FIAF:Talks
Visionary Leaders:
Conversation with Thomas Piketty

Monday, April 20, 2020
7pm
FIAF Florence Gould Hall



French economist and author Thomas Piketty’s bestselling Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2013) galvanized global debate about inequality. In his audacious follow-up, Capital and Ideology (2019), Piketty challenges us to revolutionize our thinking of politics, ideology, and history. He investigates the causes of a sustained inequality over the past millennium, reveals why the politics of right and left are failing us today, and outlines the structure of a more equitable economic system.

In this conversation, celebrating the US publication of Capital and Ideology, Piketty will present his latest research on inequality in our world today as well as his views of electoral systems and the global rise of nationalism. He will highlight political ideologies that lie behind inequality and argue for a new system, which he calls “participatory socialism.” Piketty’s Capital and Ideology not only offers a way to understand the world, but a means to change it.

In English

  • About Thomas Piketty
    • Thomas Piketty is a professor at EHESS (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales) and the Paris School of Economics. He is the author of numerous articles published in journals such as the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Journal of Political Economy, the American Economic Review, the Review of Economic Studies, Explorations in Economic History, Annales: Histoire, Sciences Sociales, and of a dozen books. He has done major historical and theoretical work on the interplay between economic development, the distribution of income and wealth, and political conflict. In particular, he is an initiator of recent literature on the long run evolution of top income shares in national income (now available in the World Inequality Database). These works have led to a radical questioning of the optimistic relationship between development and inequality. They have also emphasized the role of political, social, and fiscal institutions in the historical evolution of income and wealth distribution. He is also the author of the international best-seller Capital in the 21st Century.