Scholar of inequality PikettyLeMonde warned us this was coming. A conversation with dwallacewells
Photo: Pari Dukovic If Bernie Sanders is the politician Occupy Wall Street dreamed of, Thomas Piketty is the closest thing we’ve gotten to the great theoretician of our era of inequality . Capital in the Twenty-First Century, which came out in France in 2013 and in the U.S.
We stay at home most of the time, so we really don’t see much. When we go and walk around in the city, we don’t see so many people, but we see a lot of homeless who have, of course, no place to go, and they clearly have fewer people than usual to give them money so they’re really asking a lot.
We’ve heard about Denmark covering 75 percent of unemployed workers’ salaries. When you look around the spectrum of responses, from the American response to the French, British, or Danish response, who is doing the best there?It sounds like you’re saying that essentially no nation has done what you would consider a satisfactory job so far.
These are issues you’ve raised for a while — the continued impoverishment of the poor and the enrichment of the wealthy, with a widening chasm between them. How do you see the pandemic changing those long-term trajectories? Does it have the potential to change things dramatically? I’m trying to contribute to the thinking about what kind of economic and social model we want to have in the long run. I’m not too concerned with the specifics of each country. Corbyn and Sanders, there were lots of problems with them for different reasons in both cases.Yeah. They’re not supposed to be perfect spokesmen in any way, and in particular, it’s clear that Corbyn did not manage to send a message of transformation of Europe. But what you’re saying about Johnson is interesting.
To the extent that we’re thinking about policy beyond that, it seems to me almost exclusively at the national level. There’s very little talk about international issues. But short of that, nationalism is likely to win the day, especially among the middle class and lower socioeconomic groups.
The other big pillar of participatory socialism is to provide more opportunities for workers to participate in the governance of their companies through more voting rights in the boards of companies. There are many countries, including Germany, Sweden, very successful countries, where up to 50 percent of voting rights in the boards of large companies go to worker representatives. I think this should become the norm.
I’m not saying they proposed that because I was proposing it to their staffs. These people, they don’t need me. There are many people in the U.S., in Britain, who have changed their mind about progressive taxation, about workers’ rights. We are not at the time of Tony Blair. Capital in the Twenty-First Century mostly covered material from before the financial crisis. You’ve devoted a fair amount of the new book to recent history.
If you look at how things happen, you’ll see a potential for political mobilization and historical change through social and economic and political processes, which always happen much faster than what the dominant discourse tends to imagine. If you don’t do it in a way that comes with a very ambitious reduction of inequality and a very ambitious change in capitalist economic structure, this is counterproductive. Many people coming from the Green Party in France have been with Macron, have been elected members of Parliament with Macron, and voted to repeal the wealth tax. And I want to ask them, “Okay.
Canada Latest News, Canada Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Ex-Corrie star Ryan Thomas says trip to Indian slum helped make 'sense of life'EXCLUSIVE: Ryan and younger brothers Adam and Scott headed to city of Mumbai to explore their grandfather’s heritage for six-part ITV documentary.
Read more »
Lucy Mecklenburgh amazes fans with side-by-side snaps of son and Ryan ThomasLucy Mecklenburgh, 28, posted a snap on Instagram of her fiancé and their baby son Roman - and he is the striking image of his dad
Read more »
‘The Last Dance’ Revives Michael Jordan’s Rivalry With Isiah ThomasTonight’s episode of TheLastDance made Michael Jordan’s feelings about the Bulls–Pistons rivalry—and that infamous 1991 “walk-off”—very clear: “They didn’t have to shake our hands. We knew we whipped their ass already”
Read more »
Thomas Rhett Kicks Off iHeart and State Farm’s ‘Living Room Concert Series’iHeartMedia today announced the launch of “The iHeartRadio Living Room Concert Series Presented by State Farm,” a weekly performance series with the goal of bringing Americans together for performa…
Read more »
'The Last Dance' takeaways: Michael Jordan dismisses Isiah Thomas' explanation for not shaking hands after playoff lossIsiah Thomas and some Pistons teammates famously walked off the floor without shaking hands with the Bulls after Chicago won the 1991 East finals.
Read more »
COVID-19 reinforces an economist's warnings about inequalityThe French economist Thomas Piketty’s research has helped define a debate about the consequences of concentrating so much wealth and property among so few.
Read more »