Capital in the Twenty-First Century

"Capital in the Twenty-First Century" is a book by French economist Thomas Piketty, dedicated to economic inequality in Europe and the United States, dating back to the 18th century. Originally published in French in August 2013, the English translation was released in April 2014, and on May 18, 2014, the book topped the New York Times bestseller list. As of June 2015, the book has been published in a total circulation of over 2 million copies, in French, English, Spanish, German, Chinese, and other languages. It has been unanimously recognized by critics as the most important economics book of the last decade. Thomas Piketty is a rising star not only in French but also in global economic science. By the age of forty-three, he had achieved notable successes: in 2002 he was recognized as the best young economist in France, in 2005 he became the director of the Paris School of Economics, where two years later he transitioned to the position of professor, and in 2012 he was included by the American magazine "Foreign Policy" in the list of the hundred most influential intellectuals in the world. However, his most significant success was the monumental work titled "Capital in the Twenty-First Century," published in France in 2013 and released in English translation in the spring of 2014. The book instantly became a bestseller - not only in the author's homeland but also beyond its borders: even in the United States, where translated literature is often viewed with skepticism, it occupied the top spots in major book rankings for several weeks. What is the reason for the popularity of this research? Piketty offered a new perspective on a problem that has garnered increasing attention over the past few decades and which he has been studying for over fifteen years - the issue of inequality. After analyzing a vast array of information, the French economist discovered the following pattern. Other things being equal, rapid economic growth reduces the role of capital and its concentration in private hands, leading to a decrease in inequality, while a slowdown in growth results in an increase in the significance of capital and a rise in inequality. In historical retrospect - and Piketty's book covers a vast period from the early 18th century to the present day - the growth of capital's influence was interrupted only in the twentieth century due to the consequences of two world wars and the Keynesian policies of the Glorious Thirty Years (1945-1975). Today the world is returning to the model that dominated in the 19th century, namely, an increase in the concentration of capital and a rise in its profitability against a backdrop of slow economic growth and stagnation of earnings for the majority of the population. In other words, the world has returned to a situation where inequality is steadily increasing, which can lead to serious social and political consequences. However, unlike Karl Marx, with whom Piketty is often compared, the Frenchman does not limit himself to merely grimly stating the established situation and does not predict the collapse of the capitalist system. He proposes measures, primarily of a fiscal nature, that could halt adverse trends and even reverse them. How feasible his recommendations are will be shown by time, but already the merit of the French scholar is clear: as astutely noted by American economist Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize winner in economics, "Piketty has changed our understanding of economics... We will never be able to think about wealth and inequality in the same way again."