Capital in the Twenty-First Century

It seems safe to say that Capital in the Twenty-First Century, the magnum opus of the French economist Thomas Piketty, will be the most important economics book of the year—and maybe of the decade. -- Paul Krugman * New York Times *
The book aims to revolutionize the way people think about the economic history of the past two centuries. It may well manage the feat. * The Economist *
Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century is an intellectual tour de force, a triumph of economic history over the theoretical, mathematical modeling that has come to dominate the economics profession in recent years. -- Steven Pearlstein * Washington Post *
Piketty has written an extraordinarily important book…In its scale and sweep it brings us back to the founders of political economy. -- Martin Wolf * Financial Times *
A sweeping account of rising inequality…Piketty has written a book that nobody interested in a defining issue of our era can afford to ignore. -- John Cassidy * New Yorker *
Stands a fair chance of becoming the most influential work of economics yet published in our young century. It is the most important study of inequality in over fifty years. -- Timothy Shenk * The Nation *
At a time when the concentration of wealth and income in the hands of a few has resurfaced as a central political issue, Piketty doesn’t just offer invaluable documentation of what is happening, with unmatched historical depth. He also offers what amounts to a unified field theory of inequality, one that integrates economic growth, the distribution of income between capital and labor, and the distribution of wealth and income among individuals into a single frame…Piketty has transformed our economic discourse; we’ll never talk about wealth and inequality the same way we used to. -- Paul Krugman * New York Review of Books *
The most remarkable work of economics in recent years, if not decades…The discipline of economics, Piketty argues, remains trapped in a juvenile passion for mathematics, divorced from history and its sister social sciences. His work aims to change that. -- Nick Pearce * New Statesman *
Magnificent…Even though it is a work more concerned with the past 200 years, it’s no coincidence that the full title of Piketty’s book is Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Its ambition is to shape debates about the next two centuries, not the past two. And in that it may succeed. -- Christopher Croke * The Australian *
Piketty’s ground-breaking work on the historical evolution of income distribution is impressive…One of the best economic books in decades. -- Paul Sweeney * Irish Times *
[Piketty] is just about to emerge as the most important thinker of his generation…He demonstrates that there is no reason to believe that capitalism can ever solve the problem of inequality, which he insists is getting worse rather than better. From the banking crisis of 2008 to the Occupy movement of 2011, this much has been intuited by ordinary people. The singular significance of his book is that it proves ‘scientifically’ that this intuition is correct. This is why his book has crossed over into the mainstream—it says what many people have already been thinking. -- Andrew Hussey * The Observer *
The strength of Piketty’s book is his close attention to the different sources of inequality, the massive documentation underpinning his history and conclusions, and his impressive culls from sociology and literature, which exhibit the richness of ‘political economy’ compared to its thin mathematical successor that has attained such prominence…A timely intervention in the current debate about inequality and its causes. -- Robert Skidelsky * Prospect *
A monumental book that will influence economic analysis (and perhaps policymaking) in the years to come. In the way it is written and the importance of the questions it asks, it is a book the classic authors of economics could have written if they lived today and had access to the vast empirical material Piketty and his colleagues collected. -- Branko Milanovic * American Prospect *
This book has all the makings of a classic. It has already changed the way economists think about inequality. One hopes that these ideas will percolate into the chambers of policy-makers in governments and lending institutions and bring about changes in their policies to reduce inequality. -- K. Subramanian * The Hindu *
Piketty’s book is revolutionary…[His] multi-century portrait of wealth and income obliterates economists’ complacent narratives…We are still seeking an economy that is both vibrant and humane, where mutual advantage is real and mutual aid possible. The one we have isn’t it. -- Jedediah Purdy * Los Angeles Review of Books *
Piketty demonstrates in terrifying detail, with painstaking statistical research, that free-market capitalism, in the absence of major state redistribution, produces profound economic inequalities. -- Michael Robbins * Chicago Tribune *
