Capital and Ideology
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $31.16
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Rick Adamson
About this listen
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.
©2020 Thomas Piketty; Arthur Goldhammer - translation (P)2020 Harvard UniversityListeners 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.
-
-
The Financial Times' Critique Doesn't Detract
- By Madeleine on 05-22-14
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.
-
-
Excellent, more accessable, contribution.
- By P. Dean on 09-30-22
By: Thomas Piketty
-
The Dawn of Everything
- A New History of Humanity
- By: David Graeber, David Wengrow
- Narrated by: Mark Williams
- Length: 24 hrs and 13 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 Big Myth
- How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market
- By: Naomi Oreskes, Erik M. Conway
- Narrated by: Liza Seneca
- Length: 21 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the early 20th century, business elites, trade associations, wealthy powerbrokers, and media allies set out to build a new American orthodoxy: down with 'big government' and up with unfettered markets. With startling archival evidence, Oreskes and Conway document campaigns to rewrite textbooks, combat unions, and defend child labor.
-
-
Refuting the Chicago School
- By Todd W. Laveen on 06-01-23
By: Naomi Oreskes, and others
-
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.
-
-
Great book. Lots of data
- By Chris VanDeGenachte on 03-20-22
By: Thomas Piketty
-
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.
-
-
Few forests, but lots of trees
- By Steve Pagano on 10-05-15
By: Francis Fukuyama
-
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.
-
-
The Financial Times' Critique Doesn't Detract
- By Madeleine on 05-22-14
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.
-
-
Excellent, more accessable, contribution.
- By P. Dean on 09-30-22
By: Thomas Piketty
-
The Dawn of Everything
- A New History of Humanity
- By: David Graeber, David Wengrow
- Narrated by: Mark Williams
- Length: 24 hrs and 13 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 Big Myth
- How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market
- By: Naomi Oreskes, Erik M. Conway
- Narrated by: Liza Seneca
- Length: 21 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the early 20th century, business elites, trade associations, wealthy powerbrokers, and media allies set out to build a new American orthodoxy: down with 'big government' and up with unfettered markets. With startling archival evidence, Oreskes and Conway document campaigns to rewrite textbooks, combat unions, and defend child labor.
-
-
Refuting the Chicago School
- By Todd W. Laveen on 06-01-23
By: Naomi Oreskes, and others
-
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.
-
-
Great book. Lots of data
- By Chris VanDeGenachte on 03-20-22
By: Thomas Piketty
-
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.
-
-
Few forests, but lots of trees
- By Steve Pagano on 10-05-15
By: Francis Fukuyama
-
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?
-
-
Pros and Cons of "Why Nations Fail"
- By Joshua Kim on 05-01-12
By: Daron Acemoglu, and others
-
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
-
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
-
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.
-
-
Current times demand you get this into your head.
- By Comatoso on 08-12-15
By: Noam Chomsky, and others
-
Good Economics for Hard Times
- Better Answers to Our Biggest Problems
- By: Abhijit V. Banerjee, Esther Duflo
- Narrated by: James Lurie
- Length: 14 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this revolutionary book, renowned MIT economists Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo take on this challenge, building on cutting-edge research in economics explained with lucidity and grace. Original, provocative, and urgent, Good Economics for Hard Times makes a persuasive case for an intelligent interventionism and a society built on compassion and respect. It is an extraordinary achievement, one that shines a light to help us appreciate and understand our precariously balanced world.
-
-
audio is not The best format for a book like this
- By CB on 12-08-19
By: Abhijit V. Banerjee, 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.
-
-
Incredibly disappointing...
- By Jordan Burton on 12-21-18
By: David Graeber
-
Slouching Towards Utopia
- An Economic History of the Twentieth Century
- By: J. Bradford DeLong
- Narrated by: Allan Aquino
- Length: 20 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Before 1870, humanity lived in dire poverty, with a slow crawl of invention offset by a growing population. Then came a great shift: invention sprinted forward, doubling our technological capabilities each generation and utterly transforming the economy again and again. Our ancestors would have presumed we would have used such powers to build utopia. But it was not so. When 1870-2010 ended, the world instead saw global warming; economic depression, uncertainty, and inequality; and broad rejection of the status quo.
