A Brief History Of Equality Thomas Piketty by Thomas Piketty 9780674273559, 0674273559 instant download after payment.

It's easy to be pessimistic about inequality. We know it has increased dramatically in many parts of the world over the past two generations. No one has done more to reveal the problem than Thomas Piketty. Now, in this surprising & powerful new work, Piketty reminds us that the grand sweep of history gives us reasons to be optimistic. Over the centuries, he shows, we have been moving toward greater equality. Piketty guides us with elegance & concision through the great movements that have made the modern world for better & worse: the growth of capitalism, revolutions, imperialism, slavery, wars, & the building of the welfare state. It's a history of violence & social struggle, punctuated by regression & disaster.

But through it all, Piketty shows, human societies have moved fitfully toward a more just distribution of income & assets, a reduction of racial & gender inequalities, & greater access to health care, education, & the rights of citizenship. Our rough march forward is political & ideological, an endless fight against injustice. To keep moving, Piketty argues, we need to learn & commit to what works, to institutional, legal, social, fiscal, & educational systems that can make equality a lasting reality. At the same time, we need to resist historical amnesia & the temptations of cultural separatism & intellectual compartmentalization. At stake is the quality of life for billions of people. We know we can do better, Piketty concludes. The past shows us how. The future is up to us.