On Mar 28, 2014, at 10:55 AM, Louis Proyect <[email protected]> wrote: > While I don’t claim to fully grasp everything Piketty is saying in > Capital in the Twenty First Century, it is apparent from my first > reading of the book that he’s left out a few important historical facts > about the origins and growth of the world capitalist system. The biggest > among them are the racial and colonial means by which Western European > nations and the United States climbed to the top of the global > capitalist system, enriching themselves with levels of wealth equivalent > in value to many years of national income. Considering some of these > facts would, in my mind, alter some of the big picture statistical > series Piketty uses to make his points, and might also alter his > conclusions about what is to be done to reduce inequality and > democratize the economy. Take Africa, for example.
I don't see how this would change the stats at all. The objection seems to be that Piketty doesn't use the sort of language the likes of us would use to describe primitive accumulation. But the proceeds of the pillage appear in the estimates of profits and the capital stock, even if he doesn't denounce the theft of human beings and natural resources. He's a soft social democrat of some kind. (I've heard conflicting accounts of his relationship with the French Socialist Party; he was an advisor to Segolene Royal.) Also, Piketty spends some time on the role of slaves in the pre-Civil War U.S. capital stock (pp. 158-163). It's not likes he overlooks that important bit. Doug _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