-
-
A clear but sometimes one-sided economic history
- By Anon on 11-22-22
-
Consequences of Capitalism
- Manufacturing Discontent and Resistance
- By: Noam Chomsky, Marv Waterstone
- Narrated by: Donald Corren
- Length: 14 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How do politics shape our world, our lives, and our perceptions? How much of “common sense” is actually driven by the ruling class’ needs and interests? And how are we to challenge the capitalist structures that now threaten all life on the planet? Consequences of Capitalism exposes the deep, often unseen, connections between neoliberal “common sense” and structural power. In making these linkages, we see how the current hegemony keeps social justice movements divided and marginalized. And, most importantly, we see how we can fight to overcome these divisions.
-
-
Everyone must read this book.
- By Lydia M. Prado on 02-03-21
By: Noam Chomsky, and others
-
Seeing Like a State
- By: James C. Scott
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 16 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why do well-intentioned plans for improving the human condition go tragically awry? Author James C. Scott analyzes failed cases of large-scale authoritarian plans in a variety of fields. Centrally managed social plans misfire, Scott argues, when they impose schematic visions that do violence to complex interdependencies that are not - and cannot - be fully understood. Further, the success of designs for social organization depends upon the recognition that local, practical knowledge is as important as formal, epistemic knowledge.
-
-
Beats a dead horse and then beats it again
- By Nathan Parker on 10-29-20
By: James C. Scott
-
The End of History and the Last Man
- By: Francis Fukuyama
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 15 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ever since its first publication in 1992, The End of History and the Last Man has provoked controversy and debate. Francis Fukuyama's prescient analysis of religious fundamentalism, politics, scientific progress, ethical codes, and war is as essential for a world fighting fundamentalist terrorists as it was for the end of the Cold War. Now updated with a new afterword, The End of History and the Last Man is a modern classic.
-
-
An important discussion expertly narrated
- By Kevin Teeple on 06-27-19
By: Francis Fukuyama
-
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.
-
-
The narrator. The book.
- By Jack on 08-22-21
By: Jonathan Levy
-
Saving Capitalism
- For the Many, Not the Few
- By: Robert B. Reich
- Narrated by: Robert B. Reich
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Saving Capitalism, Robert Reich reveals the entrenched cycles of power and influence that have damaged American capitalism, perpetuating a new oligarchy in which the 1 percent get ever richer and the rest - middle and working class alike - lose ever more economic agency, making for the greatest income inequality and wealth disparity since World War II.
-
-
A riveting economics book! Mind. Blown.
- By Nothing really matters on 04-18-16
By: Robert B. Reich
Related to this topic
-
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.
-
-
Few forests, but lots of trees
- By Steve Pagano on 10-05-15
By: Francis Fukuyama
-
The Socialist Temptation
- By: Iain Murray
- Narrated by: James Langton
- Length: 6 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Just 30 years ago, socialism seemed utterly discredited. An economic, moral, and political failure, socialism had rightly been thrown on the ash heap of history after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Unfortunately, bad ideas never truly go away — and socialism has come back with a vengeance. A generation of young people who don’t remember the misery that socialism inflicted on Russia and Eastern Europe is embracing it all over again.
-
-
Full Of Important Insights
- By Ralph Alderson on 12-17-20
By: Iain Murray
-
The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution
- Why Economic Inequality Threatens Our Republic
- By: Ganesh Sitaraman
- Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews
- Length: 12 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For most of Western history, Sitaraman argues, constitutional thinkers assumed economic inequality was inevitable and inescapable - and they designed governments to prevent class divisions from spilling over into class warfare. The American Constitution is different. Compared to Europe and the ancient world, America was a society of almost unprecedented economic equality, and the founding generation saw this equality as essential for the preservation of America's republic.
-
-
Very well done
- By JLyman on 08-27-17
By: Ganesh Sitaraman
-
The Great Leveler
- Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century
- By: Walter Scheidel
- Narrated by: Joel Richards
- Length: 17 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Are mass violence and catastrophes the only forces that can seriously decrease economic inequality? To judge by thousands of years of history, the answer is yes. Tracing the global history of inequality from the Stone Age to today, Walter Scheidel shows that inequality never dies peacefully. Inequality declines when carnage and disaster strike and increases when peace and stability return. The Great Leveler is the first book to chart the crucial role of violent shocks in reducing inequality over the full sweep of human history around the world.
