-
Capital and Ideology
- Narrated by: Rick Adamson
- Length: 48 hrs and 57 mins
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy for $52.47
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Capital in the Twenty-First Century
- By: Thomas Piketty, Arthur Goldhammer - translator
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 24 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Data-Driven Books which Lie about Data are Useless
- By Ben on 11-02-19
By: Thomas Piketty, and others
-
A Brief History of Equality
- By: Thomas Piketty
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The world’s leading economist of inequality presents a short but sweeping and surprisingly optimistic history of human progress toward equality despite crises, disasters, and backsliding, a perfect introduction to the ideas developed in his monumental earlier books.
-
-
Required reading for a more equitable future
- By Ryan Porter on 06-29-22
By: Thomas Piketty
-
Time for Socialism
- Dispatches from a World on Fire, 2016-2021
- By: Thomas Piketty
- Narrated by: L.J. Ganser
- Length: 8 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over the past four years, world-renowned economist Thomas Piketty documented his close observations on current events through a regular column in the French newspaper Le Monde. His pen captured the rise and fall of Trump, the drama of Brexit, Macron’s ascendance to the French presidency, the unfolding of a global pandemic, and much else besides, always through the lens of Piketty’s fight for a more equitable world. This collection brings together those articles.
-
-
So much wrong with this
- By Todd on 11-06-21
By: Thomas Piketty
-
Debt - Updated and Expanded
- The First 5,000 Years
- By: David Graeber
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 17 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Here, anthropologist David Graeber presents a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom: He shows that before there was money, there was debt. For more than 5,000 years, since the beginnings of the first agrarian empires, humans have used elaborate credit systems to buy and sell goods - that is, long before the invention of coins or cash. It is in this era, Graeber argues, that we also first encounter a society divided into debtors and creditors.
-
-
Debt
- By Andrew P. on 08-07-18
By: David Graeber
-
Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order
- Why Nations Succeed or Fail
- By: Ray Dalio
- Narrated by: Jeremy Bobb, Ray Dalio
- Length: 16 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From legendary investor Ray Dalio, author of the number-one New York Times best seller Principles, who has spent half a century studying global economies and markets, Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order examines history’s most turbulent economic and political periods to reveal why the times ahead will likely be radically different from those we’ve experienced in our lifetimes - and to offer practical advice on how to navigate them well.
-
-
Ray Dalio, Chinas New Minister of Propoganda
- By Dudley on 01-04-22
By: Ray Dalio
-
The Dawn of Everything
- A New History of Humanity
- By: David Graeber, David Wengrow
- Narrated by: Mark Williams
- Length: 24 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A trailblazing account of human history, challenging our most fundamental assumptions about social evolution - from the development of agriculture and cities to the emergence of "the state", political violence, and social inequality - and revealing new possibilities for human emancipation.
-
-
exactly what I've been looking for
- By DankTurtle on 11-10-21
By: David Graeber, and others
-
Capital in the Twenty-First Century
- By: Thomas Piketty, Arthur Goldhammer - translator
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 24 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Data-Driven Books which Lie about Data are Useless
- By Ben on 11-02-19
By: Thomas Piketty, and others
-
A Brief History of Equality
- By: Thomas Piketty
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The world’s leading economist of inequality presents a short but sweeping and surprisingly optimistic history of human progress toward equality despite crises, disasters, and backsliding, a perfect introduction to the ideas developed in his monumental earlier books.
-
-
Required reading for a more equitable future
- By Ryan Porter on 06-29-22
By: Thomas Piketty
-
Time for Socialism
- Dispatches from a World on Fire, 2016-2021
- By: Thomas Piketty
- Narrated by: L.J. Ganser
- Length: 8 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over the past four years, world-renowned economist Thomas Piketty documented his close observations on current events through a regular column in the French newspaper Le Monde. His pen captured the rise and fall of Trump, the drama of Brexit, Macron’s ascendance to the French presidency, the unfolding of a global pandemic, and much else besides, always through the lens of Piketty’s fight for a more equitable world. This collection brings together those articles.
