- Mar 2023
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Piketty, Thomas. A Brief History of Equality. Translated by Steven Rendall. Harvard University Press, 2022. https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674273559.
annotation target: url: urn:x-pdf:61f07d62a5664b0280bb35ee2d6a69e5
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- Feb 2023
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www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
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The World Inequality Lab is co-directed by the influential economist Thomas Piketty
The = World Inequality Lab - is co-directed by Thomas Piketty,
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- Jan 2023
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docdrop.org docdrop.org
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it's always a matter in the end of redefining a power relation between different social groups so it cannot be completely peaceful it involves a conflicting social interest it involves different groups of people with different agenda and you know in many ways we have we are in a situation which is not i think completely different from 00:12:20 the one at the time of the french revolution which is at the you know those who those who should pay have somehow managed to design a legal system and a political system so that they can escape taxation and and at the same time middle class and lower class people are you know fed up of paying the bill for them and so and so the solution is more and more debt but you know at some point there will have to be something else will have to happen and i think it will be roughly the same it 00:12:51 will have to be roughly the same solution as it was you know 200 years ago which is the end of fiscal privileges of a small group in the population that has that has managed to escape taxation for for for too long
!- Thomas Piketty : comment - Just like in the time of the French Revolution, the small class of elites have designed a legal and political system to escape taxation. - We will likely have another French Revolution-like event to end fiscal privileges
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the true source of economic prosperity is not financial capitalism investment in education investment in the real economy in infrastructure and you know when the in the middle of the 20th century in the 1950s 1960s when the u.s had were in a situation of economic dominance over the rest 00:54:32 of the world it was not through extreme financial inequality except you know you had 19 percent top income tax rate after roosevelt and but you had a big educational advance as compared to you know at that time you had a 90 percent of a court would go to high school in the us in 1950s 1960s at the same time it was 20 30 percent in germany or in 00:54:56 france or so and this was this educational advance which made prosperity historically and and and we seem to to have forgotten this uh you know in the us following you know since the 1980s but so we we have to manage to put this back on the on this agenda but that's that's of course that's not that's not easy
!- Thomas Piketty : The real source of wealth - is investing in real value such as education, infrastructure, skills, etc, NOT financial capitalism - In the 1950's the US dominated other countries through real investments in education. They led other countries so had more skilled workers that increased productivity enormously - We have to pivot away from illusory financial capital and real capital
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there are some sources of energy which which create a negative value because of 00:48:39 of of global climate change and climate working and warming and you know all the negative external effect of using some energy so we have some to make some of the energy uh sources just illegal you know we have to keep some of the oil in the ground we have to stop looking for new oil and gas so you know so the solution to some of the of the energy questions we have is just to to 00:49:04 to make illegal you know the use of certain energy and to to to move to other energy so that's part of the answer now if we if we have done that and we deal with with energy that don't have the the negative this much bigger negative impact on mankind than their positive productive impact then you know redistribution of wealth must be about all forms of wealth you know whether it's 00:49:32 rent or energy or financial assets or i was seeing you know we we need to have a permanent circulation of wealth and power so you know that's the way i i view you know taxation of wealth is will be a permanent you know progressive tax on net wealth which in effect will will will wipe out all the biggest uh wealth right away you know say up to 90 percent tax per year for you 00:49:59 know for for billionaires but among you know there will still be some people who want 100 000 dollars some people who earn 1 million or 2 million but there will be a permanent circulation of wealth holdings within within this limited uh wealth gap that that will still exist and this should be for all forms of wealth you know whether it's land or housing or whatever whatever the origin
!- Thomas Piketty : On redistribution of all forms of wealth - concerning energy, certain harmful forms of energy such as fossil fuels need to be phased out and made illegal due to their harmful effects - ALL forms of wealth, whether financial, energy, housing, needs to be progressively taxed and redistributed equitably. So a billionaire would pay 90 percent tax per year but there will still be a range of wealth...up to millionaires for instance.