-
-
Content is not suitable for an Audiobook
- By Varun on 02-10-18
By: Walter Scheidel
-
The Sovereign Individual
- Mastering the Transition to the Information Age
- By: James Dale Davidson, Peter Thiel - preface, William Rees-Mogg
- Narrated by: Michael David Axtell
- Length: 19 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two renowned investment advisors and authors of the best seller The Great Reckoning bring to light both currents of disaster and the potential for prosperity and renewal in the face of radical changes in human history as we move into the next century. The Sovereign Individual details strategies necessary for adapting financially to the next phase of Western civilization.
-
-
Unfortunately distopian for mosty of humanity
- By Phil on 09-29-20
By: James Dale Davidson, and others
-
The Upswing
- How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again
- By: Robert D. Putnam, Shaylyn Romney Garrett - contributor
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Deep and accelerating inequality; unprecedented political polarization; vitriolic public discourse; a fraying social fabric; public and private narcissism — Americans today seem to agree on only one thing: This is the worst of times. But we’ve been here before. During the Gilded Age of the late 1800s, America was highly individualistic, starkly unequal, fiercely polarized, and deeply fragmented, just as it is today.
-
-
For Progressives only. Won't make sense otherwise
- By Dennis G. on 12-19-20
By: Robert D. Putnam, 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.
-
-
Few forests, but lots of trees
- By Steve Pagano on 10-05-15
By: Francis Fukuyama
-
The Socialist Temptation
- By: Iain Murray
- Narrated by: James Langton
- Length: 6 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Just 30 years ago, socialism seemed utterly discredited. An economic, moral, and political failure, socialism had rightly been thrown on the ash heap of history after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Unfortunately, bad ideas never truly go away — and socialism has come back with a vengeance. A generation of young people who don’t remember the misery that socialism inflicted on Russia and Eastern Europe is embracing it all over again.
-
-
Full Of Important Insights
- By Ralph Alderson on 12-17-20
By: Iain Murray
-
The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution
- Why Economic Inequality Threatens Our Republic
- By: Ganesh Sitaraman
- Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews
- Length: 12 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For most of Western history, Sitaraman argues, constitutional thinkers assumed economic inequality was inevitable and inescapable - and they designed governments to prevent class divisions from spilling over into class warfare. The American Constitution is different. Compared to Europe and the ancient world, America was a society of almost unprecedented economic equality, and the founding generation saw this equality as essential for the preservation of America's republic.
-
-
Very well done
- By JLyman on 08-27-17
By: Ganesh Sitaraman
-
The Great Leveler
- Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century
- By: Walter Scheidel
- Narrated by: Joel Richards
- Length: 17 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Are mass violence and catastrophes the only forces that can seriously decrease economic inequality? To judge by thousands of years of history, the answer is yes. Tracing the global history of inequality from the Stone Age to today, Walter Scheidel shows that inequality never dies peacefully. Inequality declines when carnage and disaster strike and increases when peace and stability return. The Great Leveler is the first book to chart the crucial role of violent shocks in reducing inequality over the full sweep of human history around the world.
-
-
Content is not suitable for an Audiobook
- By Varun on 02-10-18
By: Walter Scheidel
-
The Sovereign Individual
- Mastering the Transition to the Information Age
- By: James Dale Davidson, Peter Thiel - preface, William Rees-Mogg
- Narrated by: Michael David Axtell
- Length: 19 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two renowned investment advisors and authors of the best seller The Great Reckoning bring to light both currents of disaster and the potential for prosperity and renewal in the face of radical changes in human history as we move into the next century. The Sovereign Individual details strategies necessary for adapting financially to the next phase of Western civilization.
-
-
Unfortunately distopian for mosty of humanity
- By Phil on 09-29-20
By: James Dale Davidson, and others
-
The Upswing
- How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again
- By: Robert D. Putnam, Shaylyn Romney Garrett - contributor
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Deep and accelerating inequality; unprecedented political polarization; vitriolic public discourse; a fraying social fabric; public and private narcissism — Americans today seem to agree on only one thing: This is the worst of times. But we’ve been here before. During the Gilded Age of the late 1800s, America was highly individualistic, starkly unequal, fiercely polarized, and deeply fragmented, just as it is today.
