Speaker 1: Welcome to Stephanomics, the podcast that usually brings the global
Speaker 1: economy to you. We are technically on a break. The
Speaker 1: next season of Stephanomics starts in April. But I got
Speaker 1: a chance to sit down with the rock style French
Speaker 1: economist Thomas Picketty to talk about his new book, Capital
Speaker 1: and Ideology, to just come out in English. I thought
Speaker 1: you might want to listen in. You'll remember the fuss
Speaker 1: about his first book, Capital in the twenty first Century,
Speaker 1: with its sweeping analysis of the rise and fall and
Speaker 1: rise again of global inequality. That best selling book was
Speaker 1: over seven hundred pages long. A lot of people only
Speaker 1: pretended to have read it, but it did inspire an
Speaker 1: enormous amount of debate about wealth and inequality and the
Speaker 1: causes of our economic discontent. And that was six years ago,
Speaker 1: before Brexit, before the election of Donald Trump. Now this
Speaker 1: new book from Pecketty is even longer, nearly eleven d pages.
Speaker 1: I started by asking him what else was different about it?
Speaker 1: First of all, thanks for your invitation. I have learned
Speaker 1: a lot from all the discussion after the publication of
Speaker 1: Capital in the twenty first Century, and I have come
Speaker 1: to realize, you know, some of the many limitations that
Speaker 1: that that that this previous book of mine had, and
Speaker 1: probably the mental limitation was that my previous book was
Speaker 1: too much centered on western countries, Western Europe, North America,
Speaker 1: a little bit in Japan. But this new book has
Speaker 1: take so much broader global view and inequality regime. I
Speaker 1: I talked about India, I talk about Brazil, I talk
Speaker 1: about China, and I put the entire history of inequality
Speaker 1: regime into a much broader historical comparative perspective, the impact
Speaker 1: of of colonialism, and I this is something that was
Speaker 1: really missing from my previous book. And in relation to this,
Speaker 1: I put much more on phases to ideology, political discourse,
Speaker 1: and systems of justification of different level of inequality and equality,
Speaker 1: because I think in the end this is really the
Speaker 1: key driving force behind changes in inequality region, which is
Speaker 1: something I did not perceive as clearly at the time
Speaker 1: I wrote The Capital in the twenty first century. And
Speaker 1: I think this is what makes this book more interesting, better,
Speaker 1: I think, more enjoyable to read. And so if you
Speaker 1: read any one, please reads the first. Get well, and
Speaker 1: everybody read the first. But for those who you know
Speaker 1: did not read the first, I think you know please
Speaker 1: pick this one. And what is interesting, I think there
Speaker 1: was a lot some of the criticism of the of
Speaker 1: the other book was that you had you focused on
Speaker 1: the mechanics of inequality and then you also looked at
Speaker 1: a lot of history. But maybe there was that some
Speaker 1: of the politics was was missing. And I guess what's
Speaker 1: most striking about this is that you are making an
Speaker 1: argument that it's not just say, World War One and
Speaker 1: World War Two that gave us that moment of where
Speaker 1: society has became more equal after many, many years of
Speaker 1: becoming less equal. That there were other things going on.
Speaker 1: So I guess that's interesting. We were just talking earlier
Speaker 1: about the Sweden example. I think the idea that um
Speaker 1: that ideology has helped change countries make them more egalitarian,
Speaker 1: and it's not just that Sweden is in itself a
Speaker 1: very egalitarian sort of kind of country. Yes, exactly. So
Speaker 1: if you take the example of Sweden, actually the example
Speaker 1: of the United States, you know, world War One was
Speaker 1: not so important in delivering changes, and what was most
Speaker 1: important was more the political mobilization in the case of Sweden,
Speaker 1: and how those you know, the social democrats, managed to
Speaker 1: completely change the very ideological and institutional structure of Swedish society,
Speaker 1: which until nineteen eleven was was based on a very
Speaker 1: extreme form of sacralization of property rights with voting rights.
