In this compelling dialogue, two of the world’s most influential thinkers reflect on the value of equality and debate what citizens and governments should do to narrow the gaps that separate us. Ranging across economics, philosophy, history, and current affairs, Thomas Piketty and Michael Sandel consider how far we have come in achieving greater equality. At the same time, they confront head-on the extreme divides that remain in wealth, income, power, and status nationally and globally. What can be done at a time of deep political instability and environmental crisis? Piketty and Sandel agree on much: more inclusive investment in health and education, higher progressive taxation, curbing the political power of the rich and the overreach of markets. But how far and how fast can we push? Should we prioritize material or social change? What are the prospects for any change at all with nationalist forces resurgent? How should the left relate to values like patriotism and local solidarity where they collide with the challenges of mass migration and global climate change? To see Piketty and Sandel grapple with these and other problems is to glimpse new possibilities for change and justice but also the stubborn truth that progress towards greater equality never comes quickly or without deep social conflict and political struggle.
Authors
Thomas Piketty (French: [tɔma pikɛti]; born May 7, 1971) is a French economist who works on wealth and income inequality. He is the director of studies at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) and professor at the Paris School of Economics. He is the author of the best selling book Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2013), which emphasizes the themes of his work on wealth concentrations and distribution over the past 250 years. The book argues that the rate of capital return in developed countries is persistently greater than the rate of economic growth, and that this will cause wealth inequality to increase in the future. To address this problem, he proposes redistribution through a global tax on wealth. Piketty was born on May 7, 1971, in the Parisian suburb of Clichy. He gained a C-stream (scientific) Baccalauréat, and after taking scientific preparatory classes, he entered the École Normale Supérieure (ENS) at the age of 18, where he studied mathematics and economics. At the age of 22, Piketty was awarded his Ph.D. for a thesis on wealth redistribution, which he wrote at the EHESS and the London School of Economics under Roger Guesnerie. After earning his PhD, Piketty taught from 1993 to 1995 as an assistant professor in the Department of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1995, he joined the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) as a researcher, and in 2000 he became director of studies at EHESS. Piketty won the 2002 prize for the best young economist in France, and according to a list dated November 11, 2003, he is a member of the scientific orientation board of the association "À gauche, en Europe", founded by Michel Rocard and Dominique Strauss-Kahn. In 2006 Piketty became the first head of the Paris School of Economics, which he helped set up. He left after a few months to serve as an economic advisor to Socialist Party candidate Ségolène Royal during the French presidential campaign. Piketty resumed teaching at the Paris School of Economics in 2007. He is a columnist for the French newspaper Libération, and occasionally writes op-eds for Le Monde. In April 2012, Piketty co-authored along with 42 colleagues an open letter in support of then-PS candidate for the French presidency François Hollande. Hollande won the contest against the incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy in May of that year. In 2013, Piketty won the biennial Yrjö Jahnsson Award, for the economist under age 45 who has "made a contribution in theoretical and applied research that is significant to the study of economics in Europe." Piketty specializes in economic inequality, taking a historic and statistical approach. His work looks at the rate of capital accumulation in relation to economic growth over a two hundred year spread from the nineteenth century to the present. His novel use of tax records enabled him to gather data on the very top economic elite, who had previously been understudied, and to ascertain their rate of accumulation of wealth and how this compared to the rest of society and economy. His most recent book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, relies on economic data going back 250 years to show that an ever-rising concentration of wealth is not self-correcting. To address this problem, he proposes redistribution through a global tax on wealth.
