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. Fictions. Self-serving fictions. Why do they have such persuasive power? 

He documents the building of structures in the richer countries to entrench inequality. In the US, UK, France and Australia this is no more evident than in our education systems. There are huge walls of spending erected, public money showered on elites. That we accept the arguments supporting these massive inequalities is  disgraceful. Yet they are rarely challenged, and almost seem to be cast in stone. 

What is his central tenet? That we choose to believe these stories. Throughout  history the justifications are many, but apart from brief periods of respite there is a tendency to revert. To defer to the billionaires.  Is it then reminiscent of John Lennon ; "war is over, if you want it?" Or in Picketty's terms "proprietary capitalism is over if you want it"? He advocates for a return to democratic socialism, which he attempts to reinvent as "participatory socialism". 

He acknowledges the nature of the turn from democratic socialism in the latter part of the 20th century. Was it just the fall of the Soviet Union?  We don't get an answer here. His assignment of the failure of socialism as simply being "too centralised" is quite untenable. We are talking here of horrific regimes like East Germany. His light treatment of the failures of socialism and social democracy are hard to understand. Hundreds of pages devoted to the horrors of neoliberalism but little to the very real failure of the primary alternative. It is as if he wants to believe things about socialism that are simply not true. 

It is interesting that the failures of socialism are part of popular culture, and the ideology holds little appeal. Yet somehow neoliberalism continues on, holding most of the rich world in its grip. It brings to mind the quote from Ursula Le Guin that at one time the rights of Kings were considered unassailable. 

The statistical analysis of elections in recent times is enlightening. Especially the shift in backing for nominally "left" parties. Over the past 50 years the parties he describes them as becoming the "Brahmin Left". That the strongest backing for centre left parties comes from people with education but not necessarily wealth. But perhaps the most powerful tendency here is simply from the elites versus the rest. There is clearly a strong thread of nihilism in the vote on Brexit. That the voters know that they are not going to get any benefit, but they don't care. It is worth it to punish the elites. 

He characterises mainstream politics as the "merchants" versus the Brahmin left.  If the Brahmin parties want to take over the world then somehow they have to appeal to those left behind by globalisation. In my country (Australia) this would mean an alliance between the inner city and the urban and regional working poor.  While these parties might have the ambition to bring these groups together, they seem to make little headway. Post pandemic they may have much more in common. 

Clearly the inequality regime is unsustainable. Something has to give. It is a truly astounding intellectual effort. You will not regret the huge effort to read it.