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i think climate change is going to put a strong pressure in the sense that you know i think when people see more and more catastrophic climatic events you know i think attitudes toward globalization and attitudes toward inequality in general you know can change very quickly because 00:43:25 you know at some point i think people will not find it funny at all to have all these billionaires you know giving lessons using their private jet doing your space tourism et cetera you know at some point you know i think nobody is going to find this funny at all and there can be a very quick and and fast you know complete change in attitude following this
!- Thomas Piketty : climate change impacts on inequality - climate change extreme events can very quickly cause the public attitudes to the elites to deteriorate very rapidly
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they claim they have solved the problem of multinational taxation but it's it's a bit ridiculous how little they have done the minimum tax rate of 15 percent is ridiculously small and also it's only sort of sharing sort of rich countries are sharing between themselves you 00:33:10 know the tax base that is currently in tax haven but countries in the south in the global south basically don't get anything and i think that's an that's an issue that's something an area in which the pressure of the chinese counter model in the future maybe will contribute to induce rich countries to to to to to to to have a bit more you know inclusive attitude towards the 00:33:37 the south also well if they don't do it i mean you know if they don't do it in effect china will finance the investment and the infrastructure investment that is needed in africa and in south asia and and that's that's you know this is at some point you know fully uh western countries will realize that they have to change something otherwise they will just lose any any influence and any capacity to influence the world
!- Thomas Piketty : Chinese counter model pressures western elites to change
!- Western multinationals : comment - The elites will continue unabated until externally pressured by the Chinese counter model and others that erode the Global South's trust in the Global North elites - Colonialism has morphed into its new variant, post colonial, globalized capitalism - which is available to all elites, both in Global North or South to exploit and privatize in the same extractive, colonialist logic of the past
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as long as the system of of political finance and you know parties and campaigns and media and think tank you know are largely controlled by by large wealth 00:29:11 holders you know our collective ability to change the distribution of wealth and the you know through through taxation or that consolation and or what you know whatever the method is going to be limited so it will take major political fights and in some cases you know changing the political rules of the game and the political institution to to to changes and and you know the good news is that this has always been like this or this has always 00:29:39 and and still sometimes you know it has worked in the in the past but it has worked you know i mentioned the french revolution you know of course that's a huge popular mobilization uh also in the 20th century i mentioned after world war ii after world war one well let's be clear it's only because there was a very powerful uh you know labor movement a socialist movement and communist counter model in the east which in the end put pressure uh on the on the uh and you know and on 00:30:09 the in effect and the elite governing elite in in in the west so that they they they had to accept a number of decisions you know which which were limited in their scope but still which transform the economic and social system in in a very substantial way as compared to the pre-world war one and 19th century economic system but it's only through this enormous political mobilization 00:30:34 and collective organization and you know it will be the same in in the past
!- Thomas Piketty : limited ability for real change as long as elites can lobby governments - but in the past, there has been success, as the two cases previously mentioned - so it is possible, but will take just as enormous a political mobilization of the people
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as you very well say the the part of the increase in private wealth at the top was really made um through you know privatization of public assets increase in public debt you know there's one one statistic which i which i stress a lot which is that if you look at the net wealth of the public sector uh you know the net wealth of the government so government assets 00:27:25 minus government debt it used to be you know in the 1970s net public wealth was you know between 20 30 percent of total national wealth so you know net private wealth was bigger you know was like 70 or 80 percent but still net public waste was 20 30 percent in germany in the u.s in france in britain in japan so that was you know substantial part of everything there was to own in terms of 00:27:52 of marketable assets in society belong to the public domain you know say around one quarter or between one quarter and one third today so you know three four decades later it is uh close to zero or actually negative in in in the u.s or in the uk in the sense that the public debt is bigger than the public assets because many public assets were privatized and and public debt increased 00:28:18 and you know in effect there was a transfer of public wealth uh two to private wealth holders and that's a you know that's a very important evolution which you see the most extreme case of course will be russia and post communist country where you know you just transfer all the public wealth and you make oligarchs out of nothing but in fact we've all you know all countries have had 00:28:42 this kind of trajectories over the recent decades so that's really an important part of the story that i've been trying to tell so you know again i i don't think we have any disagreement on this
!- Thomas Piketty : privatization's impact in the last 4 decades - in summary, marketable assets that belonged to the public domain 3 to 4 decades ago in the average country around the world was 25 to 33 % and today it is zero or in some cases negative.