Speaker 1: At the time we're rising very strongly with the size
Speaker 1: of your property. You could have up to one hundred
Speaker 1: votes for very rich people. And and in several dozen
Speaker 1: Swedish municipalities you even had this situation where one individual
Speaker 1: at more than half of the vote and so was
Speaker 1: perfectly legal dictator. And and so this is an example
Speaker 1: illustrating both that the ideology of property and its constitutionalization
Speaker 1: can go very far in history and also that these
Speaker 1: things can change through peaceful means. And in the case
Speaker 1: of reader and it was mostly a political mobilization and
Speaker 1: and the you know, social democrats winning power in nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty two and putting the state capacity of the country
Speaker 1: to the service of a completely different political project. In
Speaker 1: the case of the US, the Great Depression played a
Speaker 1: major role in inbertingment. It's more than that. It's it's well,
Speaker 1: first financial crisis will happen again. So it's not World
Speaker 1: War world and World War two. It's you know, the
Speaker 1: Great Depression played a bigger role, I think to transform
Speaker 1: the perception into Westerns than than the world of of
Speaker 1: World War One, which was mostly of European world, and
Speaker 1: I did not have so much impact on and he
Speaker 1: was much lesser in Europe. There was a gradual intellectual
Speaker 1: and political process which already before World War One led
Speaker 1: the US to create a federal in contax and a
Speaker 1: federal state tax and the view that you need to
Speaker 1: control the level of concentration of power, which and you
Speaker 1: see a similar kind of movement today in the US
Speaker 1: with a bigger fraction and parts of the young generation
Speaker 1: who are talking about socialism or want to hear about
Speaker 1: how your book limits to the power of billionaires and
Speaker 1: the concentration of wealth. And I think in order to
Speaker 1: understand this kind of historical episode that we see today
Speaker 1: in the US, which sometimes people have a surprised to
Speaker 1: hear that, but if you put it in this broader
Speaker 1: historical and ideological perspective, you realize that you know, you
Speaker 1: have this ideological cycle. There is also a process of
Speaker 1: overall learning in history about justice, so that this book,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm trying. Maybe I'm a bit naive, but
Speaker 1: I think, you know, I think today's societies are even
Speaker 1: those has been rising in equality in recent decades are
Speaker 1: much more equal than what they were century ago, and
Speaker 1: themselves were more lical to some expense than one or
Speaker 1: two cent tries before. So there is a long term
Speaker 1: process of going towards equality, towards the form of learning
Speaker 1: ad justice, and and this has been tremendously successful in
Speaker 1: your twentieth centuries. A reduction of equality in the long
Speaker 1: run not only is a reality, but is we allowed
Speaker 1: for increased social mobility, increased economic prosperity, access to education
Speaker 1: and culture. And you know, I think this process in
Speaker 1: the longer run can continue if we draw as the
Speaker 1: right lessons from his story. And it's interesting when you
Speaker 1: look at the U S election. I mean, because if
Speaker 1: people think that everything is going seriously wrong, and there's
Speaker 1: people on the right and the left who think, I
Speaker 1: think the world has gone to hell, then you have
Speaker 1: to have as a politician, you have to have answers
Speaker 1: that seem radical enough to respond to that. So potentially
Speaker 1: you've had Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders actually have quite
Speaker 1: a radical platform. Um. But that very radicalism then means
Speaker 1: maybe that people step back from it in the polls
Speaker 1: and say, well, I'm a bit frightened of this because
Speaker 1: it's so different. So I'm just interested. Do you think
Speaker 1: the path, the best path, is going to be through
Speaker 1: sort of gradual change, you know, slightly more progressive taxes,
Speaker 1: a few more wealth taxes, or do you think it
Speaker 1: will take a more fundamental questioning, at least in one
Speaker 1: country or another. I think first that Wherever and Sanders
Speaker 1: are not radical, they are moderate social democrats, you know,
Speaker 1: by European stands in their own within the ideology of
Speaker 1: the US. But the ideology of the US is itself changing,
Speaker 1: and you know, has been different in the in the past.
Speaker 1: You know, remember that the US is actually the country
Speaker 1: which invented very sickly progressive taxation of income and inherited
Speaker 1: wells in the twentieth century. So it's not there's no
Speaker 1: national determinism which makes the country you know, in love
Speaker 1: with inequality and love with equalities. These things can change
Speaker 1: very quickly in the case of the US. You Know,
Speaker 1: what I find very striking is a very low electoral
Speaker 1: participation of the lower and lower middle social economic group.