-
-
For Progressives only. Won't make sense otherwise
- By Dennis G. on 12-19-20
By: Robert D. Putnam, and others
-
The Great Degeneration
- How Institutions Decay and Economies Die
- By: Niall Ferguson
- Narrated by: Paul Slack
- Length: 4 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Best-selling author and world-renowned historian Niall Ferguson has won widespread acclaim for thought-provoking works such as Civilization and High Financier. The Great Degeneration tackles nothing less than the decline of Western civilization. Ferguson posits that slowing growth, outrageous debt, and antisocial behavior are contributing to the erosion of the West’s once rock-solid foundations. Ferguson excavates the causes and shows how heroic leadership and radical reform are needed to right the course.
-
-
Superb as always!
- By Ivanhoe on 08-28-17
By: Niall Ferguson
-
Right Here, Right Now
- Politics and Leadership in the Age of Disruption
- By: Stephen J. Harper
- Narrated by: Stephen J. Harper
- Length: 6 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The world is in flux. Disruptive technologies, ideas, and politicians are challenging business models, norms, and political conventions everywhere. How we, as leaders in business and politics, choose to respond matters greatly. Right Here, Right Now sets out a pragmatic, forward-looking vision for leaders in business and politics by analyzing how economic, social, and public policy trends - including globalized movements of capital, goods, and services, and labor - have affected our economies, communities, and governments.
-
-
Excellent book on Politics for Canadians AND Americans
- By John Fernandes on 10-19-18
-
World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction
- A John Hope Franklin Center Book
- By: Immanuel Wallerstein
- Narrated by: Fred Filbrich
- Length: 4 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In World-Systems Analysis, Immanuel Wallerstein provides a concise and accessible introduction to the comprehensive approach that he pioneered 30 years ago to understanding the history and development of the modern world. Since Wallerstein first developed world-systems analysis, it has become a widely utilized methodology within the historical social sciences and a common point of reference in discussions of globalization.
-
-
Uneven, but Ambitious
- By Logical Paradox on 08-27-14
-
Ill Fares the Land
- By: Tony Judt
- Narrated by: James Adams
- Length: 5 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Ill Fares The Land, Tony Judt, one of our leading historians and thinkers, reveals how we have arrived at our present dangerously confused moment. Judt masterfully crystallizes what we've all been feeling into a way to think our way into, and thus out of, our great collective dis-ease about the current state of things.
-
-
Blah, Blah, Blah.
- By Michael on 07-15-10
By: Tony Judt
-
The Conscience of a Liberal
- By: Paul Krugman
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
America emerged from Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal with strong democratic values and broadly shared prosperity. But for the past 30 years, American politics has been dominated by a conservative movement determined to undermine the New Deal's achievements. Now, the tide may be turning, and in The Conscience of a Liberal Paul Krugman, the world's most widely read economist and one of its most influential political commentators, charts the way to reform.
-
-
Great Book!!!
- By carl801 on 12-04-07
By: Paul Krugman
-
The Decline and Rise of Democracy
- A Global History from Antiquity to Today
- By: David Stastavage
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 11 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Historical accounts of democracy's rise tend to focus on ancient Greece and pre-Renaissance Europe. The Decline and Rise of Democracy draws from global evidence to show that the story is much richer - democratic practices were present in many places at many other times. David Stasavage makes the case that understanding how and where these democracies flourished - and when and why they declined - can provide crucial information not just about the history of governance, but about the ways modern democracies work and where they could manifest in the future.
-
-
Informative
- By Frank on 12-22-20
By: David Stastavage
-
Radical Markets
- Uprooting Capitalism and Democracy for a Just Society
- By: Eric A. Posner, E. Glen Weyl
- Narrated by: James Conlan
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Many blame today's economic inequality, stagnation, and political instability on the free market. The solution is to rein in the market, right? Radical Markets turns this thinking - and pretty much all conventional thinking about markets, both for and against - on its head. The book reveals bold new ways to organize markets for the good of everyone.
