On reading Piketty "Ideology and Capital"
It is enormous. It is incredibly comprehensive. The style of writing makes this very much an endurance test. Most confronting is the history of slavery. The very idea that slave owners were being financially compensated for the "loss" of their slaves until almost the end of the 20th century. It defies belief. There is very little ideology. At least not in the sense of engagement with the ideology. We don't find a detailed analysis of the ideas of Marx, that there is an arc to history. One description was "Marxism turned on its head". He documents the great progress made towards egalitarian societies. Europe and the United States after the second world war. Then as if to confound any idea of progress, the systematic unravelling of that from the 1980s onward. To progress so far, and then to revert so rapidly. The sheer variety of arguments in favour of inequality. When you put them all together though, as he does, then you see them for what they are. Ficti