Speaker 1: You know, we just don't participate in elections. And this
Speaker 1: is true for the irrespective of race or color. You know,
Speaker 1: the white public political don't just don't vote so wise
Speaker 1: that they don't vote well, maybe partly because they feel
Speaker 1: that what is being proposed and what has been proposed
Speaker 1: in recent decades, both by the Republican and the Democrat,
Speaker 1: is not really changing anything for them. And I think
Speaker 1: that having policies on the minimum wage, on public universities,
Speaker 1: and the funding of education reducing inequality that are you know,
Speaker 1: a bit clearer than the policy advocated by by Clinton
Speaker 1: or Biden or you know, can be a way to
Speaker 1: get people to to vote. And you know, when you
Speaker 1: have such a law participation by the by the lower
Speaker 1: aconemy groups, you know, pretending that we should just stay
Speaker 1: in you know, keep business as usual and keep proposing
Speaker 1: what we've been proposing in recent decades. As the nebus,
Speaker 1: your political strategy does not strike me as a as
Speaker 1: as very very community. You have a lot of criticism
Speaker 1: of the social democratic parties for UM, I guess for
Speaker 1: many things, but I think particularly for coming up not
Speaker 1: being inventive enough in sort of thinking of alternatives to
Speaker 1: the free market ideology and the emphasis on property that
Speaker 1: came through in the eighties. UM. And you also you
Speaker 1: sort of say that they became more elitist, they had
Speaker 1: less and less support from the working class. They abandoned
Speaker 1: the working class. Some would say they abandoned it because
Speaker 1: they also abandoned sort of national identity in favor of
Speaker 1: a sort of multiculturalism and as sort of a more
Speaker 1: internationalist politics. Is that a risk in some of the
Speaker 1: things that you're talking about that you're you're just you're
Speaker 1: allowing the whole concept of nationalism to be taken by
Speaker 1: the other side, and you're still talking about being more
Speaker 1: internationalists and putting having a more ploybal album. Well, I'm
Speaker 1: talking about the different kind of internationalism that what we've
Speaker 1: had so far. You know, I think the nation state
Speaker 1: has of course been a very powerful force, you know,
Speaker 1: to build national solidarity, to build a system of social insurance,
Speaker 1: to build system of progressive taxation, and you know, this
Speaker 1: is where this is a political arena in which we've
Speaker 1: built more equality in the twentieth century and we've also
Speaker 1: built through more equality, more prosperity or mobility. So this,
Speaker 1: you know, this construction have been very very successful, in
Speaker 1: particular with the rise of the social state social national
Speaker 1: state in in in Europe, in Germany, in return, France,
Speaker 1: and in particular. So what I'm saying to the social
Speaker 1: democrats is okay, if you want to go beyond that.
Speaker 1: In particular, if you think we need international economic relation,
Speaker 1: which I think we need because we also can benefit
Speaker 1: from trading with each other and not living in a
Speaker 1: tarchy within this nation state, then that's fine, of course,
Speaker 1: But then you need to think hard about how you
Speaker 1: organize this economic relation, and you cannot just organize them
Speaker 1: through free trade, free capital flows without any common regulation,
Speaker 1: which is what has been done. And so that's why
Speaker 1: I propose a different form of international organization in the
Speaker 1: in the group, which I could social federalism, in the
Speaker 1: sense that I see any group of countries, you know,
Speaker 1: even two countries, or you know, France and Belgium, or
Speaker 1: France and Britain signing a treaty to organize a trade
Speaker 1: relation between them. Uh, you know, this trade relation and
Speaker 1: the flow of capital or investment should come after some
Speaker 1: common objectives have been set in terms of social goals
Speaker 1: and reduction of inequality and common taxation if needed, a
Speaker 1: common uh you know, labor or common on fila mental goals. Otherwise,
Speaker 1: but the European Union, well not naurally, you know, there's
Speaker 1: never been any common taxation founder in the European Union.
Speaker 1: So in effect, the big winners of the of the
Speaker 1: European Union have been, you know, the most mobile economic groups,
Speaker 1: you know, a large corporation, uh, individuals with with high
Speaker 1: human capital or high financial capital who can easily benefit
Speaker 1: from a mobility and by putting the different governments in competition.
Speaker 1: So I think this has been a wrong model, so
Speaker 1: so that there's a need for complete resinking of this. Otherwise,
Speaker 1: you know, I think that what I describe as the
Speaker 1: nationalist discourse, which is more the nativist discourse in in
Speaker 1: this case, will propose something else, which is basically, okay,
Speaker 1: we we we're gonna be very tough on migrants. I
Speaker 1: don't city, we don't need to have any restributions through
Speaker 1: a progressive taxation between you know, the reach and the
Speaker 1: poor and just a sort of gardening. The pure cultural
Speaker 1: conflict and identity conflict is going to be our answer.