-
-
So much wrong with this
- By Todd on 11-06-21
By: Thomas Piketty
-
Debt - Updated and Expanded
- The First 5,000 Years
- By: David Graeber
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 17 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Here, anthropologist David Graeber presents a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom: He shows that before there was money, there was debt. For more than 5,000 years, since the beginnings of the first agrarian empires, humans have used elaborate credit systems to buy and sell goods - that is, long before the invention of coins or cash. It is in this era, Graeber argues, that we also first encounter a society divided into debtors and creditors.
-
-
Debt
- By Andrew P. on 08-07-18
By: David Graeber
-
Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order
- Why Nations Succeed or Fail
- By: Ray Dalio
- Narrated by: Jeremy Bobb, Ray Dalio
- Length: 16 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From legendary investor Ray Dalio, author of the number-one New York Times best seller Principles, who has spent half a century studying global economies and markets, Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order examines history’s most turbulent economic and political periods to reveal why the times ahead will likely be radically different from those we’ve experienced in our lifetimes - and to offer practical advice on how to navigate them well.
-
-
Ray Dalio, Chinas New Minister of Propoganda
- By Dudley on 01-04-22
By: Ray Dalio
-
The Dawn of Everything
- A New History of Humanity
- By: David Graeber, David Wengrow
- Narrated by: Mark Williams
- Length: 24 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A trailblazing account of human history, challenging our most fundamental assumptions about social evolution - from the development of agriculture and cities to the emergence of "the state", political violence, and social inequality - and revealing new possibilities for human emancipation.
-
-
exactly what I've been looking for
- By DankTurtle on 11-10-21
By: David Graeber, and others
-
The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution
- By: Francis Fukuyama
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 22 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Virtually all human societies were once organized tribally, yet over time most developed new political institutions which included a central state that could keep the peace and uniform laws that applied to all citizens. Some went on to create governments that were accountable to their constituents. We take these institutions for granted, but they are absent or are unable to perform in many of today’s developing countries—with often disastrous consequences for the rest of the world.
-
-
Best Summary of Political History I've Read
- By blah on 05-12-13
By: Francis Fukuyama
-
Crashed
- How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World
- By: Adam Tooze
- Narrated by: Simon Vance, Adam Tooze
- Length: 25 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Current events have deep roots, and the key to navigating today’s roiling policies lies in the events that started it all — the 2008 economic crisis and its aftermath. Despite initial attempts to downplay the crisis as a local incident, what happened on Wall Street beginning in 2008 was, in fact, a dramatic caesura of global significance that spiraled around the world, from the financial markets of the UK and Europe to the factories and dockyards of Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America.
-
-
Very left biased book on the crash
- By Christopher Strachan on 08-29-19
By: Adam Tooze
-
Ages of American Capitalism
- A History of the United States
- By: Jonathan Levy
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 31 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Today, in the midst of a new economic crisis and severe political discord, the nature of capitalism in United States is at a crossroads. Since the market crash and Great Recession of 2008, historian Jonathan Levy has been teaching a course to help his students understand everything that had happened to reach that disaster and the current state of the economy, but in doing so he discovered something more fundamental about American history. Now, in an ambitious single-volume history of the United States, he reveals how capitalism in America has evolved through four distinct ages.
-
-
Hard to imagine a better one-volume economic history of the US
- By Owen Davis on 02-27-22
By: Jonathan Levy
-
Understanding Power
- The Indispensable Chomsky
- By: Noam Chomsky, John Schoeffel - editor, Peter R. Mitchell - editor
- Narrated by: Robin Bloodworth
- Length: 22 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A major new collection from "arguably the most important intellectual alive" ( The New York Times). Noam Chomsky is universally accepted as one of the preeminent public intellectuals of the modern era. Over the past thirty years, broadly diverse audiences have gathered to attend his sold-out lectures. Now, in Understanding Power, Peter Mitchell and John Schoeffel have assembled the best of Chomsky's recent talks on the past, present, and future of the politics of power.
-
-
NC: The Left's equivalent to Rush Limbaugh
- By Jay Parker on 11-03-18
By: Noam Chomsky, and others
-
Why Nations Fail
- The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty
- By: Daron Acemoglu, James A. Robinson
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 17 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Brilliant and engagingly written, Why Nations Fail answers the question that has stumped the experts for centuries: Why are some nations rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine?