An extraordinary sweep of history backed by remarkably detailed data and analysis…Piketty’s economic analysis and historical proofs are breathtaking. -- Robert B. Reich * The Guardian *
Piketty’s treatment of inequality is perfectly matched to its moment. Like [Paul] Kennedy a generation ago, Piketty has emerged as a rock star of the policy-intellectual world…But make no mistake, his work richly deserves all the attention it is receiving…By focusing attention on what has happened to a fortunate few among us, and by opening up for debate issues around the long-run functioning of our market system, Capital in the Twenty-First Century has made a profoundly important contribution. -- Lawrence H. Summers * Democracy *
What makes Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century such a triumph is that it seems to have been written specifically to demolish the great economic shibboleths of our time…Piketty’s magnum opus. -- Thomas Frank * Salon *
Capital reflects decades of work in collecting national income data across centuries, countries, and class, done in partnership with academics across the globe. But beyond its remarkably rich and instructive history, the book’s deep and novel understanding of inequality in the economy has drawn well-deserved attention…The book is an attempt to ground the debate over inequality in strong empirical data, put the question of distribution back into economics, and open the debate not just to the entirety of the social sciences but to people themselves. -- Mike Konczal * Boston Review *
[A] 700-page punch in the plutocracy’s pampered gut…It’s been half a century since a book of economic history broke out of its academic silo with such fireworks. -- Giles Whittell * The Times *
Thomas Piketty of the Paris School of Economics has done the definitive comparative historical research on income inequality in his Capital in the Twenty-First Century. -- Paul Starr * New York Review of Books *
Bracing…Piketty provides a fresh and sweeping analysis of the world’s economic history that puts into question many of our core beliefs about the organization of market economies. His most startling news is that the belief that inequality will eventually stabilize and subside on its own, a long-held tenet of free market capitalism, is wrong. Rather, the economic forces concentrating more and more wealth into the hands of the fortunate few are almost sure to prevail for a very long time. -- Eduardo Porter * New York Times *
About as close to a blockbuster as there is in the world of economic literature—easily the most discussed book of its genre in years…Piketty challenges one of the underpinnings of modern democracies—namely, that growth and productivity make each generation better off than the previous one. -- Barrie McKenna * Globe and Mail *
Piketty has unearthed the history of income distribution for at least the past hundred years in every major capitalist nation. It makes for fascinating, grim and alarming reading…Piketty gives us the most important work of economics since John Maynard Keynes’s General Theory. -- Harold Meyerson * Washington Post *
The strength of [Piketty's] thesis is that it is founded on evidence rather than ideology…What Piketty has done is provide a strong factual understanding for how modern capitalist economies diverge from the image of risk-taking and productive commercial activity. At the very least, the book effectively debunks the notion that there is an economic imperative for low tax rates and a smaller state. -- Oliver Kamm * The Times *
Defies left and right orthodoxy by arguing that worsening inequality is an inevitable outcome of free market capitalism…Without what [Piketty] acknowledges is a politically unrealistic global wealth tax, he sees the United States and the developed world on a path toward a degree of inequality that will reach levels likely to cause severe social disruption. -- Thomas B. Edsall * New York Times *
Piketty's magnum opus…A lucid tale of why inequality in the world is increasing, and what we should be doing about it. The right leaning crowd may be dismayed with his prescriptions of stiff global wealth taxes, but neither leftists nor rightists can dispute the data that he presents. -- Ajit Ranade * Business Today *
Anyone remotely interested in economics needs to read Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century. -- Matthew Yglesias * Slate *
[A] timely, important book. -- Joseph E. Stiglitz * New York Times *
Piketty’s genius lies in proving that inequality is growing and potentially threatens widespread political instability…Piketty has written a trenchant critique of our current economic system. -- Michael Washburn * Boston Globe *
