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This paper argues that Piketty's book should not simply be seen as that of an economist, but that it contains significant resources for sociologists to draw upon. These are firstly, this approach to social science and his use of visualizations which chime closely with recent claims about the power of description. Secondly I consider his conceptualization of time and history - which in rebutting epochal arguments about the speed of contemporary change allows for a much better appreciation of the 'long durée'; and finally his conceptualization of social classes and privilege through his elaboration of a sociology of accumulation and inheritance. In all these ways, Piketty's work assists in developing an account of elites and wealth which should be highly productive for future sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century is remarkable for moving inequality from the margins to mainstream debate through detailed analysis of longitudinal statistics and, for an economist, by advocating an interdisciplinary perspective and writing in a witty and accessible style. With reference to the post 1970 period, when wage increases are largely responsible for the increase in inequality, Piketty shows how patrimonial capitalists (elite managers) in the top decile and centile of the distribution appropriate a growing share of social wealth as a consequence of their 'power to set their own remuneration' in the context of tolerant social norms rather than through their productive contributions. Piketty raises but defers the question of where these social norms come from to other disciplines. A Feminist Economics perspective indicates that these questions are central to a more inclusive form of economic analysis and such an approach would enrich Piketty's analysis in two main ways. First, by paying greater attention to the processes and social norms through which inequalities are produced and justified and second by highlighting the ways in which inequality is experienced differently depending not only on class, but also on other aspects of identity including gender. This approach also suggests that it is necessary to supplement the ex-post redistributive policies recommended by Piketty: a global wealth tax and more steeply progressive income tax, with ex-ante measures to stop the rise in wage inequality in the first place, especially by bridging the huge gulf that exists between those who care for people and those who manage money. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I set out and explain Piketty's model of the dynamics of capitalism based on two equations and the r > g inequality (his central contradiction of capitalism). I then take issue with Piketty's analysis of the rebuilding of inequality from the 1970s to the present on three grounds: First, his model is based on the (neo-classical) assumption that companies are essentially passive actors who invest the amount savers choose to accumulate at equilibrium output - leading to the counterintuitive result that companies respond to the secular fall in growth (and hence their product markets) from the 1970s on by increasing their investment relative to output; this does indeed imply increased inequality on Piketty's β measure, the ratio of capital to output. I suggest a more realistic model in which businesses determine investment growth based on their expectations of output growth, with monetary policy bringing savings into line with business-determined investment; the implication of this model is that β does not change at all. And in fact as other recent empirical work which I reference has noted, β has not changed significantly over these recent decades. Hence Piketty's central analysis of the growth of contemporary inequality requires rethinking. Second, despite many references to the need for political economic analysis, Piketty's analysis of the growth of inequality in the period from the 1970s to the present is almost devoid of it, his explanatory framework being purely mathematical. I sketch what a political economic framework might look like during a period when politics was central to inequality. Third, inequality in fact rose on a variety of dimensions apart from β (including poverty which Piketty virtually makes no reference to in this period), but it is unclear what might explain why inequality rose in these other dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]