-
-
Important themes, with blind spots
- By Ryan on 09-01-12
By: Daron Acemoglu, and others
-
Bullshit Jobs
- A Theory
- By: David Graeber
- Narrated by: Christopher Ragland
- Length: 12 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Does your job make a meaningful contribution to the world? In the spring of 2013, David Graeber asked this question in a playful, provocative essay titled “On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs”. It went viral. After a million online views in 17 different languages, people all over the world are still debating the answer.
-
-
Not a bullshit book.
- By Anonymous User on 04-10-19
By: David Graeber
-
The Price of Tomorrow
- Why Deflation Is the Key to an Abundant Future
- By: Jeff Booth
- Narrated by: Brian Troxell
- Length: 5 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We live in an extraordinary time. Technological advances are happening at a rate faster than our ability to understand them, and in a world that moves faster than we can imagine, we cannot afford to stand still. These advances bring efficiency and abundance - and they are profoundly deflationary. Our economic systems were built for a pre-technology era when labor and capital were inextricably linked - an era that counted on growth and inflation and an era where we made money from inefficiency.
-
-
I've got this on constant repeat, 3 times already
- By Tim Kennedy on 05-20-20
By: Jeff Booth
-
The Price of Inequality
- How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future
- By: Joseph E. Stiglitz
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The top 1 percent of Americans control 40 percent of the nation's wealth. And, as Joseph E. Stiglitz explains, while those at the top enjoy the best health care, education, and benefits of wealth, they fail to realize that "their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live." Stiglitz draws on his deep understanding of economics to show that growing inequality is not inevitable. He examines our current state, then teases out its implications for democracy, for monetary and budgetary policy, and for globalization. He closes with a plan for a more just and prosperous future.
-
-
An explosion of ideas with no depth
- By P. Smith on 02-03-15
-
The Rise and Fall of American Growth
- The U.S. Standard of Living Since the Civil War
- By: Robert J. Gordon
- Narrated by: Michael Butler Murray
- Length: 30 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the century after the Civil War, an economic revolution improved the American standard of living in ways previously unimaginable. Electric lighting, indoor plumbing, home appliances, motor vehicles, air travel, air conditioning, and television transformed households and workplaces. With medical advances, life expectancy between 1870 and 1970 grew from 45 to 72 years. The Rise and Fall of American Growth provides an in-depth account of this momentous era.
-
-
Over-detailed, with no engaging message
- By BehA on 01-31-17
By: Robert J. Gordon
-
The Democracy Project
- A History, a Crisis, a Movement
- By: David Graeber
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 9 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Democracy has been the American religion since before the Revolution - from New England town halls to the multicultural democracy of Atlantic pirate ships. But can our current political system, one that seems responsive only to the wealthiest among us and leaves most Americans feeling disengaged, voiceless, and disenfranchised, really be called democratic? And if the tools of our democracy are not working to solve the rising crises we face, how can we - average citizens - make change happen? David Graeber, one of the most influential scholars and activists of his generation, takes listeners on a journey through the idea of democracy.
-
-
Must-read: such insight, an awakening!
- By Kevin on 10-15-14
By: David Graeber
-
Basic Economics, Fifth Edition
- A Common Sense Guide to the Economy
- By: Thomas Sowell
- Narrated by: Tom Weiner
- Length: 23 hrs and 47 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this fifth edition of Basic Economics, Thomas Sowell revises and updates his popular book on commonsense economics, bringing the world into clearer focus through a basic understanding of the fundamental economic principles and how they explain our lives. Drawing on lively examples from around the world and from centuries of history, Sowell explains basic economic principles for the general public in plain English.
-
-
The most eye-opening book I have ever read
- By M. Kunze on 02-10-18
By: Thomas Sowell
-
The Utopia of Rules
- On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy
- By: David Graeber
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Anthropologist David Graeber - one of our most important and provocative thinkers - traces the peculiar and unexpected ways we relate to bureaucracy today and reveals how it shapes our lives in ways we may not even notice...though he also suggests there may be something perversely appealing - even romantic - about bureaucracy.
