Capital and Ideology

by Thomas Piketty

“I find the study of belief systems to be a lot more fun than calculating ratios between deciles of income.” —Thomas Piketty.

Following on from his bestselling (and often recommended on Five Books) Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Piketty turns his attention in his latest book to the grand forces of history and politics and how they underpin the global economy. Piketty argues for a new “participatory” socialism.

We interviewed French economist Thomas Piketty on the books that inspired Capital and Ideology.

The book, according to the author

With Capital and Ideology, I wanted to open up my field of view to study ideologies themselves. It didn’t mean that I couldn’t use data and figures—and one of the latter parts of the book, dedicated to the evolution of voting patterns and electoral preferences, does include a lot of graphs and time series. But I’m convinced that you can’t quantify everything, which is why I decided to go beyond those types of arguments, by using very rigorous academic sources to understand historical periods and societies; ones I’d never worked on personally. That’s why I’m very happy to talk about these books with you: because they were the basis for a lot of my work in the last few years.

The Best Books on Historical Change and Economic Ideology