!- Hudson's comment : privatization was the biggest transfer of wealth in history - to the elites - This transfer is what created many of today's billionaires
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i don't feel like we have any major uh disagreement about you know everything you just said michael uh let me say also regarding you know my book capital in the 21st century you know it's a book that has lots of limitations and and you know i have on many issues you know i've tried to 00:26:31 to to to make progress since then so this was written 10 years ago i wrote capital and ideology much more recently which i think addresses some of the shortcomings but this is and still this book has also a lot of limitations so you know i'm trying to make progress all the time and i certainly don't pretend that all the answers are in you know one book and that being said i think you know many many things that you've mentioned you know again i fully agree with
!- Thomas Piketty : Agreement with Michael and limitations of past books - Piketty states that every book has a lot of limitations. Capital and Ideology is his recent book and addresses some of the shortcomings of Capital in the 21st Century
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think of the yellow vest movement in france a couple of years ago which was a major tax level to get rid of a very what i think was a very uh an equal project to raise the carbon tax basically on the poorest group in society and and there will 00:11:27 be you know to address uh climate uh challenges but also you know all sorts of social and developmental uh challenges uh we will we you know societies will have to to to to find ways of
Thomas Piketty comment Yellow Jackets - was a (carbon) tax result from the poorest sector of society
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there 00:08:24 are two modern episodes which i find particularly striking in terms of getting that back to zero or at least you know concerning a big part of that the french revolution of course is a very important example so you know this was a time when the basically the political system did not manage to make pay those who should have paid for the public spending which was the nobility 00:08:47 so there was a fight flight toward that because people who should have paid the tax managed on how to escape and the solution was the french revolutions and the fiscal privileges of the aristocracy the conservation of that through partisan inflation partly through taxation and that's sort of one modern episode the other modern episode which i want to to refer to is of 00:09:12 course uh after world war ii uh you know after you know in 1945 1950 most rich economies had public debt which were enormous you know even even bigger than than today and they made the choices you know the political choice through you know very conflictual social movement political fights 00:09:37 in the end the choice was made collectively not to replace his debt so this happens in various ways you know inflation in some cases but but some countries like germany in particular which is viewed today as as very conservative in terms of economic doctrine and ideology and which in many ways is very conservative we'll see after the election in a few days but you know it's still going to be quite conservative probably in any case but in fact after world war 00:10:05 ii developed applied the solution to to get rid of the debt of the past through a monetary reform and through progressive taxation of very high wealth holders in order to in effect compensate the lower wealth holders for the uh for the monetary reform and the the loss of links that was implied by military reform so that in the end i mean this is not job this was certainly 00:10:33 not a perfect system but as compared to all other ways of getting rid of past that you know this was certainly one of the one of the most equitable or at least or the least unequitable way to to address the problem and you know i think we will have we will have other episodes like this
!- Thomas Piketty : two ways we got rid of debt in the recent past - french revolution - execute the nobility who escaped paying their fair share of debt - post WWII restructuring
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he regards 00:01:35 the idea of isolated individual as a myth what interested david much more was a dialogue he believed that it is only in dialogue in the class of opinions where answers are formed and how human consciousness is born we humans according to david are the product of our social relationship that's why it was so important for him to be involved in a situation in which 00:02:03 people think and act collectively and david grabber foundation will follow the same path
!- David Grabber Foundation : hosts Fight Club - this talk is on Debt with guests Michael Hudson and Thomas Piketty - David regarded isolated individual as a myth - human consciousness is a product of social relationship
!- isolated individual mythology : comment - Deep Humanity praxis is aligned, seeing the deep entanglement between the individual and the collective(s) the individual is embedded within
Tags
- Post WWII Debt restructuring
- David Grabber Foundation
- taxing billionaires
- Yellow Jackets
- wealth redistribution
- Capital and Ideology
- multinational taxation is insufficient
- DH
- political and social mobilization
- Capital in the 21st Century
- Deep Humanity
- Thomas Piketty
- French Revolution
- chinese counter model
- Michael Hudson
- real source of wealth
- privatization
- climate change impacts on attitudes towards elites
- real capital
- taxing all forms of wealth
- David Grabber
- tax revolt
Annotators
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- Sep 2022
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The second is the fact that, formany persons, the tasks of critical scholarship arenot without their charm; nearly every one findsin them a singular satisfaction in the long runand some have confined themselves to these taskswho might, strictly speaking, have aspired to higherthings.
what about people who may have been on the spectrum, and naturally suited to these endeavors, but who may have wished to hide from the resultant fame or notoreity? Those researchers surely existed in the past.