-
-
Not his most serious book, but still really great
- By David Pereplyotchik on 11-19-19
By: David Graeber
Publisher's Summary
The epic successor to one of the most important books of the century: at once a retelling of global history, a scathing critique of contemporary politics, and a bold proposal for a new and fairer economic system
Thomas Piketty’s best-selling Capital in the Twenty-First Century galvanized global debate about inequality. In this audacious follow-up, Piketty challenges us to revolutionize how we think about politics, ideology, and history. He exposes the ideas that have sustained inequality for the past millennium, reveals why the shallow politics of right and left are failing us today, and outlines the structure of a fairer economic system.
Our economy, Piketty observes, is not a natural fact. Markets, profits, and capital are all historical constructs that depend on choices. Piketty explores the material and ideological interactions of conflicting social groups that have given us slavery, serfdom, colonialism, communism, and hypercapitalism, shaping the lives of billions. He concludes that the great driver of human progress over the centuries has been the struggle for equality and education, and not, as often argued, the assertion of property rights or the pursuit of stability. The new era of extreme inequality that has derailed that progress since the 1980s, he shows, is partly a reaction against communism, but it is also the fruit of ignorance, intellectual specialization, and our drift toward the dead-end politics of identity.
Once we understand this, we can begin to envision a more balanced approach to economics and politics. Piketty argues for a new “participatory” socialism, a system founded on an ideology of equality, social property, education, and the sharing of knowledge and power. Capital and Ideology is destined to be one of the indispensable books of our time, a work that will not only help us understand the world, but that will change it.
More from the same
What listeners say about Capital and Ideology
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 03-20-20
Big thinking at its finest
Data driven, factual analysis with strong understanding of history, politics, economics and the need for global and regional solutions. It impacts my thinking on everything I am passionate about- wealth inequality, gender rights, climate change, global goals and access tools.
Great analysis and information that hopefully will help spur change and progress.
21 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- 4thace
- 08-27-20
For committed students of economics and politics
This is a massive book that goes into the minutiae of many economics systems around the world and back in time, and yet I felt like hearing more about some of the cases they didn't have the opportunity to discuss. In the beginning where they present how the dominant countries we have data for (mainly western European) organized society around the three estates of church, nobility, and common people the emphasis is on description, sticking closely to the data. This continues when after the revolutions of the eighteenth century these countries changed over to a proprietarian scheme where a central government provided most of the functions that the monarch and the church did previously, and the small class that controlled nearly all the property was the main group that mattered. The author shows convincingly how this actually served to concentrate power even more than in the trifunctional arrangement, both with regard to income and to wealth. In parallel, there were slave and colonial states which benefited the empires that controlled them from afar. Then, after the first World War, everything changed, with authoritarian regimes in central and eastern Europe, social democracies in Scandinavia, western Europe, and to a limited degree the United States. By mid-twentieth century inequality was lessened from the before because of an acceptance of progressive central taxation and the independence of former colonies, but by the end of the millennium there was another transition to the hypercapitalistic global economy we see now with a different pattern of wealth concentration. Throughout they emphasize that changes in ideology have been the things which have driven economic conditions, not the other way around.
Midway through the book, there is a shift toward a tendency to advocate on the side of less inegalitarian, less nativist economic structures. It isn't until the final summary at the end where I felt like the measures being promoted were really strongly left-wing, such as the move away from private ownership and allowing movement across national borders, as opposed to center-left positions changing things like an ownership stake by labor in large companies. I have not read the author's previous work but hear a lot of readers complaining that this is to some degree a rehash of that analysis, with perhaps additional data from different eras and different countries from before. I have some sympathy for their position, because it feels like we are seeing a lot of the limits of what capitalism can do when it comes to working toward a just and humane society, and I would like there to be some attempt at a conversation on what alternatives there could be. I would not say that the author represents a really revolutionary viewpoint, though, more one that sees a growth in problems that capitalism seems poorly equipped to solve by itself.
There was some economic jargon along the way that was unfamiliar to me: besides trifunctional systems, there was also ternary societies, censitarian monarchies, and discussion of a union between the Brahmin left and merchant right when it comes to political ideologies. I could eventually figure out what these were about but I could see how it could be off-putting to a general reader. The sections that were deep-dives into one or another aspect of French governance over the last fifty years were interesting to me even given how unfamiliar I was with it, but it's easy to see how these would be the point where someone would put the book down. But anyone who picks this up ought to be able to figure out that it isn't intended to be a comprehensive and objective survey of all economic activity worldwide, or even that of the west.