-
-
Terrible Reader ruins this book
- By Brian W. Veit on 10-30-18
By: Eric A. Posner, and others
-
50 Economics Classics
- Your Shortcut to the Most Important Ideas on Capitalism, Finance, and the Global Economy
- By: Tom Butler-Bowdon
- Narrated by: John Chancer
- Length: 15 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Economics drives the modern world and shapes our lives, but few of us feel we have time to engage with the breadth of ideas in the subject. 50 Economics Classics is the smart person's guide to two centuries of discussion of finance, capitalism, and the global economy. From Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations to Thomas Piketty's best-seller Capital in the Twenty-First Century, here are the great books and seminal ideas, clarified and illuminated for all.
-
The Stakes
- America at the Point of No Return
- By: Michael Anton
- Narrated by: Dan Crue
- Length: 16 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two months before the 2016 presidential election, an anonymously published essay titled "The Flight 93 Election" rallied conservatives to charge the cockpit by voting for Trump. Michael Anton, the author of that controversial viral essay, now says that the last few years have only served to prove his Flight 93 thesis: The left has become more aggressive, more vindictive, and more dangerous - and the stakes have never been higher.
-
-
America, this is your future
- By Sarah Carnello on 09-28-20
By: Michael Anton
-
A Generation of Sociopaths
- How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America
- By: Bruce Cannon Gibney
- Narrated by: Wayne Pyle
- Length: 14 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What happens when a society is run by people who are antisocial? Welcome to baby boomer America. In A Generation of Sociopaths, Bruce Cannon Gibney shows how America was hijacked by the boomers, a generation whose reckless self-indulgence degraded the foundations of American prosperity.
-
-
Honest introspection required
- By Niki on 03-31-17
-
When China Rules the World
- The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order
- By: Martin Jacques
- Narrated by: Scott Peterson
- Length: 16 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
According to even the most conservative estimates, China will overtake the United States as the world's largest economy by 2027 and will ascend to the position of world economic leader by 2050. But the full repercussions of China's ascendancy-for itself and the rest of the globe-have been surprisingly little explained or understood.
-
-
Lucid explanation of global economic trends
- By David Blake on 01-04-10
By: Martin Jacques
-
Forgotten Continent
- The Battle for Latin America’s Soul
- By: Michael Reid
- Narrated by: Gary Dikeos
- Length: 18 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Latin America has often been condemned to failure. Neither poor enough to evoke Africa’s moral crusade nor as explosively booming as India and China, it has largely been overlooked by the West. Yet this vast continent, home to half a billion people, the world’s largest reserves of arable land, and 8.5 percent of global oil, is busily transforming its political and economic landscape.
-
-
Good Reporting / Disorganized Content
- By Steven Schuster on 02-11-12
By: Michael Reid
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
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.
-
-
Excellent, more accessable, contribution.
- By P. Dean on 09-30-22
By: Thomas Piketty
-
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.
-
-
The Financial Times' Critique Doesn't Detract
- By Madeleine on 05-22-14
By: Thomas Piketty, and others
-
The Economics of Inequality
- By: Thomas Piketty, Arthur Goldhammer - translator
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 4 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Succinct, accessible, and authoritative, Thomas Piketty’s The Economics of Inequality is the ideal place to start for those who want to understand the fundamental issues at the heart of one the most pressing concerns in contemporary economics and politics. This work now appears in English for the first time.
-
-
A Survey of the Economics of Inequality
- By Darwin8u on 12-19-16
By: Thomas Piketty, and others
-
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.
-
-
Great book. Lots of data
- By Chris VanDeGenachte on 03-20-22
By: Thomas Piketty
-
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.
-
-
One side is never enough....
- By Michael on 08-08-12
-
Slouching Towards Utopia
- An Economic History of the Twentieth Century
- By: J. Bradford DeLong
- Narrated by: Allan Aquino
- Length: 20 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Before 1870, humanity lived in dire poverty, with a slow crawl of invention offset by a growing population. Then came a great shift: invention sprinted forward, doubling our technological capabilities each generation and utterly transforming the economy again and again. Our ancestors would have presumed we would have used such powers to build utopia. But it was not so. When 1870-2010 ended, the world instead saw global warming; economic depression, uncertainty, and inequality; and broad rejection of the status quo.
-
-
A clear but sometimes one-sided economic history
- By Anon on 11-22-22
-
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.
-
-
Excellent, more accessable, contribution.
- By P. Dean on 09-30-22
By: Thomas Piketty
-
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.
