Time for Socialism: Dispatches from a World on Fire, 2016-2021

by Thomas Piketty

Overview

A chronicle of recent events that have shaken the world, from the author of Capital in the Twenty-First Century
 
“What makes this manifesto noteworthy is that it comes from . . . an economist who gained his reputation as a researcher with vaguely left-of-center sensibilities but was far from a radical. Yet the times are such . . . that even honest moderates are driven to radical remedies.”—Robert Kuttner, New York Times
 
As a correspondent for the French newspaper Le Monde, world-renowned economist Thomas Piketty has documented the rise and fall of Trump, the drama of Brexit, Emmanuel Macron’s ascendance to the French presidency, the unfolding of a global pandemic, and much else besides, always from the perspective of his fight for a more equitable world. This collection brings together those articles and is prefaced by an extended introductory essay, in which Piketty argues that the time has come to support an inclusive and expansive conception of socialism as a counterweight against the hypercapitalism that defines our current economic ideology. These essays offer a first draft of history from one of the world’s leading economists and public figures, detailing the struggle against inequalities and tax evasion, in favor of a federalist Europe and a globalization more respectful of work and the environment.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780300268126
Publisher:	Yale University Press
Publication date:	10/18/2022
Pages:	360
Sales rank:	357,869
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.70(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Thomas Piketty is 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 Capital in the Twenty-First Century and Capital and Ideology.

Table of Contents

Long Live Socialism! 1

Toward a Different Globalization, 2016-2017

Hillary, Apple, and Us 29

The IMF, the Inequality Debate, and Economic Research 33

The French Right and the European Budgetary Rules 43

Gender Pay Inequality: 19% or 64%? 47

Agenda for Another Globalization 50

Basic Income or Fair Wage? 54

The Passing of Anthony B. Atkinson 58

On Productivity in France and in Germany 62

Long Live Populism! 84

On Inequality in China 88

For a Democratic Eurozone Government 92

Public Capital, Private Capital 95

What Would a Democratic Eurozone Assembly Look Like? 99

What Reforms for France? 2017-2018

Inequality in France 113

What Reforms for France? 117

Reagan to the Power of Ten 121

Will Macron's Marchers Take Power? 125

The CICE Comedy 134

Rethinking the Capital Code 138

Suppression of the Wealth Tax: A Historical Error 142

Budget 2018: French Youth Sacrificed 147

The Catalan Syndrome 154

Trump, Macron: Same Fight 159

2018: The Year of Europe 163

Parcoursup: Could Do Better 168

Toward a Union in the Union 173

Capital in Russia 178

May 1968 and Inequality 182

The Transferunion Fantasy 186

Europe, Migrants, and Trade 190

Social-Nativism: The Italian Nightmare 195

Brazil: The First Republic under Threat 200

Le Monde and the Billionaires 204

To Love Europe Is to Change It, 2018-2020

Manifesto for the Democratization of Europe 211

Yellow Vests and Tax Justice 217

1789: The Return of the Debt 222

Wealth Tax in America 226

To Love Europe Is to Change It 231

Basic Income in India 235

Europe and the Class Cleavage 240

The Illusion of Centrist Ecology 244

Will Money Creation Save Us? 249

What Is a Fair Pension System? 253

Toward a Circular Economy 257

Surpassing Identity Conflict via Economic Justice 262

Several Universal Retirement Schemes Are Possible 267

After the Climate Denial, the Inequality Denial 272

Social-Federalism vs. National-Liberalism 276

The Franco-German Assembly, a Unique Opportunity for Tax Justice in Europe 281

Sanders to the Aid of Democracy in the United States 286

Avoiding the Worst 291

The Age of Green Money 296

Confronting Racism, Repairing History 301

Reconstructing Internationalism 305

The Fall of the U.S. Idol, 2020-2021

Can the Left Unite on Europe? 313

What to Do with Covid Debt 317

Global Inequalities: Where Do We Stand? 321

The Fall of the U.S. Idol 329

Index 335

Editorial Reviews

What makes this manifesto noteworthy is that it comes from . . . an economist who gained his reputation as a researcher with vaguely left-of-center sensibilities but was far from a radical. Yet the times are such . . . that even honest moderates are driven to radical remedies.”—Robert Kuttner, New York Times

“Each page offers an interesting provocation.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Lively, thought-provoking, grounded in facts, and resolutely optimistic—these essays grapple with the big questions of our time, from the rise of Trumpism and Brexit, to gender inequality and wealth taxation.”—Gabriel Zucman, University of California, Berkeley

“Thomas Piketty’s personal journey from liberalism to socialism, at a time when socialism was in retreat, is a mark of the man’s ethos but also evidence of the soul-crushing inhumanity of our post-2008 hypercapitalism. Reading this volume of collected essays offers important glimpses to the parallel evolution of our political economy and of one of its most renowned scholars.”—Yanis Varoufakis, author of Another Now and leader of MeRA25 in Greece’s Parliament

From the Publisher

2021-08-13
The noted French economist makes the case for overhauling the global economy to provide greater equality.

“In a large-scale federal community, bound by agreements on the free movement of goods, people, and capital, it is logical to entrust a central government with the key role for the taxes, ensuring the greatest redistribution.” So writes Piketty in a statement guaranteed to induce howling fits in strict libertarians. Advocating a technocratic, even bureaucratic socialism in this collection of columns from Le Monde, the author builds a careful case. The world hasn’t become poorer, writes Piketty, but the world’s governments have, thanks to a widespread program of corporate tax breaks and other economic concessions to people who do not need them. This immiseration of government has significant effects, one of the most visible of which is an impoverishment of the educational system. Inequality results from the fact that private wealth has been rising far faster than public wealth has been declining. “There is absolutely no sense in making tax gifts to groups who are old and wealthy and have already done very well in recent decades,” Piketty argues sensibly. He urges governments to impose both hefty estate taxes and far higher graduated income taxes, and he also suggests that at the age of 25, young people be given outright grants of $150,000 or so to help lift them up in the marketplace and encourage innovation and economic diversity. With such a boost, it would be possible for those young people to start their own businesses and take risks instead of settling in desperation for whatever job comes along. Piketty’s arguments are piecemeal and sometimes written as if for fellow economists, with his proposed reforms coming one after another. Readers might have found it more useful had he used his columns as a mine for a more coherent argument rather than reprinting. Still, each page offers an interesting provocation.

Readers of like-minded political bent will find Piketty’s arguments powerful, if a touch arid.

Kirkus Reviews