I listened to this in audiobook form, now and then dipping back into the figures and tables which accompany the purchase of the book just so I could see what point they were making. This was a little cumbersome, but I think it would be harder for me to consume this all as straight text whether hardcopy or electronic. The frequent footnotes were not a big impediment for me, but I would occasionally be surprised when coming to the end of a section and diving into a completely separate topic, which seemed abrupt sometimes. I recommended this to one book club I belong to, but now that I finished it I am thinking that expecting members to read the whole long work is probably too much and would only lead to unfocused discussion. I am not sure whether I'll ever re-read this ponderous work someday, but I do feel like I got a lot out of it.
15 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 06-06-20
Accessible
More accessible for me than Capital in the 21st Century. Solid arguments against the sacralization of property. Practical roadmap for social democrats.
7 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 05-19-20
The narrator is not good
The narrator is painfully monotonous and seems incapable of altering his voice intonations to fit the content. He frequently sounds as though he doesn't understand, or care about, what he is reading. You have to listen around him and constantly resist his tendency to make dense content harder to follow.
6 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Eugene Gallagher
- 01-16-21
Capital inequality throughout the world & history
Paul Krugman (NYTimes, 3/8/2020) gave 'Capital and Ideology' a tepid review, so I was a bit leery of starting into the nearly 50 hour Audible book, but I enjoyed the book thoroughly, as much or more than the earlier Capital in the Twenty-first Century. Like the earlier book, it is essential to have access to the pdf with over 100 pages of graphs and tables; the pdf is provided with the audible download. Piketty argues that the inequalities in wealth can be traced to the ideologies underlying societies over the last four centuries or so. Ternary societies with 3 distinct classes (Royalty, Clergy & the hoi polloi) dominated most western societies with ternary analogues in Japan, China, and India. Ownership societies followed, often associated with colonialism and slave-owning societies which were the acme of inequality. Other than slave societies, the peak of wealth and income inequality was reached in the belle epoque in France and elsewhere 1880-1914, followed by a relative drop in inequality until about 1980. Piketty attributes this reduction in inequality to the introduction of progressive taxation, needed to pay down the war debts from two world wars. The period of hypercapitalism after 1980, with Reagan and Thatcher leading the way, was a race to the bottom among countries and US States to see which government could tax the wealth of individuals and corporations the least. Post-Soviet Russian became the least egalitarian society of all with a mere 12% flat income tax, no estate tax and more billionaires per capita than any other country. Piketty stresses that educational inequality, especially in the US, is a major driver of income and wealth inequality with strong intergenerational carryover. The rise of Nativist anti-intellectual politicians such as Trump is not unique to the US; there are similar populist leaders in Britain, France, Italy, Poland and Hungary. The GOP in the US, in addition to advocating policies favoring the wealthy has also become the party for those who feel alienated from the increasingly intellectual Democratic party, The Democratic party is the home of highly educated as well as the party of the blacks and other minorities. Piketty argues that it is the dislike of the educationally elite not minorities that has been the major driver of the white blue collar and merchant class to the GOP party. A similar migration to the conservative parties by the relatively uneducated has occured since the 1980s in Britain, Italy, Poland, Hungary and France. Strangely, but perhaps not, the Ivy-based Krugman doesn't mention Piketty's arguments about the inequalities in US higher education (both funding and quality) in his tepid review of Piketty. Piketty's solutions (e.g., more equiable funding and access to high quality education, especially higher education, taxiing elite University endowments, increasing the progressivity of wealth taxes, establishing a basal income for all, and requiring labor to have strong representation on corporate boards) seem inconceivable in today's non-Nordic & Germanic socieites. Piketty's call for clarity in documenting wealth and its inequalities and pleas to reduce the competition among states and countries to provide the least progressive forms of taxation would be a good start.
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- X. Zu
- 01-13-21
Thought provoking questions!Promising proposals!
Pike try intends to put data back to the hands of citizens. Out of the academic ivory towers. Every one can follow his lucid analysis and rich array of data. And understand the history of inequality and start to think about how to build a more equitable world.
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- Ahl
- 05-13-20
-
fundamentally flawed, blames specific races instead of human tribalism as a whole. sounds like text-to-speech
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Melody
- 11-02-20
Thomas Piketty is astounding!