-
-
The Financial Times' Critique Doesn't Detract
- By Madeleine on 05-22-14
By: Thomas Piketty, and others
-
The Economics of Inequality
- By: Thomas Piketty, Arthur Goldhammer - translator
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 4 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Succinct, accessible, and authoritative, Thomas Piketty’s The Economics of Inequality is the ideal place to start for those who want to understand the fundamental issues at the heart of one the most pressing concerns in contemporary economics and politics. This work now appears in English for the first time.
-
-
A Survey of the Economics of Inequality
- By Darwin8u on 12-19-16
By: Thomas Piketty, and others
-
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.
-
-
Great book. Lots of data
- By Chris VanDeGenachte on 03-20-22
By: Thomas Piketty
-
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.
-
-
One side is never enough....
- By Michael on 08-08-12
-
Slouching Towards Utopia
- An Economic History of the Twentieth Century
- By: J. Bradford DeLong
- Narrated by: Allan Aquino
- Length: 20 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Before 1870, humanity lived in dire poverty, with a slow crawl of invention offset by a growing population. Then came a great shift: invention sprinted forward, doubling our technological capabilities each generation and utterly transforming the economy again and again. Our ancestors would have presumed we would have used such powers to build utopia. But it was not so. When 1870-2010 ended, the world instead saw global warming; economic depression, uncertainty, and inequality; and broad rejection of the status quo.
-
-
A clear but sometimes one-sided economic history
- By Anon on 11-22-22
-
The Deficit Myth
- Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People's Economy
- By: Stephanie Kelton
- Narrated by: Stephanie Kelton
- Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Stephanie Kelton's brilliant exploration of modern monetary theory (MMT) dramatically changes our understanding of how we can best deal with crucial issues ranging from poverty and inequality to creating jobs, expanding health care coverage, climate change, and building resilient infrastructure. Any ambitious proposal, however, inevitably runs into the buzz saw of how to find the money to pay for it, rooted in myths about deficits that are hobbling us as a country.
-
-
Good core idea, ruined by polemics
- By Amaze on 06-25-20
By: Stephanie Kelton
-
The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism
- By: Martin Wolf
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 13 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Martin Wolf has long been one of the wisest voices on global economic issues. He has rarely been called an optimist, yet he has never been as worried as he is today. Liberal democracy is in recession, and authoritarianism is on the rise. The ties that ought to bind open markets to free and fair elections are threatened, even in democracy’s heartlands, the United States and England.
-
-
Rambling and muddled.
- By Daniel Mccarty on 02-20-23
By: Martin Wolf
-
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.
-
-
Few forests, but lots of trees
- By Steve Pagano on 10-05-15
By: Francis Fukuyama
-
The Big Myth
- How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market
- By: Naomi Oreskes, Erik M. Conway
- Narrated by: Liza Seneca
- Length: 21 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the early 20th century, business elites, trade associations, wealthy powerbrokers, and media allies set out to build a new American orthodoxy: down with 'big government' and up with unfettered markets. With startling archival evidence, Oreskes and Conway document campaigns to rewrite textbooks, combat unions, and defend child labor.
-
-
Refuting the Chicago School
- By Todd W. Laveen on 06-01-23
By: Naomi Oreskes, and others
-
Saving Capitalism
- For the Many, Not the Few
- By: Robert B. Reich
- Narrated by: Robert B. Reich
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Saving Capitalism, Robert Reich reveals the entrenched cycles of power and influence that have damaged American capitalism, perpetuating a new oligarchy in which the 1 percent get ever richer and the rest - middle and working class alike - lose ever more economic agency, making for the greatest income inequality and wealth disparity since World War II.
-
-
A riveting economics book! Mind. Blown.
- By Nothing really matters on 04-18-16
By: Robert B. Reich
-
The Road to Freedom
- Economics and the Good Society
- By: Joseph E. Stiglitz
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Road to Freedom, Nobel prize winner Joseph E. Stiglitz dissects America's current economic system and the political ideology that created it, laying bare their twinned failure. Free and unfettered markets have exploited consumers, workers, and the environment alike. These movements now pose a real threat to true economic and political freedom.
-
-
Send neoliberalism into the abyss where it belongs
- By marwalk on 08-16-24
-
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.