Speaker 1: And if there is no you know other, you know
Speaker 1: other answer on the table, you know, I'm afraid this
Speaker 1: is indeed, you can win the day. It can win
Speaker 1: the day for a short while because in the end,
Speaker 1: and you know, I don't think it will solve the
Speaker 1: prime in the long run, you know, the problem we
Speaker 1: have to solve. Global warming, rising inequality are not problems
Speaker 1: you're going to solve with pure nationalism, retreat and more
Speaker 1: and more competition between countries and no intentional correnation that
Speaker 1: you know, if anything, that's going to exacerbate the problem.
Speaker 1: A lot of people felt that your proposals and the
Speaker 1: old book were kind of unrealistic, particularly when it comes
Speaker 1: to the taxation of wealth and inheritance, because, as we know,
Speaker 1: economists have throughout the decades have always said that a
Speaker 1: wealth tax has made sense and that's not very distortionary
Speaker 1: for various reasons, and yet it's something that has always
Speaker 1: come up against political realities of people wanting to pass
Speaker 1: to help their own children as a very kind of
Speaker 1: instinctive thing, and that has translated into lower and lower
Speaker 1: inheritance taxes, even just within countries, even if you're not
Speaker 1: trying to if you're not managing to solve all of
Speaker 1: the sort of global problems of of where wealth goes
Speaker 1: and people not paying tax, do you see any scope
Speaker 1: There are very few countries where you can see a
Speaker 1: real support for inheritance taxes. And if you don't have that.
Speaker 1: I don't see how you can do any other things
Speaker 1: you're talking about. So I preferil well stacks of re
Speaker 1: done stacks. And in fact, when stax and your well
Speaker 1: stas are much more popular, you know, in every country
Speaker 1: you can see a large masority support in favor of
Speaker 1: billionaire DAGs or you always tax. And I think there
Speaker 1: are good reasons why people prefer annual wealth stax or
Speaker 1: property tax on large property owners rather than inheritance stax.
Speaker 1: I think we need both, but I think the annual
Speaker 1: weal stax will always be more important. And in fact,
Speaker 1: it's always been more important if you get property tax
Speaker 1: revenue are well stax revenue, you know in the US
Speaker 1: or fronts and other countries, it's always been a lot
Speaker 1: bigger than than inheritance stex because the problem with inheritance
Speaker 1: stax is that in the end you need to pay
Speaker 1: tax out of your annual income, or if you don't
Speaker 1: have enough anal income, then need to sell some of
Speaker 1: the property to pay the tax, which for you know,
Speaker 1: many people is pretty frightening. Well for people who would
Speaker 1: have a lot of wealth billions, you know, you can
Speaker 1: sell part of it to pay the tax. For people
Speaker 1: who have only limited assets and inequid assets, they actually
Speaker 1: prefer to pay a small annual tax of one or
Speaker 1: two percent per year for twenty years rather than big
Speaker 1: inheritance sex of search or ptuxam right away. So I
Speaker 1: think it's there are no reason why people perceive it
Speaker 1: this way. And you know, the focus on inheritent stacks
Speaker 1: rather than annual weal stacks, I think is a is
Speaker 1: a is a major mistake which has sometimes been made,
Speaker 1: but which I don't think I've made it the same
Speaker 1: that I really stressed the annual well stacks much more.
Speaker 1: And and you will see if you look at the
Speaker 1: opinion polls about the billionaire attack. Like in the US,
Speaker 1: you know even Republican voters are in favor of it.