Though this book is long, it is nevertheless a GREAT analysis. The depth of knowledge on world history and economics reveals probable future outcomes if interventions are not considered. Piketty recognizes the need to secure equality at all levels and asks the tough questions like at what point is there too much tax? At what point is there too little? Should certain structures pay more tax than others? Is the world ready for transnational ideology? This scholarly work highlights the overwhelming number of people on our planet indirectly with abundant studies on inequality in its many forms: gender, social constructs, religious constructs, environmental degradation, power structures, corporate structures, etc. He easily elevates the reader above all the obvious corruption by often reminding us of the alternative - that we can have open/transparent democratic dialogue platforms, especially between labor and shareholders. After he shares with us the World’s socioeconomic history at length, he picks the portions that work. He’s also keen to reason why the other portions do not work. Yet he is as open-ended. It is left for the reader to decide. The entire work is well balanced. Its humorous at times and the audio book Reader was well chosen to deliver such a heavy message. It is textbook quality and essential reading.
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mary K. Bohm
- 10-28-20
Greatest Economist Since Keynes, If Not Adam Smith
Piketty does not dwell on capitalist, socialist, communist, or any other kind of “ists”, he lumps them all into the same broad category of “inequality regimes”.
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 01-23-21
Das Kapital for the 21st century.
The most ambitious look at human inequality across time and cultures to date with exactly the recommendations we need for our time.
This is a masterpiece.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Rowan
- 07-08-20
worth the effort
very enjoyable and thought provoking, particularly the historical analysis in the first parts of the book. The conclusions sound like wishful thinking today but the trend of discourse is towards piketty's ideas, establishing him as one of our era's leading thinkers
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Jussie
- 06-05-20
exceptionally informative
I've never been interested in history, but this book kept me intrigued right the way through with its constant enlightening historical facts. The author enabled a novice like me to follow and understand the complicated history of various countries. In all honesty, I'm blown away. I would highly recommend it to anyone who knows little, as well as anyone who thinks they know something about socio-economic history. Fantastic!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Anonymous
- 04-27-20
A very informative read
Massive though it is, thus is a very interesting book, so doesn't bore.
Suffers from using too many big words, when little ones may be more understandable.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Anonymous User
- 04-20-22
a must read
very informative, but also really easy to follow and fun all the way through.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Arkhidamos
- 08-19-21
A monumental yet very accessible achievement
It’s a testament to how engaged I was through the 49 hours of this book that not only did I occasionally listen two or three times to certain sections but I went out and bought a hard copy too. Not because the concepts involved are too difficult to understand - indeed I found this book much less technical than Piketty’s previous book, Capital in the 21st Century. Yet there is simply so much to absorb. The whole point of the book is the study of inequality across time, including in pre-capitalist societies and such remnants of these as survived in to the 20th Century, as well as communist, post-communist and what Piketty refers to as hyper-capitalist (the political left would often say neoliberal) societies of today.
It provides a great deal of food for thoughts regardless of whether you agree with the ultimate solutions proposed, of essentially barring the transmission of wealth across generations, permitting inequality of property ownership and in wage differentials (as the market will determine remuneration according to the value-added of the job undertaken) but enabling equal opportunities by creating a universal endowment that each family can choose to spend on education, and which the individual when of age might utilise as start-up capital should they wish to launch a business. I don’t agree with any of that. I also don’t think it is remotely politically workable. Yet it is presented with flair and imagination, at a time when so many politicians and talking heads try to ratchet down our expectations,
My only note of caution is that this is a great book as a starting point in some of the historical areas. In those areas where I feel qualified to comment, e.g. the USSR, Piketty can be superficial (the planned economy failed because it didn’t allow for choice and locked too many people up, is the basic point) or else there is a tendency to bypass or give scant details on major moments where inequality was addressed consciously, both politically and economically, through the labour movements of the various countries looked at. This is a curious omission since the labour movement is precisely the only set of organisations that can slice through the division of society into right populists and left liberals (Piketty’s terms for these I like very much, social nativism and Brahmin left) and thus establish the basis for a politics of redistribution. Yet the specific histories of how these moments arrived and only partly succeeded, or were rolled back, is not addressed in any depth.
