortitude to power through it.
on “‘Capitalism is dead. Now we have something much worse’” ↗…people we need to take a long hard look at how tertiary education works in the US. Edit: for those looking for a citation for attributing the U.S. dominance in the 20th century to education, see Piketty, Capital and Ideology, 517-522. Note that by the dawn of the 20th century German GDP per capita per-job was 60-70% of that of the US; that figure was 80-90% in the UK. I'm not saying two world wars didn't contribute, but the…
on “College became the default – Let's rethink that” ↗…inequality. Also, non sequitur: while I enjoyed A Brief History of Equality, I feel that it tried to stuff too much historical detail into so short a work - it reads a bit like a condensed version of Capital and Ideology. I found the most enlightening parts of Piketty's previous works involved the tracing of political and economic minutiae across time and space, and I'm not sure I would have actually enjoyed A Brief History…
on “Thomas Piketty’s Radical Plan to Redistribute Wealth” ↗Of the criticisms to Piketty, not having done the math isn't really one of them. I don't have Capital and Ideology close at hand, so I can't check how he worked it out, but consulting some other sources: - the top 1% in the US apparently have around $45.7T in wealth [1] - there are around 22M people in the 20-24…
on “Billionaires amass more through inheritance than wealth creation, says UBS” ↗…"Piketty Inequality Theory" has to do with the linked-to page. The Bloomberg title is "Thomas Piketty Is Back With a 1,200-Page Guide to Abolishing Billionaires". The new book is titled (in English) "Capital and Ideology".
on “Piketty Inequality Theory” ↗…thin margins" while ignoring the fact that they do in fact have a lot of _wealth_ especially relative to their tenants. I've recently been listening to the audio version of Piketty's more recent book, Capital and Ideology. I think noting the difference between wealth and income, and the wage-share vs capital-share (more his 2013 book) is helpful framing for the question of "how badly should we feel for small landlords?"…
on “If landlords get wiped out, Wall Street wins, not renters” ↗…https://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/338canada-the-urban-... Also, in recent years/decades there has been high correlation between education levels and political leanings. Piketty, in his most recent book Capital and Ideology, made an interesting observation: up until the 1980s blue collar works tended to vote for more-Left parties and white collar (more educated?) workers for more-Right parties. Then in the the 1980s and…
on “Tech Workers Take to the Mountains, Bringing Silicon Valley with Them” ↗What do you think of Capital and Ideology? Piketty posits some theories/hypothesis with caveats throughout and has a lot of data for certain countries and time periods, 75% of the book is history through the lens he is examining.
on “Why inflation is not a threat” ↗Piketty goes over the numbers in his book Capital and Ideology in several chapters: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_and_Ideology (His earlier Capital in the Twenty-First Century is more well-known.)
on “Educated voters’ leftward shift is surprisingly old and international” ↗