Thomas Piketty's equality programme

Although Piketty favours much higher income tax rates, policies that redistribute property rather than income are the heart of his programme

A BRIEF HISTORY OF EQUALITY

Author: Thomas Piketty (Translated by StevenRendall)

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Price: $27.95

Pages: 288

Thomas Piketty begins his latest book by genially mentioning the entreaties he gets to write something short — previous books have been around 1,000 pages long — and ends it by expressing the hope that he has given “citizens,” rather than economists, new weapons in the battle against inequality, which is his master subject. This shouldn’t be taken for a sign that A Brief History of Equality is consciously simplified. It isn’t centred on a new economic finding, like that in Capital in the