Piketty has looked at centuries of tax archives to formulate a theory of capitalism that is evidence-based and rigorously researched, but also attempts to answer the most basic questions in economic theory…Capital in the Twenty-First Century is already being hailed as a seminal work of economic thought, and with very good reason. -- Thomas Flynn * Daily Beast *
Piketty solidifies and gives an intellectual edge to the view that something is wrong here, and something new and bold and radical has got to be done…People like me, and others, are certainly excited by the prospect of where Piketty might take us. -- Len McCluskey * The Guardian *
The book is a terrific achievement. -- Alan Ryan * Literary Review *
One of the strengths of Piketty’s book is the depth and rigor of his historical analysis. Yet it is changes taking place now that make his concerns especially urgent. -- Andrew Neather * London Evening Standard *
There are books that you read and there are books that hit the nail on the head so hard that you want to get your teeth into them. Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century…clearly belongs to the second category. -- Perry Lam * South China Morning Post *
[Piketty] has demolished the Western myth that all who work hard can expect success. -- Mary Riddell * The Telegraph *
It’s going to be remembered as the economic tome of our era. Basically, Piketty has finally put to death, with data, the fallacies of trickle down economics…We can only hope that the politicians crafting today’s economic programs will take this book to heart. -- Rana Foroohar * Time *
Magisterial…This book is economics at its best. -- Philip Roscoe * Times Higher Education *
[A] seminal work on capitalism. -- Madan Sabnavis * Financial Express *
Piketty has shown that we are living in a Second Gilded Age…Nestled under the book’s mass of data, elegant mathematical formulae, and literary references is an insistence that the turmoil of capitalism is a human turmoil, within the control of human beings. Piketty’s book is a call to citizenship, not as a series of fatalistic poses, but as a political responsibility. That spirit of engagement is more radical, at this moment in history, than any other proposal. -- Stephen Marche * Los Angeles Review of Books *
Piketty hits bullseye after bullseye about the exacerbating inequalities that disfigure society—especially American society…For [those] who suffer from the relentless blather about why the minimum wage cannot be raised; why ‘job creators’ cannot be taxed; and why American society remains the most open in the world, Piketty is what the doctor ordered. -- Russell Jacoby * New Republic *
Riveting…[Piketty] embodies a model of engaged and sophisticated public debate, the sort of which politicians can only dream…Capital inequality has dispossessed us of our ‘democratic sovereignty,’ and that’s something we should all really worry about…His book is as much a story about the limits of modern democratic politics as it is about the structures of inequality. -- Duncan Kelly * Times Literary Supplement *
Very readable and often slyly witty…Piketty does economics in a new way; or more accurately, he returns to an older way…He argues that the degree of inequality is not just the product of economic forces; it is also the product of politics. -- George Fallis * Literary Review of Canada *
Capital in the Twenty-First Century delivered a well placed kick up the backside to complacent mainstream economics. -- Paul Mason * The Observer *
This book is the key to understanding how the automatic accumulation and concentration of wealth poses a threat to the peaceful economies in which entrepreneurs prosper. -- Geoffrey James * Inc. *
Monumental…Translated beautifully by Arthur Goldhammer, [Capital in the Twenty-First Century]…smashed into the intellectual world with incredible force…One also has to admire the way Piketty marshals the data to create a sweeping historical narrative, in a style reminiscent of the great thinkers of the 19th century. -- Ben Chu * The Independent *
Capital in the Twenty-First Century shows how privateers use privatization, debt creation and capital inflation as a mechanism for rent extraction, with catastrophic consequences for public services. -- Allyson Pollock * Times Higher Education *
Piketty’s great achievement, and one possible reason for the enthusiastic reception of his book, is his effective empirical demonstration of a fact long denied by neoclassical economics and its champions throughout the world: markets, when left to their own devices, do not provide individuals with rewards that are proportional to their efforts…[This book] effectively demolishes mainstream myths about the ability of markets to combat inequality. -- Hassan Javid * Dawn *
Monumental…[Piketty] documents a sharp increase in such inequality over the last 25 years, not only in the United States, but also in Canada, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, China, India, Indonesia and South Africa, with...