Despite these minor quibbles, this is a book of stupendous ambition and sweeping breadth of knowledge and analysis. That makes it all the more remarkable that it is so digestible. Strong, strong recommendation to anyone with even a passing interest in politics.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- T S
- 07-18-21
Good ideas, narrator poor
Interesting ideas but goes into the minutiae too much to keep an engaging flow of ideas. a stricter editor would have really helped as there's a whole bunch of interesting concepts under debate here.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Mark J.
- 02-28-21
Thus far, the best book of the century.
Amazing work, the analysis is absorbing and cutting. I agreed with everything bar its pro immigration stance.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- M. Dixon
- 12-31-20
Essential but very technical
US narrator = less empathy with content but worth the effort. Participatory socialism must come!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Anonymous User
- 05-30-20
Worth the read!
Let’s be honest, the first thing you thought when you saw this audiobook was ‘holy sh#t, 50 hours?!....’ but trust me, you absolutely MUST take on the task to persevere through this book. Also, I was able to listen to the book fairly comfortably at 1.4x speed reducing the listening time to 40 hours.
In the final sentence of the book, Piketty states ‘ultimately, this book has only one goal, to enable citizens to reclaim possession of economical and historical knowledge. Whether or not an individual agrees with my position is irrelevant, because the purpose is to begin a debate, not end it.’
This book is an immediate prerequisite for anyone who is concerned about wealth inequality but should also be required reading for those interested in democracy as a whole and how political and social factors interplay to result in what we’ve seen manifest in the past across various societies and what we have now.
The book starts by observing historical shifts of social hierarchy from classical ternary societies (nobility, clergy & third estate) to proprietarianism (a society where acknowledgment and defence of property rights are paramount) to various forms of socialism and communism and then eventually to today’s society, neo-proprietarianism.
There are thorough accounts of the progression of these various ideologies thorough last 300+ years of not only Western Europe, but also the Americas, Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe. The bulk of information does pertain to Europe and the USA though, particularly Piketty’s native homeland, France.
At times I felt I was reading a pure history text which I personally loved. I learnt a lot of facts I had no idea about that helped influence my views.
As you can imagine, there are occasional sections of a 50h audiobook where you find yourself not particularly engaged with the book but this is largely due to the limits of the human attention span and not because the content is superfluous. I found myself deeply engaged the majority of the time.
The culmination of the book ends in Piketty positing his ideal starting point for his version of democratic socialism called ‘participatory socialism’ which includes a wide range of policies combining a mixture of deeply progressive wealth taxes, to universal capital endowments and a complete revision of all international trade agreements that allow a disproportionate amount of capital to leave poorer nations.
Although Piketty states clearly his personal position as the book proceeds and recapitulates this in the final chapter, the historical analysis and representation of data is 100% objective and great care is taken to explain many data points can not be taken at face value as access to truly accurate numbers are often impossible which reduces data to best available estimates. However, they’re still more than sufficient for being able to notice trends.
This is easily one of the best books I’ve ever read and has already deeply influenced my personal political views.
Like Piketty says, even if you don’t agree with the conclusion of democratic socialism, simply listening to and understanding all the facts that have played apart in bringing modern society to where it is now can only help to further debate about how best to structure our societies.
Please read 🙏🏼
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Robert Starreveld
- 08-13-21
Incredibly informative
One of the most eye opening books I've listened to in years! Highly recommend to anyone who wishes to understand why particular powers and structures exist in the world. The books dives into topics that are generalised with examples from multiple societies (not always Euro centric) I've learn more about Indias class structure and it's history here than anywhere else!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Anonymous User
- 05-29-21
Outstanding
Outstanding follow up to Capital in the 21st Century. Covers inequality across centuries and founded on evidence. Piketty advances the conversation.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Anonymous User
- 09-16-20
Long read, but worth it!!
Piketty gives the reader a comprehensive review of the economic inequalities around the world and their various historical origins.
I like that he also makes suggestion on how to tackle this problem
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Amazon Customer
- 06-29-20
A little bit too academic for normal people
A good history of how the capital market changes based on different policies, such as India and Europe. However, does not provide too many thought-provoking ideas about how to change our society, rather than more tax on the rich and their property. Personally, I think the anti-trust law, a more community based economy, or even sharing economy which are discussed by other books are more practically to solve our current problems.