It is rare when a book becomes an instant classic, but that is the case with Thomas Picketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century.  Picketty explains, using data sources and analytic techniques that only recently have become available, why inequality has become greater in the United States and around the world.  For years, many economists and political leaders had thought that the modern welfare state had tamed the excesses of capitalism by putting a floor and ceiling on how much wealth individuals could amass.  But Picketty shows that this belief is false and that capitalism as practiced currently makes a trend toward greater inequality inevitable,  and the trend to greater inequality also undermines democracy. The book has been hailed by leading economists such as Paul Krugman as “the most important economics book of the year—and maybe of the decade” and even those reviewers who don’t like his conclusions or policy recommendations concede the accuracy and depth of his research.

This program will guide students through Capital in the Twenty-First Century by patiently working through the book so students can understand his concepts and methodology.   We will deeply examine his data sources and replicate many of his computations and data displays so students can understand the underlying mathematics and spreadsheet analytics.  We will also compare his solutions to the problem of inequality with the solutions proposed by others. By the end of the program students should understand the concepts and indicators Picketty uses to describe modern inequality and how data is used to describe and analyze the political and economic forces that drive it.  Students will need only their high school math and a minimal knowledge of economics or politics.

In Spring quarter, having laid the foundations in Winter, we will be ready to examine in depth Piketty’s arguments about why inequality in Europe and America, having declined greatly in the middle of the 20^th century, has now increased to levels not seen since before World War I.  Beginning with a brief review of Capital in the 21^st Century through Chapter 7 we will resume with chapter 8 and work our way through the rest of the book.  In Spring quarter we will begin to examine critiques of Piketty’s work and his responses to them. We will also evaluate Piketty’s proposed solutions to the problem of inequality and see what other writers have proposed. We will also look at how politics and economics are intertwined.  If, as Piketty says, the rise of inequality is the result of policy decisions, then only new policies can reverse the trend, but new policies require changes in politics, and that is a difficult challenge. 

Our mathematical approach will continue to be concrete and not require substantial symbolic manipulation.  We will work with data tables/graphs from the text and continue to use Microsoft Excel.

New students will be admitted to the program only if they have a decent background in economics, history and political science and can review the first half of the text prior to the first week of class.

There is also a 12 credit option for students in Inequality/Piketty who want to further study the issues raised in the program.  Students in this enhanced version of the program will meet with faculty during the first week of the program to develop a common set of readings, assignments and meetings and, if there is interest, develop individual research projects.