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Filmed at the Emmanuel Center on May 11, 2015.
Thomas Piketty's book "Capital in the 21st Century" caused a sensation in 2014. It analyzes the causes and growth of inequality and has sold almost half a million copies worldwide. It has been described by many critics as the economics book not only of the year, but also of the last few decades.
How is it that a young, largely unknown French economist has sparked such a massive global debate about inequality, a topic that Nobel Prize-winning economists such as Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman have written about for most of their career ? The answer lies in Piketty's main argument, supported by his extensive research, that capital – whether invested in the stock market or real estate – will always grow faster than income. As a result, he argues, people who are already rich will continue to get richer, while those dependent on income will never catch up. Piketty's solution? A global redistribution of wealth that would give the poorest capital to invest.
In this rare appearance in London, Piketty will appear on the Intelligence Squared stage, alongside a panel of experts to discuss his findings. Do the alleged inaccuracies found in Piketty's historical data affect the premises of his book? Is he right to predict that inequality will continue to grow during the 21st century? Is the allegedly growing wealth gap a threat to democracy? And what to make of his proposed global wealth tax?
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