What about the quickening of these research databases in the digital era that allow researchers like Thomas Piketty to do work on the original sources, but still bring them into a form that allows the analysis and writing critically about them over the span of their own lifetimes? How many researchers are there like this?
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- Jul 2022
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en inequality is declining worldwide. It is true that inBritain and America income equality, which had beenimproving for most of the past two centuries (British aristocratswere six inches taller than the average in 1800; today they areless than two inches taller), has stalled since the 1970s.
Matt Ridley cites a lot of statistics in The Rational Optimist to indicate that inequality has been declining worldwide, though he doesn't do it as convincingly or as well cited as Thomas Piketty does in A Brief History of Equality.
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- Jun 2022
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Those who are born today are not individu-ally responsible for this burdensome heritage, but we are all respon-sible for the way in which we choose or fail to take it into account inanalyzing the world economic system, its injustices, and the needfor change.
burdensome heritage [of slavery and colonialism]
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onlinelibrary.wiley.com onlinelibrary.wiley.com
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Revisiting the “Great Levelling”: The limits of Piketty’s Capital and Ideology for understanding the rise of late 20th century inequality
Subject:Inequality, Planetary Boundary / Doughnut Economic Category: Wealth, Inequality
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- May 2022
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Tables and Illustrations for A Brief History of Equality available here: https://www.hup.harvard.edu/supplementary/a-brief-history-of-equality/
This PDF of tables and illustrations is being made available as a supplement to the audio book format of Thomas Piketty’s A Brief History of Equality as published by Harvard University Press, 2022.
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www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
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The Age of Surveillance Capital is a striking and illuminating book. A fellow reader remarked to me that it reminded him of Thomas Piketty’s magnum opus, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, in that it opens one’s eyes to things we ought to have noticed, but hadn’t.
Of course it doesn't hurt that both its size and the cover art are both reminiscent of the book as well.
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www.youtube.com www.youtube.com
- Sep 2021
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docdrop.org docdrop.org
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<small><cite class='h-cite via'>ᔥ <span class='p-author h-card'>Cory Doctorow </span> in Pluralistic: 29 Sep 2021 – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow (<time class='dt-published'>09/30/2021 10:07:35</time>)</cite></small>
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pluralistic.net pluralistic.net
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He reiterates his thesis that inequality self-corrects, thanks to the instability it engenders. Left on their own, market economies collapse, torn apart by the bill for guards to defend lenders' fortunes, the bill for interest payments that enrich lenders.
Thomas Piketty indicates that inequality self-corrects when market economies collapse, an inevitable function of the inability to guard against lenders' fortunes when the inequality becomes too great.
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This fundamental truth (expressed in economic notation as r > g, or "return on capital is greater than economic growth") means that "meritocracy" is a lie: the richest people in a market economy aren't the people who do the best work, it's the people who started off rich.
Thomas Piketty's r > g shows that meritocracy is a lie in that the richest people aren't the ones that do the best or most productive work, but simply those who start of rich.
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Piketty concludes that no matter how fast an economy is growing – no matter how productive its makers are – that wealth grows faster, making the takers who financed growth even richer than the people whose work is propelling the economy.
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Piketty, of course, is the bestselling French economist whose 2013 Capital in the 21st Century was an unlikely, 700+ page viral hit, describing with rare lucidity the macroeconomics that drive capitalism towards cruel and destabilizing inequality https://memex.craphound.com/2014/06/24/thomas-pikettys-capital-in-the-21st-century/
Great summary of Piketty's book.
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