Piketty: Quality of Life for Billions of People is at Stake

Can society continue its long-run trajectory and commit to institutional, legal, social, fiscal, and educational systems that can advance equality?

World-renowned economist and inequality researcher Thomas Piketty in conversation with Rob Johnson, President of the Institute for New Economic Thinking about Piketty’s just-released book, A Brief History of Equality.

The book condenses 20 years’ worth of research into inequality and provides well-founded reasons to believe that recent trends in the growth of inequality can be reversed in the not too distant future.

Piketty reminds us that the grand sweep of history gives us reasons to be optimistic. Over the centuries, his new book shows, we have been moving toward greater equality. The book guides the reader through the great movements that have made the modern world for better and worse: the growth of capitalism, revolutions, imperialism, slavery, wars, and the building of the welfare state. It’s a history of violence and social struggle, punctuated by regression and disaster. But through it all, Piketty shows, human societies have moved fitfully toward a more just distribution of income and assets, a reduction of racial and gender inequalities, and greater access to health care, education, and the rights of citizenship. Our rough march forward is political and ideological, an endless fight against injustice. To keep moving, Piketty argues, we need to learn and commit to what works, to institutional, legal, social, fiscal, and educational systems that can make equality a lasting reality. At the same time, we need to resist historical amnesia and the temptations of cultural separatism and intellectual compartmentalization. At stake is the quality of life for billions of people. We know we can do better, Piketty concludes.

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[terriej]

Wonderful conversation. I so do appreciate Mr. Picketty coming on. His message is so incredibly necessary. By the way, I’m not an academic. But thanks to conversations like these, I’m able to understand everything that’s being spoken, & I thank these 2 gentlemen, & others like them, for helping me get to this point.

[terriej]

“In these difficult times”. They didn’t have to be this difficult & I wish more people knew that. These problems were created. They didn’t just come about naturally.

[krcalder]

Looking on a slightly longer timeline it has all become clear.

Mariner Eccles, FED chair 1934 – 48, observed what the capital accumulation of neoclassical economics did to the US economy in the 1920s.
“a giant suction pump had by 1929 to 1930 drawn into a few hands an increasing proportion of currently produced wealth. This served then as capital accumulations. But by taking purchasing power out of the hands of mass consumers, the savers denied themselves the kind of effective demand for their products which would justify reinvestment of the capital accumulation in new plants. In consequence as in a poker game where the chips were concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, the other fellows could stay in the game only by borrowing. When the credit ran out, the game stopped”
A few people have all the money and everyone else gets by on debt.

Is that why Keynes added redistribution?
Yes, it stopped all the wealth concentrating at the top.
A strong, healthy middle class developed in the West.

Maggie and Reagan removed the redistribution and inequality soared as things returned to the old normal of neoclassical economics.
A few people have all the money and everyone else gets by on debt.

[AraMacaraig]

Pleasant morning, I'm an educator and at the same time humble economist.Thank u very much for sharing your ideas and knowledge with regards to my major subject.Ur information as well as videos. adds information to my students.❤

[kevinobonyo]

Like that he touched on the Brexit issue. Yes, of course there are people who wanted to leave for nationalistic reasons but, beyond that, there actually were good economic reasons for a country like England wanting to leave and many, supposedly enlightened and educated people, seemed to completely ignore them. You could have been/can still be in favour of the UK being in the EU *while* appreciating that there are issues within the existing EU architecture that disproportionately affect working class people.

[AlessandroZir]

thanks you a lot!! this is a very open minded, mature and thoughtful discussion;

[alloomis]

i believe that's called a 'rhetorical' question. human society is directed by small groups committed to their individual wealth and power. the already visible outcome will be a collapse of civilization, with mass deaths from climate overload, and ancillary disease and war. if the now built-in temperature over-run is high enough, even extinction is possible.
we need revolution, since leaders in place have little inclination to change anything. perhaps it will happen in time to preserve a base level of civilization. that's our only hope.

[Iquey]

Piketty!!! A VIP voice for the working classes!

[eugenedebs]

Haiti forever ! The first real democracy

[garyjohnson]

Sad that those who are most responsible and least affected, always have the most to gain from these economic recession, sadly…

[vivalaleta]

The question is - after we revolt and take it away from them how do we KEEP it?

[meggallucci]

I would like to have listened to what he is trying to say, but the opening monologue is kind of a rant, and I am tuning out. Moderators must direct and compartmentalize these discussions. I am simply not able to follow what he is saying because the discussion is not organized. What a pity.

[gift]

This entire discussion is moot without a racial capitalism analysis. The foundations on which all of this is built is colonization. Without that analysis, it's just working around the edges on ways to uphold the system. So his analysis of Haiti and property rights, starts to move towards there. But deeper analysis is still required.

[altleftorg]

Приглашаем Томаса на интервью для нашего канала.

[glintinggold]

I will press the 'like' button and it SHOULD make "like #617" and stay there. UPDATE: it's GONE!

[fightthepower]

Global Declaration of Independence - Fight the Power (YouTube video) offers a unique and viable global solution to global problems!

[Rick.]

I came here to learn how to invest after listening to a guy on radio talk about the importance of investing and how he made $960, 000 in 4 months from $160k, somehow this video has helped shed light on some things, but I'm still confused, I'm a newbie and I'm open to ideas.

[justgivemethetruth]

Great guy. Too bad he is so hard to understand in English. How about some subtitles?

[nonfictionone]

When slavery ended?
Oh he means in the western world.

[jennifersean]

⚠️ *Stop* *wasting* *time* *and* *money* *on things that doesn't matter, invest it so you can have multiple streams of income* 🔴🔴