Speaker 1: In France, Macon never had a majority of the public
Speaker 1: opinion to repeat the well sta. This was the decision
Speaker 1: of Maccon. You certainly it's well still downers were in
Speaker 1: favor of it, but if you look at the opinion
Speaker 1: polls and it never got a majority for that. And
Speaker 1: I think it's a part of the reason why he
Speaker 1: got into into travels, which is that he gave up
Speaker 1: a lot of money to a small group of the
Speaker 1: population at the same time raise the attacks on the
Speaker 1: you know, normal people being energy at tax to to
Speaker 1: go to work every morning and basically the two sum
Speaker 1: of money work comparable money will get from the ax
Speaker 1: when you gave it to the winds tax payer then
Speaker 1: and this is a big part of the explanation of
Speaker 1: the troubles, which is un into talk. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: there's a demand for physical justice, which takes different from
Speaker 1: different countries, but I think progress were tax is part
Speaker 1: of the solution. Finally, I'm just I'm fascinated when you
Speaker 1: talk about we started by talking about whether or not
Speaker 1: how important the World War One and World War two
Speaker 1: or big events the depression was in changing the way
Speaker 1: that people think and the assumptions people make. Um, do
Speaker 1: you think that the urgent environmental challenge has the potential
Speaker 1: to cause that kind of you know, throwing up of
Speaker 1: ordinary relations um in your direction or is there a
Speaker 1: risk actually when you think of the steps that have
Speaker 1: to be taken, you know, increasing the cost of energy
Speaker 1: to households, many of whom are more spent a lot
Speaker 1: of their income on energy. Do you worry that actually
Speaker 1: the tackling climate change with the current system is actually
Speaker 1: going to make it less bad. Well, I think you know,
Speaker 1: there are many different types of crises that can that
Speaker 1: can lead to a very rapid change in the way
Speaker 1: we perceive the economic system. So I think, you know,
Speaker 1: climate change is one of them, and and but there
Speaker 1: are you know, you can have also more you know,
Speaker 1: social conflict in the future. You can have other financial crisis.
Speaker 1: You know, the two tho eight financial crisis itself, you
Speaker 1: led to a complete change in a few years about
Speaker 1: the common views about monetary policy. And you know, suddenly
Speaker 1: the size of something for long balanche. It went all
Speaker 1: the way to the World War to World warwer level
Speaker 1: or even higher in the basis, just in a space
Speaker 1: of a few years. So you have reactions to crises
Speaker 1: which are not always in the right direction. In this
Speaker 1: particular case, I'm not sure this was the right reaction.
Speaker 1: Artists only designable reaction. But what I mean is that
Speaker 1: you know there will be other crisis in the future.
Speaker 1: The problem is that crisis in themselves are not you know,
Speaker 1: can be necessary to deliver change, but are never sufficient
Speaker 1: to deliver the white kind of change. And so in
Speaker 1: the claques of climate change, there's a risk that we
Speaker 1: don't think enough about the change in the economic systems
Speaker 1: that we need to put in place to solve both
Speaker 1: the climate problem and the inequality problems. So to be concrete,
Speaker 1: and I don't see anyway we can go to our
Speaker 1: lower carbon emission with the level of inequality we have today,
Speaker 1: because you know, as I show in my in my book,
Speaker 1: you know, the top one person in the world where
Speaker 1: the highest level of carbon emissions, you know, emit more carbons,
Speaker 1: and the bottom fifty percent of the world population. So
Speaker 1: if you don't start by tackling this, and you're missing
Speaker 1: a big part of the overall problem. And also you
Speaker 1: make it very difficult politically, you know, to make change
Speaker 1: in the lifestyle and and way we use energy acceptable
Speaker 1: for the middle class and and and the poor. So
Speaker 1: you know, it could be that as the consequences of
Speaker 1: climate change become more and more visible in Australia and
Speaker 1: California in different parts of the world, the young generation
Speaker 1: in particular, you know, put a strong pressure on the
Speaker 1: politipal system to change the economic system. Um and you know,
Speaker 1: there's a reason that it takes a long time before
Speaker 1: the consequences are sufficiently visible and striking that this itself
Speaker 1: is sufficient is enough to deliver the change in perception.
Speaker 1: So I guess would be that the social crisis and
Speaker 1: financial crisis are more likely to be the driver of change,
Speaker 1: but you know, it's it can be a combination of
Speaker 1: all of this. In any case, we're gonna just count
Speaker 1: and crisis to deliver the right change. We need collectively
Speaker 1: to think about the change, you know, the structural change
Speaker 1: we want to bring to the system of properties or
Speaker 1: system of education, system of taxation, so that we don't
Speaker 1: rely at the last minute after the crazies and you know,
Speaker 1: wrong solution or superficial solution like printing moneto solidity program funds. Tomasey,
Speaker 1: thank you very much. Thank you. Well, that's all from
Speaker 1: this bonus edition of Stephanomics, which was edited and produced
Speaker 1: by Magnus Hendrickson and Scott Lamb. Scott is also the
Speaker 1: executive producer of Stephonomics, and Francesco Levy is the head
Speaker 1: of Bloomberg Podcast. We will all be back in a