-
-
The narrator. The book.
- By Jack on 08-22-21
By: Jonathan Levy
-
Profit Over People
- Neoliberalism & Global Order
- By: Noam Chomsky
- Narrated by: Brian Jones
- Length: 5 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why is the Atlantic slowly filling with crude petroleum, threatening a millions-of-years-old ecological balance? Why did traders at prominent banks take high-risk gambles with the money entrusted to them by hundreds of thousands of clients around the world, expanding and leveraging their investments to the point that failure led to a global financial crisis that left millions of people jobless and hundreds of cities economically devastated?
-
-
Eye Opener
- By Maxwell Boyle on 12-24-16
By: Noam Chomsky
-
The Great Leveler
- Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century
- By: Walter Scheidel
- Narrated by: Joel Richards
- Length: 17 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Are mass violence and catastrophes the only forces that can seriously decrease economic inequality? To judge by thousands of years of history, the answer is yes. Tracing the global history of inequality from the Stone Age to today, Walter Scheidel shows that inequality never dies peacefully. Inequality declines when carnage and disaster strike and increases when peace and stability return. The Great Leveler is the first book to chart the crucial role of violent shocks in reducing inequality over the full sweep of human history around the world.
-
-
Content is not suitable for an Audiobook
- By Varun on 02-10-18
By: Walter Scheidel
-
Capital: All Volumes & The Communist Manifesto
- By: Karl Marx, Frederich Engels
- Narrated by: Malk Williams
- Length: 109 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This audiobook contains all 3 volumes of Capital, as well as Marx and Engel's most renowned work, The Communist Manifesto. One of the most notorious and influential works of modern times, Capital is an incisive critique of private property and the social relations it generates. It rapidly acquired readership throughout the world when published, to become a work described by Marx's collaborator Friedrich Engels as 'the Bible of the working class'.
-
-
Amazing reference for all of Marx works!
- By AZ on 07-07-23
By: Karl Marx, and others
-
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
-
Crack-Up Capitalism
- Market Radicals and the Dream of a World Without Democracy
- By: Quinn Slobodian
- Narrated by: Keith Sellon-Wright
- Length: 9 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Look at a map of the world and you’ll see a colorful checkerboard of nation-states. But this is not where power actually resides. Over the last decade, globalization has shattered the map into different legal spaces: free ports, tax havens, special economic zones. With the new spaces, ultracapitalists have started to believe that it is possible to escape the bonds of democratic government and oversight altogether. Crack-Up Capitalism follows the most notorious radical libertarians around the globe as they search for the perfect space for capitalism.
-
-
Solid look at what our future might be like
- By TohirT on 11-09-24
By: Quinn Slobodian
What listeners say about Capital and Ideology
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Vincent Barrera
- 07-28-21
very instructive
impressive the history of our inequality trajectory, that got society in general up to now.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mason Dixon
- 10-28-24
Intelligence, supporting evidence, clarity.
A fresh way to look at the need to empower democracy and decrease the extreme inequality which is threatening to eclipse it and enable authoritarian capitalism. Forget Marxism. Look at the world as it is now and the history out of which it has emerged. Piketty blazes an ideological path that others must widen and improve. There is hope.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
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.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
8 people found this helpful
-
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.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
21 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Alexis Chavez
- 11-11-24
Such a deep and thorough analysis
The use of historical, current and political analysis using various sources of data really give you the best insight in the last 30 years of the current situation in the world plagued by inequality
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
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.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
8 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Pedro
- 05-01-21
Brillian Study on Capital Concentration
Very deep and statistical book about the history of politics and wealth. A must-read to understand how capital is getting more concentrated again today, what caused it and what may happen next
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
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”.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- ramiro ferreira
- 10-19-22
Excellent
Well written and very informative, a must read to understand the current situation of the world and it's possibles trajectories
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Haydee M.
- 10-19-22
10/10 would recommend
Anyone who likes learning about society, history, economics, capital, justice, ideologies, statistics, politics, or many other topics will learn something from Piketty’s latest work. The man is an absolute genius on the scale of Chomsky, Einstein, Pinker, and Friston and reading this book is like reading 12 books of new concepts, knowledge, and exposure to different fields and new ways of thinking. I will recommend this book to people for the rest of my life.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!