DYNAMICS OF INEQUALITY

In: New left review: NLR, Issue 85, p. 103-116

Abstract

Capital in the Twenty-First Century outlines a general interpretative framework for data that has been collected by an entire team. It's very different from my 2001 book on top incomes in France, in that it looks at some two dozen countries, instead of just one, covers a period of several centuries and considers wealth in terms of assets, as well as incomes. The important thing about assets is that the available data allow us to take a longer view of wealth inequalities; income tax was not introduced in most Western countries until the early 20th century, so on that basis we can't go back far enough to put the two world wars into proper perspective. Shifting the focus from income to assets, including inherited wealth, allows us to transform the investigative model and deepen the temporal framework back to the Industrial Revolution, studying the dynamics at work in the 19th century. This widening of scope would have been impossible without the help of my colleagues. Adapted from the source document.